Decoding men!

Someone once said, and I quote- “there are easier things in life than trying to find a nice guy...like nailing jelly to a tree for example’

What is it with this musky species? Why are they so difficult to decipher? We love them, we hate them, but we constantly obsess over them. Females are biologically programmed to read too much between the lines. We anticipate reactions, we analyze the aftermath of an argument, and we do a role-play of each situation. The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, ‘It's a girl.’ Why is it that women spend all their waking moments juicing it out while men ‘blow off their steam’ with overflowing beer or perhaps an overnight Xbox marathon. Age long question, age long assumptions, age long trials and errors, and surprisingly we still have managed to get nowhere.

Consider one theory that we haven’t yet- could it be that men are too easy as opposed to our prior thinking? This radical question is the one to think and could be a revolutionary one. We could be nearing a revelation if we see this one through. Men are simplistic creatures- they have indeed forgotten when they say they have; they have indeed dozed off because they were just too sleepy to stay awake. How difficult does it become for us to understand this, or do we function as masochists? Are we that complicated that we need to break things down categorically and understand each advance in its totality? Going back to this theory; let us assume the best of men and take them for their literal self, would it really be that big of a deal? Why cannot we try and trust them for their word? Try doing it for a day and see the difference it makes.

As feminist as I am, do not mistake me for an ardent lover of the sperm race. I do believe they can be nastily disturbing to us, but how about putting our faith in all we have? It’s not like we have any other option, and let’s face it- we shudder to even think of one.

As I write this, I get a text message from my friend complaining for the fifth time this morning- ‘HE HASN’T CALLED ME YET!’ and I sigh, as I feel the whole purpose of my last night’s pep talk going to waste. It’s important to have a relationship and value it with all the strength you can muster, but it’s not contingent to make it your whole life. That’s where things start going downhill. Go back to the pre-relationship chase- he liked you for your wit, not for your clingy ways; he liked you for understanding, not when your understanding became conditional’. It’s not our fault also, things do change as the dynamics of a relationship evolve, but holding your own and extending space should be one constant that should in no way budge.

Having said that, I again emphasize how important it is to hold your own, as well as let him hold his own. Secretly we all love a man who takes control. In spite of this, all of us have a tendency to take control for their life once we label it a relationship. It’s important to know that it’s a relationship, not his power of attorney handed out to you and vice-versa. This is where things go wrong, scratch that- horribly wrong. It’s unfair to expect them to be at the top of their game each time.. For crying out loud, it’s a love thing, not a who’s who of some slavery marathon. Try this, and things shall truly be better, or so I hope. It’s about time that live and let live came back in vogue!

Oprah has a lot to say on men, and their ways!

If a man wants you, nothing can keep him away. If he doesn't want you, nothing can make him stay. Stop making excuses for a man and his behavior. Never live your life for a man before you find what makes you truly happy. If a relationship ends because the man was not treating you as you deserve then heck no, you can't be "friends". A friend wouldn't mistreat a friend. Don't settle. If you feel like he is stringing you along, then he probably is. Don't stay because you think "it will get better." You'll be mad at yourself a year later for staying when things are not better. The only person you can control in a relationship is you. 

Always have your own set of friends separate from his. Maintain boundaries in how a guy treats you. If something bothers you, speak up. Never let a man know everything. He will use it against you later. You cannot change a man's behavior. Change comes from within. Don't EVER make him feel he is more important than you are even if he has more education or in a better job.

Do not make him into a quasi-god. He is a man, nothing more nothing less. Never let a man define who you are. Never borrow someone Else's man. If he cheated with you, he'll cheat on you. A man will only treat you the way you allow him to treat you. All men are NOT dogs. You should not be the one doing all the ending .. compromise is a two way street. 

Dating is fun .. even if he doesn't turn out to be Mr.Right. Make him miss you sometimes .. when a man always know where you are and you're always readily available to him - he takes it for granted. Don't fully commit to a man who doesn't give you everything that you need.

Today

“Post it on your wall”, “I’m tweeting this”, “I just got an RSS that Anna ji had coconut water”. I doubt if our parents will make sense of such jargon, but for today’s generation this is the official addition to our language.  Social media has become such an intricate part of our lives that it won’t be exaggeration when I say we tweet first, and think later.   

Social media products such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Wikipedia, YouTube and the new Google+, combined with access from mobile devices, shows just how pervasive social media has become. If we talk numbers, Twitter has grown from 27 million Tweets per day in 2010 to 95 million— a 250 per cent increase. Facebook has grown globally from 350 million active users to 640 million— half of which log in daily. Wow! Isn’t that just incredible? At least for me it is. Feeds from such sites are what greet me instead of the old fashioned newspaper and tea in bed. Such has been the coverage of these instruments, that I hardly read the newspaper anymore. Those plenty apps I’m surrounded with pretty much update me with almost everything under the sun. May it be any recent development of Lokpal, or the hurricane rocking The US, I can keep myself updated.

We all know the cutting edge ruthless competition in the corporate world. A whole department of an organization is solely dedicated to marketing their products and services in the best possible manner to their clients. Much of efforts go into satisfying the clients, finding new ones, following up with everyone, and being always on a lookout for betterment in ways of feedback and after sales. This continuous need to be better than the best, has led to the merging of the above mentioned resources and the inherent corporate need to exploit it. There’s the answer; at the speed of light the competitive companies are jumping into the wagon of marketing through social media. Brilliant idea I’d say. The perfect example of a breakthrough is the fan page of “Taco Bell’ on Facebook. With a following of 7,468,300 plus fans, the illustrative information and current offers has typically been at the forefront in a manner that’s easily relatable.

Not only is this a low-cost promotional strategy that provides the businesses with large number of links and huge amount of traffic, but the companies also manage to get massive attention and that really is a win-win for everyone.  The idea has caught wind with effective marketers who also refer to books such as ‘The Twitter Book’ that teaches everything one needs to know to quickly become a Twitter power user, including strategies and tactics for using Twitter’s 140-character messages as a serious and effective way to boost your business.

Victoria’s Secret is a brand known to all, but it took a sudden whoosh from just an e-commerce site to creating a Facebook and Twitter page. The Twitter page seems to be well-established, with over 163,149 followers and several tweets updated daily.  I would say that @VictoriasSecret knows how to draw a crowd.  They are also very good at keeping followers updated and making a deeper connection between the customer and the brand.

It’s awe-inspiring to see the online marketers put in so much effort to the minutest of the needs of their target market, and it is not easy. Segregating all the clients’ as per their tastes, needs and financial restraints is surely an ass-kicker; and what’s more-you’ve got to be at the top of your game all time- each day, every day. Dynamic is the environment and so are the needs of the customers-ever changing. It’s not a one-time thing that you do and you’re done with.

With the huge radical growth of these social networks and the enhanced adorability of such networks among the social population the application of social media marketing has attained high demand. Companies now use it to promote their product, brands and services.  Not just that, the presence on social networking sites in a consistent and interactive manner adds up to build the brand value in terms of credibility and trust. With regular exchange of opinions and feedback, one can expect colossal returns in terms of understanding consumer’s choices and tastes. The organization can be a part of groups and create their own pages on such sites which offer real time interaction, better display of the newly launched products, and a query forum to better explain the customers about the products and clarify their doubts in a categorical manner.

 Amongst all these outrageous benefits, the cherry on the cake is the promotion on the search engine ranking. (I trust the first link on Google the most).  Another major tool of the social platform is the creation of a comprehensive blog which again reinforces the search engine ranking.

The world is getting closer every day and everyone wants to be connected. Static blogs and websites are losing popularity.  The world is moving more towards "information streams". The information comes to users rather than users making effort to get the information.

Life

We often wonder, silently and aloud alike- what is life? Things happen, without any possible explanation of them happening. They still do, and impact us in a way that we would eventually be thankful for. Or not? I don't think so. This is one of those moments when i am deeply immersed in epiphany. That feeling, when i am so close to finding out what exactly is the way to live, but Alas! i lose focus when i get any nearer, and when i get to focus again, i magically lose my will to keep looking for an answer. Happens with the best of us.


That's life but, blink it and miss it. We spend so many living moments rationalizing what we do or what we did not do, or what we could have done, or what we shall do in the near future, that we never really enjoy the consequences of what we essentially did. Mind you, we do 'pay' for the consequences. But enjoy the harvest of our thoughts. never? What is the point of this? To never really sit back and enjoy life. Why the dissatisfaction? Are we really that torn down by the artificial wants and comparisons created by the social web, that we have forgotten our inner core, that just needs love and nothing else. We polish these outer materialistic surfaces so much, strive to make them better and better that we have forgotten who we actually are.


Consider a daily situation. How often do we sympathize with a begger's life on a red light? We would notice if we ever stopped envying the brand new Audi next to us, and that foolish too probably spent a lot than what he could manage to ignore the begger and prove superior to us. We have nothing to thank our stars for, if we keep looking up and craving for more, that car, that house, that job, or maybe something as contemptibly small as that dress. Life becomes a gift the day we look down, give a hand to the needy, spend time with a widow, give a hand to a disabled or love an orphan.


What am i doing again? Explaining life. How am i experienced enough to do that? Truth be told, in all probabiliy, i know way less than the one reading these lines. But again, there's no single answer to explaining life. We can define it as just the process of being born, and dying out. Where have we lived in all this?


Life was never meant to be taken too seriously. If we started doing that, we would have just taken a shortcut to dying.


This is just an appeal to all of those, including myself, to just take some time off our busy schedule, switch off the computer screen, throw that blackberry on the side table, stop tapping our well kept feet on the floor and wonder out aloud. Didn't the childhood goals give us more happiness than the ones we have today. Doesn't watching the rainbow, playing ball on a windy day, coloring inside the lines or packing a lunch to the park make much more sense than earning more, eating less, sleeping anticipating the face off with the boss the following day?


That's all i am saying.