First 'Men!' post

A friend (let's call him Y Chromosome) who is seeing -- no, is in a serious, committed relationship -- with another, very close, friend (X Chromosome), just came back to Bangalore after a month visiting his parents back home. He called me to ask if I would like to join them on M G Road for coffee. Now, I knew X Ch had been missing him terribly and had a million things to talk to him about, and I had no wish to be de trop -- or as we elegantly put it back in school, kabab mein haddi. So I made a gentle excuse, whereupon Y Ch, guessing with unusual perspicacity for his sex my real reasons for refusing, informed me that they were not meeting tete-a-tete in any case, since his room-mate was also dropping by.

Since I know both these people very well and sort of look upon them as children who have to be hand-held through the delicate moves of a serious, committed relationship, I asked why he was not meeting his girlfriend alone. After all, they hadn't met for almost a month and must have been looking forward to seeing each other without hangers on. Y Ch, to my utter surprise, started off on how he didn't see why he should have to meet her alone. Meet her, yes, but why alone? As long as he was seeing her, how did it matter if there were other people joining them? I suggested, though I should have given up by then, that they may have stuff to talk about that would be difficult to discuss in front of others, even close friends. The man refused to see my point! "Come on, we are not those ultra-romantic types, like soppy teenagers or something," he said, or something to that effect.

I was hopping mad by this point. At him, and at all men. I cut him off on the phone, almost rudely I suspect, and turned to vent my spleen at the only man I know who will take it, who had all along been making exaggerated gestures expressing exasperation at my 'interference'. I raved and ranted about how insensitive men were, how they had no concept of privacy, how this guy could at least have acknowledged that they need to meet alone while admitting he couldn't refuse to meet his friend etc etc.

At which point, the Light of my Life replies: "Listen, it's not as if they are going to get much privacy in a coffee shop anyway. I mean, it's a public place after all."

I stood there with my mouth hanging open for about two minutes. Was he suggesting, was he by any chance suggesting, that a couple needs to meet alone only so they can jump each other's bones? That if you are meeting in a public place, it hardly matters whether it's just the two of you or the entire extended list of your friends, since you can't do anything much other than hold hands anyway? He had the good grace to look sheepish, but he couldn't deny that yes, he had sort of meant that. Then he tried to backtrack by saying that this guy probably didn't understand all this yet, that you do need to talk and all, but give him time, he'll get more sensitive (like me) -- all the time implying that he had been browbeaten into sensitivity over the years he has known me and wishes the same fate on all other men.

What does one do with them? Really?