Over the weekend I had a baffling yet insightful conversation with two male friends that involved the workings of the boy brain. I'm not quite sure how the topic came up (at this point I was more concerned with keeping a promise to myself that involved drowning in gin) but I think it was when a scantily-clad female walked past our table in the bar. Mr X turned to Mr Y and said, "She probably wouldn't, y'know?". After establishing that Mr X didn't mean that she probably wouldn't get "it" (even after eight pints), they both elaborated on his observation. For the next fifty or so minutes, I was sat their dumbstruck (whilst drinking gin), making me realise that men are as complicated as women, despite their protestations.
Both Mr X and Mr Y have more or less the same theory on the fairer sex, albeit one puts it a lot kinder than the other.
Mr Y, the gentler soul, says there are two types of women in the world; those boys wish to marry and those they wish to sleep with (he may be a gentle soul but that wasn't the term he used). Apparently, if a boy meets one of the marrying types in his teens, she ends up being his friend - one of his best friends, in fact. She's the one he'll allow to see him (secretly) cry when he's been shat on from great heights by a girl, the one whose opinion he seeks when he goes shopping and the one he can, for the rest of time, share a bed with in a purely platonic sense. This is the girl he will never marry but wants the future Mrs Y to be like. What he doesn't realise is that the future Mrs Y will be incredibly jealous of this friend and either make her disdain known to all but her fella or try so hard to be best friends with the friend that she'll look desperate and neurotic to all but Mr Y.
This female best friend is also the girl that Mr Y's Mum wants him to marry - she has since the day she first met her. Mummy Y used to strategically question her son - "How's uni? Are you eating properly? Have you got a girlfriend yet? How's (insert my name)?". Had he have met this friend ten or so years later they would be married and live happily ever after but now that attraction ship has well and truly sailed and they've both seen each other in such states that no romance could ever be imagined.
Then, according to Mr Y, there are the girls that are only good to sleep with. "You never want your mum to meet her and only intend for her to fulfill your physical needs. Never your emotional ones". These girls come in and out of their lives (pardon the pun) until they meet a marrying type. That's the long and short of it. The gospel according to Mr Y.
Mr X, the more blunt of the two, says that there are the frigids and the sluts. Now, I don't think I need to explain what those terms mean but these are the sub-divisions in each type of girl Mr Y mentioned. Both types of girl act exactly the same in each category but how the boys react to their "outlook" differs hugely. Let's start with the sluts - always a good place, I think. A slut in the "only good to sleep with" classification gives the boy a good time for a night. One night only. She will never hear from the boy after that night. A frigid in the same division means the boy gets ridiculed by his mates when they ask how his night went - "Yeah, she stayed over but wouldn't put out". Cue much mocking from his mates and such ego-denting comments as, "Lost your touch have you, Romeo?!". Mr X proceeded to tell me how he has no respect for either type of girl. The slut put out too soon and the frigid ruined his street-cred. Even more confusing for me was when Mr X said that although he may do everything he can to persuade a girl to put out on night one, he loses all respect for her when she does. (My response was, "Because boys are the only ones that get carried away and have needs?" That's not justification enough, apparently.) Seemingly, there's no middle ground either. If we fall into this category and put out on the first night, we're sluts. If we don't, we're frigid.
By this point of the conversation my head hurt, a lot, and it wasn't anything to do with the gin. Mr X continued that the marrying type of slut doesn't necessarily put out on the first night, although she wants to, she holds back because she "kinda likes" the guy. The marrying type of frigid holds back because she's a good girl and "kinda likes" the guy. In both cases, the guy is accepting of her bedroom behaviour because he "kinda likes" the girl and plans to see her again. She will get the 'phone call in the next few days (three days if the boy "rules" are adhered to).
This part made a little sense to me. I have another male friend who is one big walking man-slut. The boy emanates testosterone at ridiculous volumes, so much so that women flock to him from miles whether either party is attached or not. (Before you wonder, it wasn't his testosterone that brought us to be friends, more the introduction to each other by several mutual friends. We've only ever been friends and that's fine with us both!) Anyway, Mr Walking Man-Slut recently met a girl on a night out. After two weeks I asked him how his latest adventure was shaping up for him. The reply, "I can categorically state that we have not slept together yet" had me floored! After picking myself up from the ground in shock and me enquiring after his health, he told me it was because he "kinda likes" her. I'm not passing judgement on whether she's a frigid or a slut at all, I haven't met the girl and it would be unfair to retrospectively apply someone else's theory. I think he's finally grown up but he didn't respond too well to this suggestion.
So all this made me wonder whether boys have us labelled from the off. The girl that started the conversation, Mr X informed me, was a sleeping with frigid type. He could just tell. The way she carried herself, the way she dressed etc, all these gave her away. It's this first impression that governs whether the boy will be in touch with the girl after the initial night together. And do us girls have no choice about whether we should or shouldn't put out on that first night, according to which box we tick in the boys' minds? What if, actually, you're a marrying frigid type but you decide it feels right that night so go all the way... If he has you down in the wrong sub-division you'll never hear from him again? Aren't we able to just do as we feel without being compartmentalised and judged and have it shape our future? Do we ever change category or are we born into it like the Hindu caste system? You can see why this conversation had me bemused - it just didn't, still doesn't, make sense! I know plenty of boys that have been with the sleeping with sluts and frigids types for years - some have even married them. And I have female friends that I have down as marrying types that haven't heard from certain guys ever again because they did or didn't put out.
So what are we supposed to do... to put out or not to put out? That is the question. Either way, we risk never hearing from the boy ever again.
See, I told you it was all confusing. And it wasn't just the booze making it baffling. The boys then tried to tell me what category I fitted in to in Mr X's grand theory of the fairer sex. This is where things got hazy and I started listening to Monsieurs G and T as they made more sense. x
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