Your palms are sweaty, you fix your hair, apply your lipstick and stick your boobs out a little (it’s no secret that boys like them… and you know it). Game on! If you’re male, you stand a little taller, act more obnoxiously, flex a little, and talk louder but deeper making that voice of yours a weapon of mass seduction as your vocal chords strum a few sweet nothings on the heart strings of your crush. It sounds ridiculous but those attracted to another dabble in the ridiculous to experience the sublime.
After getting in contact with a long lost friend and having a great chat on the crushes we’ve had over the past ten years, we quickly got on to the stupid things that we have done to attract the opposite sex. My friend (much braver than I…than most actually) dived head first into a dumpster to help find her crush’s lost possessions. He was too afraid to go in there himself so she chivalrously dispensed all of her inhibitions and gambled hygiene for love – somehow, believing the act would overpower the smell when she emerged from the bin for him. It’s one of the greatest stories I’ve ever heard. She didn’t get the boy (bad smells will do that to a person – but she also no longer wants him).
It got me thinking, what if there were full proof plans we could follow to ensure the affection of the one we have eyes for? I found answers in the animal kingdom (please note they are not necessarily full(or fool)proof).
There are many varieties in which animals compete with each other to attract a mate. Some animals attract through pheromones. This is disgusting! By producing a hormonal scent, females respond to this and are able to track the male. In the human world, those scents are usually kept secret till a couple is locked in love and less repulsed by the odours a man will emit. Women of course, never pass wind in case you were wondering.
We humans do, do a similar thing (I think more for us than for the opposite sex, by drowning ourselves in cologne or perfume). It is this animalistic notion of courtship however that has inspired advertising campaigns like the lynx effect. The men in these ads only require a simple spray that tickles and delights the senses of alpha females everywhere.
Colour display is another dating strategy for fish and our cousins,’ the chimpanzees. The colour change is used to illustrate an animal’s 'availability'. We imitate these primates by changing an outfit, dying our hair, applying make-up or pulling out our most alluringly coloured dresses to grab the attention of the men we’ve set our sights on. Men I believe, also work in colours, but internally. When their light is switched on red, they are occupied, taken and unavailable to your green light signals. When they are unhappy in relationships, tied up with work, committed to other things and not people, their yellow light comes on – it indicates that you can enter with caution. This light preemptively warns you that his situation is a changing one and as a woman you may enter but only at your own peril knowing that he may soon become unavailable or free up again for you and finally there is a green light that allows traffic to freely flow in to his life. A man with his green light on is the one you want to look out for…he’s the committed type, ready to date but also, just like a traffic light capable of putting dating to a stop and coming to a standstill with you.
I’ll happily admit to having done many a thing for attention and for love, I’ve written love letters, poems, made books, sung and have even done the neurotic sticking of post-its on cars, some have scored me brownie points, all are appreciated but not all have been reciprocated.
A big fan of grand gestures, I’m thankful for the insanity that overcomes us when we allow ourselves to become stupefied by love. It makes the crazy excusable and to that special someone, even adorable. Enter “The Notebook” and the famous “Say I’m a bird”…“Now say you’re a bird” line.
“If you’re a bird, I’m a bird,” the charming Ryan Gosling says in the movie.
Katie Melua labeled love “the closest thing to crazy (she) had ever been,” but she like most women wouldn’t have it any other way as she concluded ‘now I know that their’s a link between the two…being close to craziness, and being close to you.”
I’d never ask for an end to the games, because amidst the craziness and the crush induced courtship, you meet a person that loves the way you smell, never asks you to change your colours but loves you with every change. If you’re a bird, he’s a bird and he’ll fly you to the moon and back.
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