Men Are From Mars...

When a colleague unexpectedly received a beautiful bouquet of long-stemmed roses from her husband, the oohs and aahs from the ladies were quite beyond audible, glee and excitement easily and quickly filled the area. It wasn't her birthday, nor was it their anniversary. There was no occasion for the flowers, but a casual simple surprise for her. Isn't that lovely? Well, at least all the ladies agreed and thought so! Compliments flying around the room, with how sweet and thoughtful the husband is, etcetera etcetera. All coming from the ladies, just the ladies. The recipient of the roses was obviously basking in the attention. Any woman would be flattered, with thoughts of how special she is to be given such a pleasant surprise.

However, not to disregard the reactions from the other species, for their deliberate snickers were as unmistakable as the women's chatter. We talk about these men, these creatures so different, whose opinions and way of thinking are so beyond us. The first question that was uttered by the first guy to see the roses was: "What has he done?????" in an exaggerated manner. And other statements followed, such as "He must have done something realllllyyyy bad." or "You better watch out, he's up to something!" Many eyes were rolling. Unbelievable remarks! In no time, these men have come up with gazillions of jokes and out-of-this-world reasons with reference to the flowers, hypothesising (quite wrongly...) on this particular action of the husband. What the heck, I don't know if I should shake my head or laugh, although I kind of couldn't help my amusement of these coconut-brains.

Who could understand men? But in all fairness, who could understand women? While one group sees the aforementioned gesture (of sending little surprises) as positive, one which gives the tingles and fluttery-feelings, the other group views it as bribe, bait, or allurement of some sort. Send a girl flowers at work and she'll be candy-eyes for at least a couple of minutes, she'll love the attention and curiosity from others! Send a guy flowers at work and he'll probably hide under his desk and pretend that it's sent to the wrong person.

Ah! Men! To keep your sanity intact, never endeavour to gain a full understanding or conduct a study. Success is unattainable.

Bridezillas

Some women really go psycho before they get married. That was a statement coming from a friend (whom we shall call M) whose best friend (whom we shall call V) is soon to tie the knot. What M is saying is that her best friend has gone totally mental, and all caused by the impending marriage. And no, we are not talking about wedding jitters, cold feet, or being obsessed with every minute detail of the planning, for these are but normal, oh well... acceptable, especially if it's the woman's first time to get married. Bits and pieces of the story she told me left me dumbfounded with the series of events she had endured.

Being picked as bride's maid or one of the bride's maids to a wedding is an honour. It is exciting and good fun. On the contrary, to M, she'd been through a hell ride, and back. One of the four bride's maids to V, she helped organise a bridal shower and practically oversaw a whole night's event. She bought a cake worth a couple of hundreds of dollars, decorated the party venue, organised food, entertained guests, ran around serving people drinks, while the other three bride's maids seeing that she's doing well, just sat and relaxed. Naturally at the end of the evening, M is exhausted... and came up with a cold. During this time, the bride-to-be rang and asked her to help out in a family gathering (sort of another mini celebration for the upcoming wedding) to which M apologetically refused because she was feeling unwell. It was all cool by the bride... until a few days after when M received a phonecall from her, ranting about how disappointed she was at M for not being there to lend a hand, that she felt she's been let down, and the prolonged outburst of bitter, unreasonable words went on and on. Not happy, furious, that's what M felt. She's just ran around like a slave, putting her body into exhaustion, all unappreciated and in the end still to receive accusation from the friend who picked her as bride's maid. Bride's slave, that sounds more like it.

It's not the end of the saga... for with weddings come dresses, shoes, make up, hotels, etc. Everything translates to expenses. Now, the way I am used to... at least back in Asia, is that the couple getting married would shoulder the cost of the dresses/suits of the wedding entourage. This is a kind of appreciation to them who are gracious to be in the bridal party. Here, it is not the same, what you are to don, you purchase with your own moolah. Now, it may still be reasonable if in such situation, the bride's maids are given some free thinking to choose their own dresses, ofcourse still adhering to the bride's wishes on motif. But to have someone else impose on the style, cut, and the amount of money you yourself have to shell out to be in someone else's wedding entourage, that is a bit over the top. Especially if it's $500 for a dress you probably wouldn't want to ever wear again. Just this Saturday past, I had coffee with M while she pours out her frustration; she just went to pick up and pay for the over $200 shoes she has to wear as a bride's maid. I had a good look at it, and I knew I could get a much nicer pair for less than half the amount (although I just kept these thoughts to myself...)

As if these are not enough, V the bride had also previously suggested to her four bride's maids to book and stay at the hotel where the wedding is going to be held the night prior... so them girls could "bond." And but of course, charged to each individual's credit card. Seriously, this can be screened for Scary Movie: The Wedding. My goodness, I've never imagined anyone to be so inconsiderate. M will definitely be much relieved when this wedding is over and done with. The friendship? I would say that there's already harm done in that department.

Surely, there couldn't be many of these situations... I thought. But nah-ah, apparently it happens fairly often. Another colleague was ranting over lunch about how big a hole in the pocket being bride's maid to her cousin has made. Aside from the "per normal" expensive dresses, shoes, and fee for the salon, the bride held her "hen's night" (bridal shower) up in the Goldcoast (hellloooo, it's more than 2 hours flight from Melbourne!) Air tickets, accommodation, and park tickets shouldered individually. For those who went, the damage was more than $1,400. For my colleague who flatly refused to ridiculously throw away hard-earned money like that, she apparently "offended" her cousin for not participating and wasn't spoken to for weeks.

Classic examples of bridezillas... they're out there!