You know, somewhere between endless proofreading of texts and attempts to wash my hands of ink after accidentally crushing a pen, I sometimes open women's forums. This is my personal way to reboot my brain. And today's find just made my day, because it perfectly illustrates all this modern accounting of relationships, informs Ukr.Media.
A girl has been dating a guy for three months. They have, I quote, “a light, unobtrusive relationship,” walks, hangouts in establishments. And the guy brings her flowers. But there's a nuance – they're small bouquets. Seven tulips. Three sprigs of a bush rose. And the girl wants normal, human eleven roses with large buds, sixty centimeters long. And so she sits and torments herself with the question: should I tell him about this or is it somehow uncomfortable?
It would seem, if you want those miserable sixty centimeters, say so with your mouth. But what started in the comments reminded me of a trial from the time of the Spanish Inquisition.
The girl was showered with so much venom that it seemed as if she demanded to have her apartment re-registered, rather than buy a little more organic matter, which would wither in a week anyway. She was instantly dubbed a victim of Instagram, an infusoria, a mercantile female praying mantis, and the same beautiful word “plate-maker,” which seems to have been invented by guys whose courtship budget ends with a bus ticket.
But the funniest thing about this story is the author's own argument. She quite seriously derives the mathematical equivalent of care. She says, I'm buying him new lace underwear for bed, and that's at least eight hundred hryvnias for a bodysuit, plus stockings, and my salary is less. So where are my big flowers?
I read this and just physically felt the line between romance and barter blurring. I give you a beautiful body in lace for one evening, you give me eleven big buds. An honest exchange in the market of easy relationships. It sounds funny and a little wild, but is she globally wrong about something? She invests in her visuals so that he will be pleased, and she wants him to invest in the visuals that are pleasant to her.
And here come the women in white coats. The same ones who can't stand flowers (only in pots!), who proudly declare that they never ask for anything, and in general, their husbands give them a set of pots, but they change diapers.
I love this classic argument from the depths of the Internet: you have to compare a man who gave a hundred and one roses and then left a pregnant woman without a penny for shampoo, and a saint who has never seen flowers, but works three jobs and washes floors. As if there is some kind of hard limit in the world: either you get a normal bouquet and remain a single mother, or you are content with three short branches, but with a reliable partner. For some reason, the idea that you can want both care and generosity causes the public to gnash their teeth fiercely. Someone even brought up the experience of Europe – they say that in the Netherlands tulips are five euros and everyone walks around with one flower and is happy. Wonderful, of course, but we are not in Amsterdam, here flowers are still a language used to talk about status and interest.
I look at all this through the prism of my almost forty years and smile a little tiredly. On the one hand, measuring your attitude towards yourself by the length of the stem or the amount of budget spent on underwear is a path to nowhere. When you really find your person, you don't care how many centimeters are in that rose, because completely different things hold you together.
On the other hand, I'm honestly sorry that we still shame women so harshly for ordinary desires. Wanting a beautiful, large bouquet is normal. Wanting to be looked after in a way that doesn't “just happen” is also normal. If a girl is now, at the stage of candy and dates, forced to calculate whether she has the right to eleven flowers instead of three, then it will only get worse.
I hope she just gets the courage to tell her boyfriend over a glass of wine, “Listen, I really like big roses.” And if he disappears into thin air or starts talking about being materialistic, well, at least she'll save a ton of money on her next lace bodysuit.
Share
Subscribe to UkrMedia on Telegram.
⚡ Readers' Pulse
So what do you think: is wanting a large bouquet instead of three sprigs a healthy desire or a mercantile barter?
0 people have already voted. Join the discussion.
🌹 I want decent gestures 💸 This is pure commercialism 🤔 I have my own story
📊 Mind map
🌹 I want decent gestures 0% 💸 This is pure mercantilism 0% 🤔 I have my own story 0% 💡
The discussion is just beginning. Be the first to comment!
Comments
There are no comments yet. Be the first!