Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman, Tammy Wynette once sung.  She followed it up with, “saving all your love for just one man” – mind you, she was singing a song called “Stand By Your Man”.

If the song had been called “Deep Fry Your Man”, the lyrical content may have been somewhat different.

That opening line for example:

Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman
Putting up with all the shit men say

My daily mindfulness practice has made me a lot more aware of snippets of conversation around me, on the street, boarding planes, on public transport.  Some of the things I’ve heard have led to me to conclude that, in evolutionary terms, the best skills these men possess is that their fathers had sperm that could swim well.  There seems no other way they could exist.

Scenario 1: The Art Of The Subtle Pickup

Boarding a plane to come home from a work conference a few nights ago, there were a couple of slightly tipsy young men behind me.  There was a traffic jam in the aisle as people attempted to play Tetris with their luggage in the overhead lockers, and the poor flight attendant was left talking to this dimwit.

“Oh, it smells like an angel in here!” was the opening line.  “Is that you, love?”

I watched the women in front of me, waiting to get to their seats, exchange glances briefly.  They didn’t even bother to sigh or roll their eyes.  They’re obviously so used to hearing this kind of rubbish that the look it engenders is the exact same one you give when the neighbour’s dog has crapped on your lawn.

“No, I don’t think I smell like an angel,” came the polite reply, before she divulged what she was wearing.  I have no idea what it was.  Some brand of scented pointlessness.

“Oh it wouldn’t be me, love, I’m wearing Rexona!” he guffawed, betraying an intelligence that made Forrest Gump look like Stephen Hawking.

He wasn’t ready to give it up, though.  I was the next person in front of him.

“I don’t know where it’s coming from, then!” he laughed to his friend.  “How awkward would it be if I tapped that guy on the shoulder and said, ‘excuse me sir…’”

More bucketfuls of schoolboy laughter ensued.  Had I been in a manic phase, I might have turned around and said, “It’s not angel, it’s pineapple jizz.  I jerked off while thinking about you in the Virgin lounge and it’s still fresh.”

But instead I continued to seeth and think about how tired I was.

Scenario 2: The Wisdom Of The Karma Douchera

It’s a busy lunchtime on Elizabeth St.  I enjoy the sounds of the city.  The ebb and flow of its rhythms are like a kind of ocean.

But you know sometimes when you’re at the beach, and that calm is broken by a mean seagull screeching like a small child deprived of a babycino by its posh parents?

That’s exactly how I felt as another young man – round, bearded, glasses – rushed across an intersection to catch up with his female companion.  His words of wisdom cut through the air like a fart in an elevator:

“You’re always talking about boys you like, and all we’re thinking about is pussy!”

Really?  Are you?

Can you not talk about women you like, and think about having sex with them?

Are you that emotionally stunted, that driven by the blood rushing away from your tiny brain and into (probably) even tinier penis that you’re incapable of thinking about women as anything other than a cross between a comfortable couch and a slot machine?

I think feminism has reached a plateau.  Women have decided to put up with bad jokes and poor conversation because they think that the majority of men are incapable of it.  They’re a pest, like flies, and occasionally you run into one that hormonally works for you.  Then afterwards you feel a bit sick.

Yes, it must be hard sometimes to be a woman.