Love, Mall Style

Girls all want to be loved. Sometimes I wonder whether that isn’t our perpetual goal in life – to find that one boy who will give us that incomparable feeling of being cared for and adored. Some people think this is because we’re the weaker sex. I disagree. In economics and finance, there exists this idea of hedging versus speculating. Boys spread their ambitions, if not equally, at least somewhat more evenly, among various interests – sports, careers, friends, and yes, girls. This is called diversification. By placing small “bets” on a variety of areas of life, boys are spreading their risk around, in effect, hedging. Girls, on the other hand, tend to gamble all their assets (or at least a very large portion of their assets) on one stake: love. This kind of zero-sum gambling is called speculation. In effect, girls may be dumber, but we’re also definitely braver.
In some ways, love is a lot like shopping. Girls and boys wander from one store to the next, trying things on, putting things on hold. Every time a girl tries a dress or a top or a pair of jeans on, she’s wondering whether this is the ONE, the perfect piece that completes her wardrobe. Sometimes, boys, like clothes, look better on the rack than they do on you. They may be more suited to someone else or they may be perfect on paper, but lack that special chemistry with you. Some boys would not merit even a second glance on the rack, but, once you put them on, complement your body perfectly. And, like clothes, boys come in and out of style and season – the lanky geek in high school could transform into a heart-throb in college while the smooth-talking b-boy becomes yesterday’s news.
Like shopping, it is possible to put individuals on hold in the game of love. After all, sometimes, a boy could work, but the girl’s not quite sold on him yet, she wants to see her other options first. So she tacitly tells him to wait; she tells him that she needs some time to make up her mind. But different boys, like different stores, have different policies about being put on hold. Some may refuse to be put on hold altogether, they think too much of themselves to agree to wait for anyone. Others may wait for a short while, but if you forget to return or lose track of time, they will eventually let themselves be bought by other girls. There are also the loyal boys, the ones that really adore you, who will wait and wait indefinitely for you to return. Yet, in an ironic twist, the boys that wait indefinitely are the ones that are never purchased. These loyal boys and patient girls are the clothes left on the rack long after their season and style has been pushed on by the relentless tides of fashion and time. If they are lucky, they may eventually be purchased on an extreme discount by someone looking for a cheap buy.
Each girl also has her own unique shopping style in the game of love. Some girls shop with purpose and decision; they know what style of boy suits them and what types of boys they are looking for. These girls are the veterans and are unlikely to settle for anybody less than who they are looking for. On the opposite end of the spectrum are the girls for whom the entire “shopping” experience is new. They are often nervous and stressed by the variety and confusion of the “mall of love” and either attempt to avoid the shopping altogether or blindly try on boys with no clear idea of what kind of boy suits them. Other girls are casual shoppers. These girls aren’t necessarily looking to buy, but they are window shopping for the fun of the experience and the off-chance that they may meet Mr. Right when they least expect it. Relatively happy where they are, the boy needs to be exceptional in order to convince them to shift away from a comfortable equilibrium. Yet another category of girls is the shop-a-holic. These girls are those girls with the resources, whether these resources are personality, talent, or appearance, to string along a large number of boys and the acquisitive instinct to wish to do so. In society, these girls are generally categorized as “sluts” or “flirts.” Finally, there are the girls who have become desperate. For these girls, the game of love is no longer comparable to the leisurely shopping that occurs at a mall. Instead, their shopping is the rushed, single-minded shopping that occurs at a grocery store. Shopping is no longer fun; it is now a chore, something that is to be gotten over with as quickly as possible.
As apt as the metaphor may be, comparing the game of love to shopping ignores the obvious two-sided nature of dating and relationships. In this respect, love becomes more like the process of haggling with the seller once the girl has decided on an article of clothing. This final step in the process can be the most exciting as well as the most stressful part for many girls (and boys too I’m sure). Instead of being the one sizing up and pulling apart the other party, the girl is now also being picked apart and analyzed. While this process is tinged with the tingling anticipation of hope, it is also frustrating to feel so powerless in the decision making process. The girl has made her offer and it is up to the boy to accept or reject it. Like in haggling, it can be helpful at this point of the process to feign a little bit of disinterest, to introduce some competition. But in the end, all the girl can do is sit back and attempt to look relaxed as the tables are turned and it’s the boy’s turn to do the shopping.

Loving Boys < Loving Yourself

Girls all want to be loved. Sometimes I wonder whether that isn’t our perpetual goal in life – to find that one boy who will give us that incomparable feeling of being cared for and adored. Some people think this is because we’re the weaker sex. I disagree. In economics and finance, there exists this idea of hedging versus speculating. Boys spread their ambitions, if not equally, at least somewhat more evenly, among various interests – sports, careers, friends, and yes, girls. This is called diversification. By placing small “bets” on a variety of areas of life, boys are spreading their risk around, in effect, hedging. Girls, on the other hand, tend to gamble all their assets (or at least a very large portion of their assets) on one stake: love. This kind of zero-sum gambling is called speculation. In effect, girls may be dumber, but we’re also definitely braver.

But what happens when girls begin to challenge societal norms and try to live by the code of boys? Is it really that impossible for girls to live by the golden rule of boys, “bros before hoes”?

For one thing, it’s tortuous. There’s a Chinese idiom for being jealous that compares the bitter-sour-spicy feeling to “eating vinegar.” Well, there’s one thing sourer than “eating vinegar,” and that’s not having the right to “eat vinegar.” When a girl is hanging out in a large group with a couple of friends she called together, she tends to feel the need to play hostess. After all, the unifying point for all these people is that they’re all HER friends. So she tries to be more perceptive about which individuals in the group are being left out or seem uncomfortable with everyone else and distribute her attention accordingly. Cue the entrance of the boy that makes her heart a little fluttery and her mind a little blank. Now imagine the scene. One girl, her mind filled with one boy. Add to her surroundings four pretty, also single girl friends. And one quiet boy friend who doesn’t really talk to anyone but her. Now draw in THE boy. He is cute and charming and friendly and so not hers. And you have the classic question in the making: bros or hoes?

She has a couple different options here. After all, love may be a zero-sum game, but the game of love most certainly isn’t! The girl’s natural instinct is to ignore everyone else in the group and focus her attention completely and absolutely on THE boy. Her natural instinct may even dictate the need to find a way to remove him from the company of all of her girl friends. But she’s not a bitch, or at least she tries not to be one. So what does she do? She could go the opposite extreme and be all “bros” and no “hoes.” After all, her friends all love him so he’ll be totally okay if she leaves him be (but he’s still HERS, she’ll angrily tell herself, she met him FIRST!) and devotes her time and energy solely to her quiet boy friend and anyone else who seems to be left alone. But then she sits there, pretending to listen to her friend talk about computer science or biology lectures, while glaring daggers at THE boy who is having way too much fun chatting with one of her girl friends. And she has no right to be jealous because she could very well be sitting there chatting with him if it weren’t for all this “bros before hoes” nonsense. So what does the girl do? Every time he smiles at one of the other girls is agonizing (“you can’t hate your friend, you can’t hate your friend” she keeps repeating to herself). Every second not spent at his side is wasted (“but you have to look out for your other friends and make sure they’re not left out!”). The seconds become minutes and the minutes become hours and the hours become a raging headache and an intense need to cry (“you little idiot, he’s not yours you know, he’s his own person!”).

And then? The girl and the boy share a beat-up black umbrella in the pouring rain, her arm in his, and she forgets about everything else and everyone else. All of a sudden, the world, in all its wet, gusty, freezing glory, is perfect, just the way it is.

The end? Not quite. The story continues in text messages and instant messages that are exchanged and in those texts and IMs that are never sent. It winds on through a friend’s engagement party and tunnels through photos of the afternoon together. One second is filled with hope; the next is brimming with despair. The girl starts to feel like the Katy Perry song: “stuck on a roller-coaster, can’t get off this ride.” She starts to question why she ever “got on the ride” in the first place. Wasn’t she happier before? Hadn’t she resolved to keep relationships and boys out of her life for the foreseeable future? When did this happen? (Did he have her at the first words they exchanged (which she remembers so vividly)? Did he have her at the first smile? Did he have her at the first exchange of facebook wall messages? Did he have her at the first IM conversation? Did he have her at the second meeting when he came to a party to see her? Or did he already have her when her eyes swept quickly over his face as she looked for a seat on the bus?)

My conclusion? Loving boys isn't nearly as worthwhile as loving yourself