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| Sunday, 25 August 2002 |
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In the complexities of the man-woman difference, here is something else to ponder. The man-woman TV remote control syndrome.
For men, the remote is a toy. And as we women very well know, men are very big on toys. Who do you think is buying all those TV games and mindless motoring, Nintendos and squiggly things that jump from wall to tree and back to brick and then go, eeek. Men grab the remote and start zapping. Like gnats, they alight for only a few seconds, then skip away. They click greedily. They click with manic intensity. And they click with reckless disregard for anything that's civil, polite, or courteous. They click incessantly. When we sit in front of the TV, we say to ourselves there is an interesting programme, well worth watching. We sit. We watch. Some of us watch straight through, even senseless commercials with mindless muzak. Some of us don't even mute. Like in life and everything else, we commit. We are a committed lot. Men on the other hand, start with Channel 1/Rupavahini (depending on how the channels are tuned) and go all the way up to the top, through 30 or 50 channels (even blank ones) and then go around again. They call it rolling through. They see five seconds of a fox family on Discovery Channel, five seconds of World sports, five seconds of a teledrama, five seconds.... There is absolutely no thread to hang on to. They are rolling through. Men click. They are clickaholics. They see everything, but watch nothing. They can't help themselves. As somebody once said, girls grow up to be women. Boys grow up to be children. And children, as we all know want to see, touch and experiencing everything at once, without really enjoying anything. Men often find it difficult to watch anything live. They don't have the patience or the attention span. So they click. Why do you think men click so incessantly? I think it goes back to the essence of man woman difference. We women are a more attentive lot. We can focus in depth. And we have staying power, even when the going gets tough. Men, contrary to the image they wish to project, are a waffly lot with a misguided belief of their importance. They think they should be in several places at the same time. They have no access to the magic shoes of Hermes, the mythical Greek Messenger God, who could be everywhere at the same time, so they compensate themselves with the remote control. In their hands, the remote is the magical shoes. It is a powerful tool. They zap through the lives of those in the idiotic soap, 'Bold and the Beautiful' move over to 'Gilmore Girls' pause at 'Emergency 911' laugh at Catherine's antics, race through the news at 9 feeling in control, in command and on top of the world. There is no sustained intimacy, no real commitment in how they use the remote. And the tragedy is, their clicking tendencies often, mirror their attitude towards women. Men are inconsiderate of the TV as they are of women. They get distracted easily. They are rude. We women appreciate what we have. Men believe in More, Better, Different. So, while considering the man-women TV remote control difference, ponder for a moment, what happens to a man when a women grabs the clicker while he is on a role? |
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| Produced by Lake House |
We
women consult the TV guide, decide what we want to see and commit to it.
We click with civility on the hour or half-hour. We click with
consideration. We click with care. For us, the remote is just a mere tool,
nothing more, nothing less.
