Bus Man

I know. I just wrote about how women are high maintenance and how men (and women) should give them a break, and I hate to sound like a harpy but I had a moment at a bus stop that I had to share with y'all. 

It all started innocently enough; I walked up to the bus stop a couple nights ago after hanging out with some friends. There were only two people at the stop, a man and a woman. The woman was short and kind of stubby, with curly hair cut straight at mid-neck; puffy. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt with a hood. The man was tall but had posture, hunched against the wind, or more likely, against God's desire for him to tower over everyone. He had black hair and black jeans and a oddly pointy black beard that wiggled up and down when he talked and that he stroked occasionally. They clearly new each other because they were in the middle of the kind of conversation you have just met someone. 

When I strolled up they were in the midst of talking about his sick dad. Well HE was talking about his sick father. Every once in a while she tossed in a "yeah" or a "right". This man had a talent for transitions because by the time that I had settled on the bus stop bench he was talking about having kids. He used the transition, "I just want my kids to know their grandfather". "Right" says the woman. "But I'm not ready for kids. I feel like I should do it soon so he can see them".  

Stop, I thought. He glanced over at me conveniently and I took the time to think at him, if you're not ready don't do it. It's not like they are going to remember that their grandpa lived until they were two anyway. I hoped maybe he was psychic and had heard me plead for him to not rush into a 50-odd year commitment. 

But I'm getting off topic. What I really came here to talk about is what he said next. He was yammering on and I was letting his words float in an out of my consciousness until he said, "Women always want to know what my plan is for the future." He continued, talking about living in the moment, being spontaneous, etc. 

That is so cliche. And the worst part is that he actually thought he was being original. He was spouting things like a newly discovered geyser. But these weren't new thoughts. And the more I thought about it the more I disagreed with them altogether.

Women don't want a plan. They want action. We don't need to know what's going to happen a year from now. Or ten or twenty years from now. As long as we know that today something is happening, we are happy. 

Women are impatient creatures. If we see a stalled man, or potentially stalled, we want to know what they are doing. It might seem like we are asking for a plan but that's not true. If you sit on your ass we will wonder, obviously. But if you are busying yourself with work, or school, or travel, or extreme sports, we will leave you the fuck alone. As long as you are doing something now, we don't care what you're doing in five years. 

I guess that was a big lead up to a simple thought but there you have it.