Everything has an Explanation

Indian men have a reputation all around the world as being pushy, aggressive and too open in their interest. Before I came to India I always used to think ‘that is the way they are’ but of course that’s not fair. Nobody just is the way they are. Everybody has an underlying reason for everything they do, be it genetic, educational or cultural. Everybody always believes they are making the best decision based on all available data. So there must be an underlying reason for this reputation (which is well deserved, I might add) and I think I’ve at least found part of the key.

This type of behaviour must have evolved as a viable strategy to the counter strategy used by their ‘opponents’ (In plain English: men must do this because it works on women). This does not mean I’m blaming the Indian women for the men’s behaviour, this is not an excuse for the men to behave the way they do, but it might be an explanation for why they do it.

Men in India are supposed to pursue and women are supposed to be pursued. You can see great examples of this all over the TV programs, the movies and the music videos. The man starts making his advances (which do involve grabbing, constantly pushing and generally doing everything that would piss a foreign woman off) and the woman acts as if she’s not only not interested, but as if she actually actively dislikes him. He continues and she softens to him. Finally she falls madly in love with him and they get married. This theme replays over and over again, in different varieties, everywhere.

Is it then surprising that many of the women, who’ve grown up on that stuff, play similar games? They give men, as the proverb goes, just enough rope to hang themselves. They display just a little bit of interest – a caught glance, a brush of the shoulder, or getting within their intimate zones – and then they back off and actively ignore the guy. If the guy doesn’t notice, they repeat, if he does and starts flirting back, then the women fall back and act haughty and un-interested; but the moment his interest starts to flag (and he’s shown enough interest in the first place) she’ll give him another little sign and so the dance continues.

In the west, as a friend pointed out, they call this ‘cock-teasing’ and it is highly frowned upon. Over here using any more straight forward tactic, however, would often appear slutty and easy.

Of course, the thing is that with the signs being so small and few in between the Indian men often interpret the wrong thing as signs (as they are socially obtuse), or they assume they can’t see the signs and go in regardless.

This causes a lot of suffering on the part of women.

It also causes a lot of suffering on my part, because I refuse to play these types of games. I know I’m supposed to follow the social rules of the country I’m in, but unfortunately in this case dignity keeps getting in the way and I keep walking away.

I’m starting to see why most of the men here are so keen on the foreign women.