NOT manbashing

To bring us up to speed:

In summary, the past 2 months went by in quite a blur. Ran through the ENT, Pathology, and Anesthesia postings. Not very memorable since they were each 2 weeks long, and of the lot, my favorite would probably be ENT. Spent the 2 week break babysitting my brother and taking grandma out lots, plus rehearsing for playhouse. Ended the holidays playing a cavewoman on stage (see facebook -- joined circa september, at last -- for evidence). That would be the last 2 months :)

Am currently doing Paediatrics, which I love to bits (something I'd never anticipated). Even though there's a lot of depth and breadth to cover, the kiddies and mini munchkins are simply adorable. I love them :) Oodles and oodles. No, I DON'T babytalk. But I cuddle them a whole lot. Though that doesn't explain the extended bout of food poisoning followed by pharyngitis that I'd had since those happened prior the posting (I usually have a pretty resilient tummy so it must've been that awful pickled radish that I'd had with leftover rice. Never take something out of the fridge, leave it out for 6hours and ingest it after.)

Okay with all that out of the way dear friend, I've now come to the topic of the day. On Why Men Should Not Attempt To Play Hard To Get.

Dudes, "playing hard to get" is essentially a woman's job. Girls don't go any crazier about you simply because you hold off replying to their replies to YOUR sms-es, in a misguided attempt to "keep them on edge". When you leave a girl hanging, you've essentially hung your chances to keep her hooked out to dry my learned male buddies. She's simply going to assume you're not interested or she's going to get irritated and ignore you next time. And it's really basic courtesy if you ask somebody out not to do so last minute. First, practically speaking, what're the chances it'll work out? Especially if this girl's worth your time, she ain't gonna be sittin' around at your beck and call y'know; she's probably got a life of her own. Secondly, it's basic courtesy. Lastly, you'll only irritate her with your halfhearted attempts and mixed signals. If you're a guy, it's essentially your privilege and your responsibility to initate things and indicate your interest clearly. No self-respecting female is going to put herself out on a limb for a man who doesn't have the decency to treat her right.

"We're shy lah," or "I have an ego you know!" are what a lot of guys seem to use as convenient excuses. Sorry dudes. If you're waiting to be asked out, you're probably going to strike it "lucky" with a girl who's desperate enough to want to hang with someone who clearly doesn't care about her enough to initiate anything, or you're one helluva lazyass. Says alot about the kind of girls you'll wind up with or the kind of 'man' you are. Being "shy" is not an excuse. Grab your balls guys, enjoy being men! Enjoy your right to do the asking! And what's so bad about being refused? If you've got basic EQ, you'd probably know how to do things right, and in the event she says no, you'll also be able to accept that she's simply not interested, no hard feelings, no shame. If you've no EQ at all, okay. Don't ask. Spare the girls a lousy date.

Now, girls don't play "hard to get" for the sake of being hard to get. It's essentially our way of respecting men. You can say by adopting such an approach we're incredibly old fashioned, but most of us believe that real men who want us would want to do the asking, and if they don't ask, they're not interested. In addition, we won't want to foist ourselves on people who aren't into us to begin with.

As a friend and I were saying, how conveninent if there were relationship protocols. Unfortunately, dating isn't at all like managing status epilepticus. It's a whole lot more complicated :P