Wimmin!

The Brunette and Lady M popped in for a drink last night. This became dinner. I hastily rustled together scrambled oeufs avec smoked salmon with a green salad and a bone dry white. They looked low and comfort food was called for. I refuse to succumb to fast food (my last Big Mac was consumed in the early 90s) so this was going to have to do. After they left, I got thinking. What is it about Pakistani women (of a certain age and background) that makes them oh-s0-hesitant with making The First Move.

First a little background. Lady M after much pushing, nudging, cajoling and a kick where it hurts had decided to pursue a slightly younger man. He is not worthy of a sidelong glance, but if he turns her on, who am I to complain. The Brunette, on the other hand, has been foolishly encouraging a younger man who has just announced his engagement- to someone else naturalment. I know. I know what you're thinking. And I agree with you. The purpose of this piece is not to trash my friends' choices. That can wait for another occasion. I'm here to look at strategy.

What do I do if someone registers as a blip on my radar ? Being the idiotic research oriented ass that I am, I try doing some homework. This involves casually questioning common friends (easy as we all know that there are only two degrees of seperation in Pakistan), checking out Google (it works!) and generally snooping unabashedly. The next step usually involves enlisting the services of a close common friend to contrive an "event" where the two of us "coincidentally" land up. If all goes well by then (and it doesn't always) I move to step 3 which involves the dinner invitation. And if get by that obstacle with grace, panache and isstyle, then the rest is textbook stuff.

Lets apply my framework to the men being chased by Lady M and the Brunette. The gals have done their homework. Aided and abetted by moi, they have also managed to contrive social situations in which the men in question have been invited over. The problem arrives with stage 3. I have discovered that neither of these swish, dynamic, intelligent women is willing to invite a man alone for dinner. These are women who work, who tell male employees what to do every day of the week. The men in question haven't popped the question and weeks have gone by. Does one drop a man because he isn't taking the next step on Uber's 3 stage seduction plan ? Does one wait interminably forever? The Brunette eventually confessed to going on a drive with her swain where they held hands. Hang on. Held hands? Yikes. Isn't that the kind of thing one did at fifteen ? What's a grown woman doing holding hands in the 21st century ? Or is it just me that's out of sync.

The real issue here is that my friends' are of the considered view that asking (or hinting to be asked) by a man is ...errr..well cheap. Nice girls don't ask guys out. Nice guys do the asking. I think I'm closer to the core of the centre of the nucleus of the problem now. Quite simply: Most Pakistani men don't have what it takes to carry this through. I think, in each case, they like the girls in question, but they don't have the social skills. I hate generalisations but Pakistani men are decidedly wimplike when it comes to these situations. I cannot, for example, think of a good pass that has been made to me by a Pakistani man. These generally rank on a Richter scale of crudity. They (we?) are not bad guys. Just socially deficient. Given these depressing paremeters I am convinced that the only way out of this impasse is for the girls to take a deep breath and suggest dinner. Failing which, they will be holding hands forever.