The little red riding hood was the first lesson that I learnt about the public- beware of strangers! The word stranger to me means unknown or “strange being” one I don’t understand because of lack of interaction. Whenever I think of a stranger a picture of a man comes before me. With a stranger there is a very strong fear of not being able to predict their reactions or understand their way of perception, it is even more for a man. In fact in contradiction to the previous statement there is a pre-conceived notion about men and their reactions and that is what makes me vary of interacting with them. Approaching a woman is easier, not that I can predict her reactions but I feel a sense of safety, I know that she isn’t going to touch me or make me feel uncomfortable in that way. I guess this has to do with a deeply ingrained conditioning.
I think I have felt attracted to a stranger before but other than discussing him amongst my friends I haven’t had the guts to go up and talk to him even if all I want to do is ask a question because there is a lot of scope for misinterpretation of words. Just recently my friends and i were travelling in a bus and happened to find a "cute" boy in the backseat of the bus just next to ours. it is a different story that the bus moved before we could do anything but one thing is for sure all i could do is maybe stare at him to draw attention and smile at him only to make my presence known. however being amongst over enthusiastic friends we might have gone overboard with tactics to draw attention to ourselves like talk loudly, giggle, smile witha flirtatios edge to it but one thing is for sure i was aware of the fact that the boy seemed our age and from a similar socio-economic class moreover there was a sense of safety being in a separate bus.
if i do find a stranger attractive all i would do is smile and giggle to myself. discuss him amongst my friends, blush if they tease try and draw too much attention to me. if i am alone i would just tell myself look at him a second glass at the max and then go on my way. strangely such attractions do not linger on in my head for long so there is no desperate urge to start a conversation or establish interaction. more often than not i am highly confined to myself drawing a rigid boundary around myself for the fear of my actions or moves towards those men drawing unwanted attention towards myself.
However there is a difference among strangers and their surroundings. Somehow I would feel more comfortable approaching a stranger (whether man or woman) if they are from a similar socio-economic background, even if it were going up and talking to them for the simple reason-attraction. In fact I find it easier to be approached by and talked to by a stranger of the same socio-economic class since there is this feeling that there is less ambiguity of words and a hope for a better understanding.
smiling- something as simple as that can attract a lot of attention. there is this whole notion of the good girl smile and bad girl smile as told to us by a bus conductor and articulated and expressed most vividly by most tv serials and movies. today, 24th august 2009 i sat in barista, on a mission to spread a smile across my face and direct it to the public. a man dressed in a blue and white striped shirt with white cuffs came and sat down at the table diagnal to me with a friend. as i had been doing the whole day my face broke into the warmest smile i could give him and established eye contact with him. there on began a most subtle flirtation. everytime i looked up from my books i saw him staring at my, lips apart forming a highly toothy smile with some strange lip movements that pushed the smile towards letchiness. this exchange of smiles became more frequent and i was aware that my smile was becomming more of the "lets have fun and flirt" kinds. he soon broke into song about love, took out his cell phone to show off perhaps? tapping and bobbing my head to the music and a wide gummy smile on my face i directed my gaze and the smile at him occasionally. clearly he seemed to be enjoying the attention. when i was leaving i took a step forward and blew him a kiss. something i normally would never have done but peers and a whole day of establishing intangible interactions with strangers gave me the courage to do so. i had pushed my boundary on the street flirting front but in the name of fun. i somehow regret that because i now feel that it is a little unethical (clearly according to my moral code) to play around with someone like that. somehow when i met this man outside i felt a sense of fear just thinking about what if he knows it was a game?
another instance of public flirting happened when i was in the 8th. i was sitting with a whole bunch of girl friends at cafe coffee day in calcutta. right next to our table in this cramped branch of ccd was another table with 2 girls and a boy sitting there sipping at their cold coffee. they seemed about 16-17 yrs of age and from a similar socio economic strata of society. this one girl taps me on the shoulder and says that the boy sitting next to her liked me and wants to know my name. i flipped. i froze. in fact that was the first time that had ever happened to me. i thought he was some flirt sitting with 2 girls flirting with a third. fortunately or unfortunately we were finishing up and paying the bill. once we left i found myself being trailed by this boy and his 2 girls. that scared me even more, that is when i ran towards one of my school teachers who just happened to be at the same mall. this act diverted him and he no longer trailed me. today sitting 6 years from that incident i feel like i would have done things so differently. in fact i would have told him my name and even exchanged a few words with him. my boundaries have changed so much since that day. i have learnt to be little less suspicious or rather i have learnt to be more confident about an interaction with a stranger. looking beyond a stranger as a "strange unpredictable being".
Prerna is a student at Srishti School of Art Design and Technology. Prerna wrote this while doing a workshop with Blank Noise.
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1 comments:
Get a life! Prerna
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