Are you a hissy missy?

My personal horror is turning into one of those high-strung, hysterical, single women who can go from soft n’ sweet girlfriend to a screeching banshee at the slightest (non) provocation. And unfortunately, these women aren't even a figment of my ripe imagination. The more I look around, the more I find these specimens — usually attached to the past of a man I am fond of! So no matter how determined I am to be a cool boho singleton (should dating destiny decree so) into my twilight years, I am accosted by the grim possibility that age, bad relationships, hormones or whatever could turn me into a hissy missy!

The scariest bit about these chiquitas is that you simply can’t tell them from afar. In fact they are usually good-looking, intelligent girls with successful careers, packed travel diaries and glam wardrobes. They also make for extremely gregarious party pals, cooing n’ attentive girlfriends and go-getter careerists — but always a bit too gregarious, a bit too cooing n’ attentive and bit too go-getting and those may be the first telltale signs of an extreme personality. But so far so good and the romance coasts along, buoyed by sweet nothings, candlelight dinners and meet-the-friends parties. And suddenly and innocuously enough the first disagreement happens. And before one knows it, it turns into an ugly temper tantrum.The girl is bawling “you don’t love me” and the boy is stunned at this Durga-to-Kali transformation. It doesn’t help when there’s a dependence on some sort of abusive substance as well. Sure there are profuse, teary apologies, rabid make-up sex and a hunky dory honeymoon interim but then bang before you know it, a difference of opinion and another hissy missy redux!

For the longest time, I tried to justify this behaviour in the name of female solidarity especially since almost all of these women claimed to have had a nasty often abusive past. Of course one can get wary of men out to use and dump you. Of course men are hypocritical; if the smallest thing doesn’t go their way, they simply turn around and call you difficult, we can’t take their labels as stone edicts! But then I realised that heck, wait a minute! These girls are not victims of one bad experience; they are a veritable dossier of repeated bad mistakes! I can almost see Sylvia Plath write their epitaph in her immortal lines from Daddy, “Every woman adores a Fascist, The boot in the face, the brute, Brute heart of a brute like you”.

And even when these girls meet a normal sort of chap, I guess some sort of perverse instinct makes them drive these guys over the edge till their inner Frankenstein is well and truly aroused and they resemble every creep she has met in the past. I too have fallen prey to my bad-boy addiction, but luckily for me, I have also had some ideal boyfriends. And thus I have learnt that true happiness for me lies beyond the stereotypical nightmares and fantasies. It probably lies in a unique balance between the two somewhere over the rainbow.

My relationship yoga might also have something to do with this state of sang-froid of course. Every day I sit in sukhasana eyes tightly shut chanting my favourite relationship mantra — an invaluable piece of advice given to me be a dear (male) friend ages ago — “Don’t let incidents become your character, don’t let incidents become your character, don’t let...”

deblina@dnaindia.net