Girls. That one word is the most complex thing on this little place we call planet earth. A whole gridlock of emotions simultaneously spontaneously combusting on the inside. With bodies, hearts and brains that actually make me think that intelligent design could be real. Girls. Who come from Venus. Which is what us guys call our right testicles. The left is obviously called Mars.
No matter how hard we try to sum you up you find a way of surprising us even more. Whether in a good or bad way. Expecting the unexpected is always easier said than done. You can love us the one day only to try and stab us with scissors the next. We get bombarded with information day in and day out. Expected to remember every single thing. Arguments are like trying to defuse a land mine. Then of course there’s that hostile time of the month where we must all tread carefully. Phrases like “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” don’t exist for nothing. There’s centuries worth of proof to make this a fact.
I work in a department with exactly 13 women. Unlucky number. I am the only guy between them. The other person with a phallic appendage in the department is our manager who has his own cosey office away from the flood of Oestrogen that drowns this place. I am constantly right in the eye of the storm. Just waiting for their menstrual cycles to sync. There are upsides though. As the only guy in the department they often treat and feed me like some kind of pet. They make fancy sandwiches, eat only one because they suddenly felt fat and then give the rest to me. Also, they always have medication. So if I get a headache (not to get out of sex), a sore throat or just start feeling down, they reach into that secret little compartment where they keep their medicine and anti-depressants and make me feel better.
And some of them aren’t bad looking either. There are especially two MILFS currently working in the department and the innocent flirting is fun unless it ends up at Human Resources. There are downsides of course. With all the emotions and different issues floating around in this place, morale can be a little low. I started working here in this department on the 2nd of September. And honestly, in the 34 weeks that I have worked here, not one has gone by where there weren’t tears. Either over a sick dog, or how the boss spoke to them or problems at home, there will be tears. But I feel sorry for our manager sometimes. Yes he is a prick. Obviously, he’s a manager. He does have a hard time talking to people in a respectable manner sometimes but he’s that way with everyone.
Yet every lady in the department thinks it’s personal and that he is attacking their character. He too is under immense pressure and gets shit from his superiors so if you fuck up, he has to fix it while he also has to fix 16 other things, of course he’s going to get mad. Of course he’s going to yell at you because you fucked up. As simple as that. It’s nothing personal. It’s not that he doesn’t like you. It’s just that he has a lot on his plate. He has two toddler twins. Do you really think the man is getting enough sleep? And he’s married so he’s probably not getting laid either. How miserable would you be?
Get up at 4 AM because the kids decided that they want to play, get to work, go to a meeting, get verbally abused by the big boss because the work is not up to scratch, have employees coming in saying that they messed up, stress, do that work, go home, eat, shit, masturbate, go to bed, repeat. Wouldn’t you turn into a fucking douche bag as well? But yet I have never felt more at home. But what gets to me is that I have always known that women have issues and go through tough times but never this much. Two of the ladies have abusive husbands. One was raped by her ex-husband. One was molested by her father when she was just a girl. And it frightens me.
It frightens me that domestic violence has become so common place. To me, domestic violence was something from the dark ages. When woman weren’t even allowed to vote or had to stay home and cook and clean all day. And then suddenly I started hearing more and more about guys beating their girlfriends and shit.
One of the first things my dad taught me was to never hit a girl. And I have never done this. But not everyone gets taught that. We are all a product of our surroundings and childhood homes and memories. And we reflect that shit later in life. The boy/girl might have seen their dad punch their mom and thought that this is normal. We have become so numb to this. Every second Oprah episode had someone on it that was molested. That was abused by a spouse. And we couldn’t be less interested. It seems like a South African thing. We have gotten so used to violence and all of the other shit that happen on a daily basis in this country.
I go onto News24 scroll past 18 articles of rape/murder/violence without flinching before I get to something that really catches my attention. It’s just the same shit every day. And this scares the shit out of me. Because am I becoming less compassionate? Less human even?
And after seeing the clip of the UCT rugby player punching that girl from Potch full on in the face, my thought wasn’t immediately the usual “this is sickening. A guy should never punch a girl” but instead that was the second or third thought.
The first was, “What the fuck was she doing getting involved in the first place? What did she expect would happen when hitting and punching an enraged guy?” And after reading a lot of comments on the video, South Africans seem pretty split down the middle. Some people say it’s a “vulgar display of woman abuse” and others say “well, if she can dish it out then she can take it.” And I’m on the fence, to be perfectly honest. I agree with both opinions. A guy should never punch a girl but with that said, a girl shouldn’t get involved when big fucking men start fighting. Girls will be very protective of people that they care about.
It’s that motherly instinct that kicks in with most mammals. Women become lionesses and will put their lives at risk if push came to shove to save or help someone they cared about. But a line should be drawn somewhere. Guys also have some kind of instinct like that but mostly their survival instinct kicks in where you look out for number 1. Sure some of us get into fights to save our friends or to defend our woman’s honor but it’s all pride. All testosterone fueled.
We live in a very disturbed world where people can snap in an instant and before you know it there’s a special channel dedicated to the court case. Your safety, health or life means absolutely nothing. In a second things can get so out of hand that you just fall funny in a fight or something and you’re paralyzed or dead. I don’t want things to be this way. What if I have daughters one day? I don’t want them to live in a world where it’s acceptable to punch a girl in the first place. But then I’ll also learn them to not get involved in fights with rugby players from UCT. What do you think?
Do you agree or disagree with my assessment? Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Feedback is appreciated and welcome here. If you’ve enjoyed reading this piece, feel free to share this article with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. Remember: Sharing is Caring.
Watch this space for regular updates in the Opinion category on Running Wolf’s Rant.
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