Perfect

He was the perfect guy there ever was, the perfect student that every teacher wanted, the perfect embodiment of a loving son, the perfect guy any girl would want.When someone remembers the first time one learned that the earth is not flat an image of a ship hulk in class 2 textbook comes to mind, for me and anyone in my class we remember the arrogant egocentric boy who volunteered the information when we were still ignorant 7 years olds.

We first knew about him when his name came up in the School topper list when we were still in Junior high. After that there was no stopping him. His name would pop up as topper in every exam.Competitions and he will be among the winners, debates and he would be involved, sports and he will be running among the participants, you get the idea. Teachers always wanted him to be Captain since he would be the first person to get things done and if we had a group assignments, we would all wish to be in his group because we knew he would do anything to make his group win.I guess he was egoistical up to a certain level but when you have that kind of brain to back one up, who would not get a bit high into the head and everyone acknowledged him as such. To top it off, he was not bad-looking either so if his brains didn't make him the most popular guy in school, the girls going gaga over him made him known anyway. But the fact was he was a good guy, charming, funny and friendly with everyone despite his popularity. If you were in trouble he would be the first person to help you and you could always count on him. That was the way he had always been and for all the years to come since I knew him he just seem to excel more and more. 

It is like what people say, in the end the nerds will always turn up at the top and the popular boy in school will end up being a dumb jock or the fact that one can only go up to a certain height before falling down into the dumps.It happened to him in high school.That was the year he changed. The school mills said his parents went through a bitter divorce - I am not sure what the reasons were but everyone knew they separated nonetheless. In schools we would hear bits and pieces of what was going on with his parents, how the court case was proceeding and despite all talks about secrecy, rumors have a vicious way of being circulated especially in High school. But he wasn't the same guy anymore then.Believe me,I am not making excuses for his behaviour and I am sure he made a conscious decision to be the way he turned out to be.Perhaps he did it because he was tried of listening to people talk, perhaps it was all an act to tough-up the divorce,perhaps he was just a 16 year old kid unable to cope with his parent's divorce but fact remains that he changed.

It is easy enough to guess how he changed.He didn't hang around with the popular kids anymore, instead he would be with the hoards of boys who are traditionally marked 'naughty' in every school.The kind whose regular 'hang out' would be the dark alleys of places like Clock tower and Zangdopheri.He won't miss classes traditionally and didn't bunk even now but he wasn't concentrating either.He was still very brainy, you could tell by the way he still scored good marks but he would do anything not to call attention upon himself in class. He sat at the last bench, sleeping or under some kind of 'influence' and you would never see him make any effort to be present. He is still the same boy in some ways, a dark aura just seems to evolve around him. He would still help you if you asked him and he would still love me. But he wasn't the life of the party anymore but rather the brooding guy who stands in the background and nothing in his manner invites any questioning about his life making him an even scarier person to approach. 

I don't mean to make him a character larger than life or something that you only come across in fiction but I am in love with this guy you see, so everything about him just multiplies for me. I loved him since the day he walked into my class and never realy stopped.When we were teenagers I thought there would be no reason for the school's popular kid to have to do anything with me.There were so many girls better and prettier than me. So I never stood a chance with him. I thought I wasn't good enough for him thus, I never thought about a relationship with him. And now that I have grown up and come to terms with the fact that I want to be with him, the irony of it all is that he thinks he is not good enough for me.He says he doesn't want me getting involved in his complicated life because he is not good enough to pursue a relationship with me and that is just realy sad for me. Perhaps before, I naively loved him more for the fact that he was the popular guy in school and the fame that comes along but the fact that I still love him,after he has changed so much makes me believe that it wasn't all because of that. Believe me, it isn't anger or frustration that I can never have my relationship with him that you read in these lines, it would never be that, it is helplessness because although he thinks he doesn't deserve a relationship, I know he does but I can't do anything to change his mind.

So I always wonder when was the right time to get into a relationship with him? Was it when we were still teenagers figuring things out? Should I have pursued the relationship then when I wasn't ready? Or is the time now right when he thinks he is not good enough for me? Or was it never meant to work out anyway?

Call me a Slut - I will live up the Name!

Yes, the word 'Slut'. Being a Bhutanese, I am sure everyone cringed a little when I used that word. Being a boy, I am sure you thought that is one girl I am not suppose to take Home. Being a girl, I am sure everyone thought that is one word I should stay away from. But what does it actually mean? 

Does it mean a girl have slept with too many people? Does it mean she dresses up too freely for your taste? Who knows perhaps it means she loves her body to do as she pleases and enjoys a sex life that in any male would be considered 'normal'! No one exactly know what the word mean yet they use it all the time to express their displeasure.    

Last week a rally 'Slut Walk' was organised in Boston and has been gaining popularity around the world. The rally was organised against a Toronto cop who told a group of female students at York University that the best way to avoid getting harassed was to not dress like a 'slut'. This comes a long way for blaming females for dressing up the 'wrong' way. How many times have men used this word as an excuse to do as they please. Tease a girl, but 'dressed like that, she was asking for it right?’, abuse her and 'she must get comments from all the other boys so what is a few more',  sexually harass her and one can easily say 'she was asking for it'. From daily encounters, it happens constantly up to serious cases where rapists are actually not punished because the girl was dressed in a sexually attractive manner. [You will be surprised by the number actual legal cases who actually put up this defence.] 

It is surprising how society have often made it seem like it is the girl's fault for their own mistakes. For who will come to the rescue of a 'Slut'? Any girl who dresses up in the manner must surely be asking for it, so they invent a name 'Slut'. Being called a 'slut' marks a girl as an 'easy' target, an easy prey who is more likely to respond to their sexual connotations. An easier defence to draw up to, an easier consciousness to live with, because the girl they teased/ harassed/abused was a 'slut'. There have always been debates about rape and the blame game and it has been a constant tug of war with court defences lining up stating the girl's apparel. But how can anyone in their right mind say it is the girl's fault for being raped? How can anyone think a girl dresses up the way she does because she wants to be ogled by every living male within sight! How can anyone say girls dress up because they want to be jeered at by every passing male. 

It is not a girl's fault. It is the men who commit these actions! It is their inability to control their own desire that bring about harassment. It is their own prejudiced that makes them comment on every action that girls undertake. It is their own inhibited mind that makes them think girls appreciate being teased, that girls like lewd comments aimed at them, that we mistake harassment as anything other than harassment. Furthermore, who gives them the right to even comment on what clothes we wear? We don't go on whistling every time a good looking male passes by in front of us, we don't go on calling out names when a boy happens to cross a street. 

If you start looking back on the days woman were actually considered 'inferior', you will have to go a long long way. Joan of Arc was burned alive because she dared to go out into the male sphere; Queen Elizabeth had to fight for her birthright when the throne rightfully belonged to her in the first place. Woman in 18th Century had no other purpose but to be a decorative piece for their husband's property. Nineteenth Century women were considered 'too soft' to be in the outside world confining herself to be the 'angel of the house' which is nothing more than a glorified name for a house maid. And when it was time for writers, it is not surprising that women were not allowed to take up the pen. And we all know the history of unequal vote rights. For goodness's sake men have used The Bible to treat women as inferior interpreting 'men' as the whole human being instead of the gender male. So we have a whole history of injustice done right there.

But it is funny how we read these histories of female subjugation. We are shocked women were treated so badly, aghast that anyone could justify such treatment and say 'hey, that is so unfair. Men were realy cruel'. And then we smile and say we have progressed from those stages. We are treated equally now. It was in the past. We can vote now, right? What we don't realise is that it happens every day even now. Look around you, you don't see a boy quitting his job because he became a father. You don't see boys dressing up every time they get out of their bed because they know they will be judged based on their beauty. You don't definitely see people naming boys 'Sluts' just because they sleep around too much instead they are accolade for being the men of the men. No, it is just the females. 

It is surprisingly easy to overlook the fact that this is one word that is used exclusively for female and it is even more easier to forget that there isn't a word that means the same thing for a male. We are judged for everything we do. If we dress up in anything a little more exposing then we are called sluts, yet if you dress up in a traditional uptight way you will never hear the end of how uptight you actually are. It doesn't even need to have anything to do with sex for someone to call you a slut. Go drinking and you will be called one. Try enjoying parties a little more than usual and you will be labelled. Try having a number of male friends and God, forbid you will never live it down. No one knows what it actually means and it has already gained so much connotations one would even shudder to use that word and try so hard to never be called one. 

The word 'Slut, it is nothing more than a word rapists came up with to provide an excuse for their actions, it is nothing more than a word that gives them free reign over what you do and what you wear, it is nothing but a word that makes you turn on each other blaming one's self and your own gender. It is nothing more than a word society came up with to give make you feel ashamed of yourself, your body, your sexuality. This month's 'Slut walk' was inspired by that - To do away with the connotations that women are constantly faced with. To do away with the blame that comes with being harassed and being blamed for it, to throw away the excuse that every rapist seem to have for violence. To do away with the intent that dressing and experiencing your sexuality in your own way is your fault and knowing that there’s nothing you can do that will make someone harass you, anyone but their own fault.

The rally comes to Sydney on Monday and I for one can't wait to join them! One might read about the Slut Walk and think hey, it doesn't concern me or Bhutan is too small a country for these things to happen. Believe me, if you are a girl you have tried your whole life trying not to live up to that name and if you are a boy thinking we would never do such a horrible act, think of the times (if you did any) you ever called a girl a name she didn't like from the side of the road or prank called a girl because she appeared to be more 'friendly' than other because harassment in any small amount, is still harassment. 

Romance and love stories

Have you noticed how popular love stories are?Visit any blog and you will find at least one story about love. Read any magazine and there will always be a short story dealing with love. More often than not, love stories always seem to have the upper hand in any situation.Try posting a love story in Facebook or blogging about love,it will have more likes and comments than any other post and in a shorter span of time too.

There is no question that romance is the most popular genre. The fact that Mills and Boon alone releases 30 titles a month goes to show how large the reading audience really is, as opposed to merely 15 titles of other combined genre.Pick up any book from a library and there is more chance of it being a love story than anything else.The stories does not even have to do with the typical love between men and women,there are stories revolving around a mother's love, about love between two friends, brotherly love,love in a family and everything else that can possibly be constituted but it always revolve around the idea of love.

Furthermore, no matter what the story is, there is always a short span of romance in each book.Mysteries novels seem to contain love in the form of mysteries, Thrillers often present love as the main motif behind every crime, horror stories deal with the presence of an unfulfilled dead lover and even an abstract piece seem to have some notions about love. For instance, 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde mostly deals with aestheticism and art but somewhere along the line, there is the love story between Sibyl and Dorian Gray. Hemingway's 'The Sun also Rises' talks about modernism and detachment yet still has room for a love story. Despite themes of love in these small genres, this hardly even begin to encompass the involvement of love in actual romance stories. Any story about a boy and a girl blatantly evolves around the idea of love.Someone writes a story about an old lady and somehow it ends up telling the story about her 'unfinished' love.One starts a story about a Solider at war and it is about missing his beloved lady.Write a vampire story and even that seem to be about how the vampire fell in love with a human.Stories about Russian mobster, drug addicts, a prostitute, students, etc and somehow it always seem to end on the same note - Love.

Every writer seem to be obsessed with love story. They either write about a past love that they have experienced, an ongoing experience or something that has happened to someone else or sometimes even a story that he/she wishes to avoid. A few years ago there was a huge obsession with happy ending.Pick up any book and it always provided you with a happy ending.It didn't matter how many villains were after the couple, it didn't matter whose family objected their union, it didn't matter how impossible their love was, in the end love conquered all and the writer always provided you with the perfect ending.The prefect example - Twlight! Then came the obsession with 'unfinished' love stories. It usually starts with the tale of an old man or woman reciting the story of her youth, of the dashing man she fell in love with, about his leaving for war, about his promise to return and about how she is still waiting for him to return, thus leaving their love story un-ended.The perfect example - Most of Nicholas sparks's books.

I suppose the charm lies in being able to manipulate the story as one wishes. You are the writers, you can do anything you please with the story. The situation you choose will be your own, the predicament you put your characters in will be yours alone, you can choose a happy ending, you can choose an 'unfinished' one, you can damn well kill the lovers if you want.That is the charm, but then this goes for every other story too I suppose.

Love stories, more often than not, provides a platform for people to carry out their fantasies.People often write their own prefect ideals in the protagonist of the story. One can make your 'hero' to be handsome, daunting and charming, employing all the characters that one, oneself find more appealing and creating your own version of perfect guy.The girl will be beautiful, sweet and prefect presenting your own version of the ideal mate. It is always about one's own mind playing out their own ideals of romance and readers love it, falling for the same old ideals of love and chivalry, searching for their own perfect boy/girl in the pages of some story, hoping the love story comes true for them.

They say female readership is mostly associated with romance but if you are a male and reading this, don't tell me you haven't read a love story and liked it. Don't tell me you haven't written one yourself, be it with hatred or with remembrance. Everyone always does it at least once.Of course, one can always write about politics but there will always be someone who won't be interested, you can write about currents affairs and there will be someone who will be least bothered to read it. But that never seem to be the problem with romance. People always seem to stop and read a love story - some because they can relate, some because they want it to happen to them and some merely because they want to feel it - but people always do read.

We seem obsessed with love stories, with romance. Story telling doesn't seem to function without the theme of love. But why? Why are we so obsessed with this idea of love? What is so special about a love story? Most often these love stories are fictional, portraying the desire for a world full of love that we want to live in, so does that mean the real world we live in doesn't contain love? Are we living in a world which is so out of love that the only place we can find love is in the stories? Furthermore, most characters these love story presents are creations of the writer's mind so does that mean the world is full of jerks that the only perfect version one can find in a man is in the books? Are there no girls who actually equate a boy's ideal love? Most people read love story to escape reality so does that mean that the reality we face is not of a world full of love?People say that one only obsesses over things they don't have so if love exists in the real world, doesn't obsessing over something we already have seem redundant? Why create such a fuss over this idea of love?

How does things work around here?

This is going to sound very funny but I still haven't been able to figure out how things works out in my blog. I mean it is my blog and I have been writing here for a few months till date but the moment I need to find a new background for my blog or change the title to a new font, I am completely lost. 


I know where to write and edit parts of my info but that is about the only thing I know what to do here. I am thinking it has been several months so I should  be able to have figured out how to upload and modify the page but no I still don't. I open the pages of all the other blogs I follow and oh my, they are beautiful. Everything is colourful, everyone has pictures and everything looks so bright while the only thing that is bright in my profile seems to be nothing. Everything is black and white.The only reason I kept it black and white before is because I don't know any better. Of course I knew how to upload pictures. If one has a Facebook profile, uploading pictures comes naturally to you so that is why you see so many pictures in most of my posts. I uploaded it because that was the only thing I knew how to do here.Today while I was writing though, I thought I should make some changes and I did. I found a new background, changed the pictures and made my page a bit brighter but that is it. That was all I could figure out how to modify and even that took much too much time for me to be able to figure out.


Then I see facebook account being linked to the blogs and networkblog linked to the pages and other blogs names that are linked to the one you have. And I haven't a single clue how to connect a single one of them! Perhaps it is as obvious as everyone seem to think or perhaps I am just being a blond but please tell me even you had or are still having as much problems figuring out how to make your blog beautiful! For me it is turning out to be much too hard a task to master!

Today I am just so proud of myself for having figured out how to change the pictures, I am uploading this picture which reflects my sentiments so well right now! :)

The Prince, the Pauper and...the Dark Knight.

Have you ever noticed when we were realy small how we had dreams about who we would fall in love with? How one made a list of all the qualities that we think we want in our future boyfriend? The perfect guy and the long list of endless dos and don't that you think he should be like before falling in love with him.You think you want a person who doesn't smoke or a person who values being a prefect gentleman and all those other qualities that you think he should have that will make you fall for him.You think you know everything you want in that guy - his good behaviour, his bad habits, the way he should live- and as we grow up we bring those lists with us, thinking about eventually falling for a guy exactly like him.


Then one day you find the perfect guy, one who ticks all the right boxes. He will be the kind of guy who will always treat you right, the one who does all the things that you like, has all the qualities that you always appreciated in a boy and will always love you. He will be the most obvious choice, the boy your parents approve, the boy everyone knows will always be nice to you, the boy who is your destiny if you just look at all the long list of qualities that he fulfills from your most wanted list. He will be your perfect match and you will be happy with him. There will be nothing complicated about your relationship. But then you realize somehow you will not be satisfied with just being happy.You won't be happy with him being nice to you, won't be happy despite all the love he showers on you, despite all the qualities he fulfills from your list. You will be happy but you will never feel like you might die with too much happiness. It will always be mediocre, the life you lead with him, the love you have for him, the happiness he showers on you, the hurt he deals you. It will all be mediocre.You will never feel complete with him. So you move on leaving behind the perfect guy you grew up thinking is everything you ever wanted in a boy.


But since this is not the end of the world, you go on searching and dating, waiting for the one guy who will make you feel complete. In every story there is always be a good guy. He will be the kind hearted, easygoing boy who has always been there for you when you need to cry. The kind of boy who was with you through all those heartbreaks you suffered from all the other boys, the one who has patiently tolerated all the other guy while all he wanted to do was shake you and ask you to be with him. So finally you go out with him, thinking there can't possibly be a single thing that you would find lacking since he loves you so much, knowing you will hurt him for life in case you can't fulfill your promise to love him. He is the one guy you know you shouldn't get into a relationship with. Not because he is not the perfect guy who fulfills all the qualities that you deemed so essential for yourself but because you know he is better than all the guys you know, because you know he is your best friend, and because no matter what you do, you know you will never deserve a boy like him. But you get into a relationship anyway and all your fears comes true. It doesn't work out. It doesn't because he knows you so well he knows you are lying when you say you love him even if you haven't realized it yourself, because he knows he is not the person who makes you feel complete and he knows you will never love him the way he always did. He will  know although you try there will always be something missing in the relationship. And he will be the kind of person to let you go because he would want you to find that something that is missing.


So you go searching for that missing part and find it in the one guy you know you shouldn't. The kind of guy who is all kinds of wrong for you. He will be the guy everyone warned you against, the guy you know you should walk away from, the guy no one would wish you to be with. He will be the kind of guy who you know is going to hurt you but you still fall for him anyway. He will be able to shatter your heart in a million pieces if you just so much as allow him or even if you don't. The kind of guy who will make you burst with happiness, the boy who with a single word can take the same sunshine away in the next minute.He will be the one who will thwart all the qualities that you thought you want in a boy and still be at the top of your list. He won't treat you like a princess nor would he be a perfect gentleman. But you won't care that he doesn't fulfill all your desired qualities, you won't care that he is the complete opposite of what you thought you wanted in a guy. You won't care how many protests you edict from the people around you, you would still go and fall for him.He will be the reason why none of the previous or future relationship will work out with anyone else because your heart will whisper that he is the only guy you are ever going to be in love with.And you will know you love him because you will know despite being the most complicated relationship, he would also choose you - over the girl who made him feel like the perfect guy, over the simple girl next door and over all the girls in the world. Because for him you would be the complicated one, the one who can tear his heart apart with a single blow but he would still choose you. So you love him.With all of your heart.You don't readily set out to fall in love with him, in fact if you can help it you don't want to be in love with him at all but in the end he will be the only person your heart will ever want.


So in the end what is the use of all those list that made for a perfect guy? What is the use of making a list when you don't even know what your heart want? What is the use of searching for the perfect guy when in the end, you don't even love him? What is the use of trying it when someone else when you know it is not going to work? But most of all, why in the world would the heart fall for a guy who is all wrong for you?

Mistakes

Do you remember when we first met I did not even know how to cook? Do you remember the day you said you didn't even care if I didn't know? Do you remember how you said my cooking was good even when it was burnt? Now even the best of my cooking feels like ash in your mouth. 

Do you remember all the late night we used to stay up just talking about you and me? Do you remember all the late night movies we watched? Do you remember how all those nights suddenly turned into you walking in with a bottle of rum in your hands? Now I never see you without. 

Do you remember telling me how beautiful I look no matter what I wear? Do you remember kissing my cheeks whenever I was close enough? Do you remember telling me you can't bear to not look at me? Now I don't even exist for you. 

Do you remember the day you told me you loved me? The way you wrote a poem for me and asked me to be with you? Forever? Do you remember the night you said your heart will always belong to me? Now you can't get away from me fast enough. 

Do you remember the day I stopped being the girl you loved? Do you remember the day everything changed? The day you found me with another man? Now all you remember is that day.

Facebook and Stalking

'Hey, Singey just got tagged in his friend's album'

'Does he look good? Lets look at his pictures'.

That is pretty much how my roommate and I spend more of our evening.We stalk.Even just saying so, I know it sounds all kind of creepy but the truth is, we still do it.It starts with a simple update of an status or a picture uploaded on Facebook but once we start, it is just one click after another.

More than usual, it is one of our crushes that we stalk and hardly any girls. If there is a guy we have a crush on in our friend list then there is no bound just how many times we go through his profile in a day. We know everything there is to know about that guy, all his pictures, the tagged ones, his friend list, the whole love triangle that he is trapped into - the girl he loves, the one who loves him, the guy who has a crush on the girl he loves - Every little things that could possibly be deduced from every update from his facebook profile, we already have it memorized.

And we hardly ever miss an update. If he updates a status, we are so quick to interpret what it means, relating it to the already accumulated knowledge we have about him, if he uploads a picture, we are among the first ones to go gaga over the good looking pictures and if by any chance, he changes his relationship status to 'in a relationship' or 'committed' there is no bounds of the 'Awwww, he deserves better' or 'I can't believe he broke up' comments from us. Of course the stalking doesn't stop there, if he is in a relationship,we have to know who the girl is, 'Is she pretty enough?' 'Do you think it is for real?' and on and on. 

It is almost like the re-hash of the gossip mills of high school days, only this time we find out through the person's online profile and through his slip of a comment or update. We don't meant any harm of course, in fact we try hard to maintain the fact that the person never ever finds out.We do it tactfully, no comments on his status if we don't know him personally, no likes on any pictures even if he looks really good and we always chicken out when it comes to chat, 'We don't want the guy to know we have been stalking him now, do we?' -That is always our excuse. But we never realy stop clicking on his profile anyway. 

Facebook gives us a whole new level for stalking. It is just such an interesting way to keep track of everything that has been happening it their life. An old high school crush and we have him in our friend list, an acquaintance we only saw for a couple of time and he is already added, a cute unknown guy and a friend request has already been send. People we know, people we once knew, people we just met, people we have no idea about but if there is something that catches our eye, the next moment he/she is in our friend list and we have browsed through half of his/her album. Call it a girl thing, girls being girls, noisy and inquisitive, I am sure most girls do it, we have just become experts in hiding the fact.