Have you ever faced discrimination as a guy?
Sounds strange?
Well, you would find it less stranger by the end of this post.
For all those who maintain being a girl comes with its societal problems, please re-think.
I have been a guy for 28 years now and will continue remaining so :)
When I was a kid, I was fine till the age of maybe 6 or 7.
That's the age when you hardly realize who a guy is and who a girl is.
Frankly, for me, judging the sex by the length of the hair worked!
All short haired ppl were guys and long haired ones were girls.
Call it stupid or whatever, that was how I was till atleast I was 5.
As time passed and I grew older, I understood there are more intricacies to this guy-girl thing.
Till 6th grade, in my school, we considered talking to the girls a thing below the 'guy' thing.
Now don't ask me why, I don't remember either.
We made faces at girls. (like girls generally do).
7th grade was kind of a discovery period. It was a realization period when we were starting to reverse what we were made of, the guy attitude.
Slowly but surely, the hormones started jumping.
One by one, everyone seemed to like some girl or the other.
I was shocked... because it was the first time I was experiencing this.
There were 3 guys with whom I was friends... 2 started spending more time with the girls they started liking lately.
They even changed their positions and no more sat with me in the class.
They went to the bench behind their new 'girly' friends.
Exasperated, I looked for company of the last guy left in my gang.
Unfortunately, he thought that I liked a girl... and the problem was that he actually liked the same girl.
So, inspite of me not liking Madam X, I lost out on the last guy friend too!
Then I made newer friends.. slowly started realizing that this age does not belong to the 'guys'. Girls are what drives the guys crazy.
So this was my first lesson that girls are more equal than the guys.
Time passed, I had similar such experiences in every walk of life which reposed faith in my belief that guys don't stand a chance when it came to a face-to-face battle with the girls.
Especially in the softer aspects of everyday life.
Being favourites of the lecturers in college to getting favours from the lab instructors in the mechanical workshops to getting good marks in college internals to hogging the limelight at college festivals, the girls got it all done!
And how? Just like that!
Guys, including me, no matter how hard we tried, found it difficult to manage the same kind of attention!
Another example, have a look at your social networking profile, orkut or facebook or whatever...
If the guy is extremely popular or drop dead killer looking, then the case may be different, but for a commoner, the updates/scraps are a little far in between.
He generally keeps 'liking' others' posts.
Sample this against an above-average looking girl on facebook.
The first thing you would notice that her number of friends are double yours.
You may be a stud in some other field, but on networking sites, you don't just measure up.
The saddest part is, you post something on your profile, there would be a couple of 'likes', a few comments.
But on the other hand, any mediocre status update from the above-average girl and the humanity pours in on her profile.
If it's a happy quote, people rave about her wittiness, talk how they feel the same and everyone else is dirt.
If her status message is sad, the whole set of friends, some who even otherwise barely talk to her, would give her pep-up talks, give jadu ki jhappis and make her feel that she is 'THE CHOSEN ONE'.
All this talk and people talk of downtrodden ladies!! :(
Agreed, there is a section of the female society which still is in the previous century...
But you also have to agree that the urban go-getters of the female community are leaps and bounds ahead in the race and have their male counterparts a distant second in the race for attention.
This is not a letter of appreciation for the more-than-equal ladies of the world!
Yet, I would also concede that I am also in awe of such ladies.. afterall I am a guy who is prone to killer ladies :P
Few years back was when the 'travails' ended.
And how? Just like that! :)
8 years back, lightening struck and I was smitten for life by one such lady.
Slowly, I started doing everything that I hated my friends in school for. :)
We went from strength to strength and now we are married happily! :D
Apart from my mom, who is still 'the-one-lady' whom I look up to for everything, there are just 2 ladies who are on my list now.. the ones for all occasions.
Needless to say, they are my support system and that's how the travails which I faced in my earlier life with the girls turned to the biggest boons with these stars!!
My wife, who was my friend-turned-life partner, continues to remain my best friend and biggest asset of my life, a person who I look upto when I am down and beaten.
She gives me that charge which makes me feel larger-than-life.
She is not just 'a star', but 'the star' who keeps my solar system chugging.
Next, my sis-in-law, the name the law defines, who was my friend turning to a person who I can share anything with to a close confidant is my next biggest star!
I don't know how life would've shaped up without these stars, whether it would have been better or worse, but whatever it turned out to be, it made me love my life more... love the people in my life more.
Either ways, it's the initial travails that made me what I am today and gave me the stars which light my life now!
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