Patriarchy v/s Feminism: The real loser is the nice guy who just wants to have sex

 Having spent my formative years in a boys boarding school and with no siblings to show me the strings, my entire understanding of the opposite sex was based on three holy institutions of yore — Yahoo chat rooms, Letters to the Penthouse and vintage porn.  

I hadn’t spoken to a flesh-and-blood human female till I was 18, hadn’t kissed a girl till I was 24, and that’s because they barely wanted to talk to a 123-kg fatso anyway. FYI, don’t believe what they tell you about body image, kids. If you’re obese, be prepared to be stuck in the friendzone for eternity. 

A decade has passed since I first spoke to a real girl and my understanding of the dating game remains as fuzzy as Rahul Gandhi’s accession plan to become the PM of India. 

For starters, how do you approach a woman without being pepper sprayed? One can hardly blame Indian women for having their guard up — given that sexual harassment on the streets is a way of life. 

So, the first step in the Indian dating game is simply getting the point across that one is not a creep. And if by some stroke of divine intervention, one does manage to ask a girl out, one is caught grappling between the eternal fight between feminism and patriarchy. Now only a brute would argue against the basic tenet of feminism which believes in equality for all, irrespective of gender; but it does make accepted societal behaviours harder to comprehend than quantum mechanics. 

Old-school values such as opening the door for women, standing up when a lady arrives or even paying the bill is caught between the chivalry-chauvinism spectrum. Is holding the door open good manners or does it imply that I am a male chauvinist pig who thinks women aren’t capable of opening their doors?  

And then comes the bill paradox on the first date. If I offer to pay the bill, am I hinting at historical financial discrepancies between men and women? If I want to go Dutch, does it mean I am cheap? Maybe Modjiji should just ask the RBI to add another rule to deal with this existential-fiscal paradox. 

And then comes the biggest conundrum in Indian dating — the coitus inquisition. Exactly how does one ask a girl whether she wants to have sex or not, in a manner that’s not creepy? Understanding the ‘signal’ is as hard as understanding RBI’s ever-changing directives on demonetization. 

Everyone with two brain cells to rub together knows ‘No means No’, but how the hell do we understand if we have the green-light? Do I ask permission to kiss? Do I mention which base I’d like to land on? 

Even internationally-accepted standard messages such as ‘Would you like to have coffee?’ seem to fall flat and I end up drinking a lot of coffee. And there’s the commitment issue as well since a lot of us are ingrained with the notion that a long-term relationship and marriage is the endgame. 

What if in the grand tradition of Sonam Gupta, I just want to remain ‘bewafa’? Or is that not an option available for heterosexual men in 2016? Ultimately, in the battle between patriarchy and feminism, the real loser is the nice guy who just wants to have sex, never have a long-term relationship and never wants to get married.

Nirmalya Dutta is an online journalist with a penchant for beer, classic rock, De Niro flicks, Forsyth thrillers and Manchester United, and has absolutely no time for morality and convention.