Homework 09-15-2010

In the world right now, there are six trillion, eight hundred seventy-one billion, three hundred ninety six thousand, three hundred and ninety five people in the world right now. These people are either men or they are women. We have deal with the opposite sex pretty much the day we are born. When we get to kindergarten, we are taught by the “rules” of the playground that boys are nasty and girls have cooties. We would say whatever was on our mind. So if a boy thought a girl was “icky” because she was a girl, we said it and vice versa. However, as we grow older, women and men start hanging out together. We do this because one of us wants to start a relationship with someone of the opposite sex. Sometimes we just want to gain a friend to be there for us when hardships come by.
When I was in 11th grade, I met this girl. Her name was Wendy. She was someone I wanted to be friends with and more. I met her in my Mandarin class and that was probably the first time where I didn’t think she was just another pretty girl. We got to be really close and somewhat I was a brother to her. She would tell me what would be going on in her life, I would do the same. We would go after school and just eat dumplings and beef pancakes sandwiches, just talking about whatever. We would talk about school, friends, family, society and our beliefs. However, I wanted more. I wanted to be more than a friend to her.
It was a spring day, when I asked her out. She said no. I was heartbroken; she said I was like a brother to her. The word no guy ever wants to hear from a girl he has feelings for. I learned a lot about that day about gender norms. One was that, guys and girls are not too different actually. We may have different physical features and our stereotypical norms but we act and behavior similarly. Women and men, they hide their feelings. We hide them deep inside where we cannot get burn. Those feelings might be towards the people we love, hate or people we don’t even know. We hide them so people do not end up like me after Wendy said no. We don’t say what we think anymore because we care too much about what people think and the fear of getting yourself embarrassed. We all tell our specific gender groups about our problems and the people we have “feelings”; but never the opposite sex.
That day I also learned something about men; we play an act. We believe that we can get any girl but we are just as emotional and vulnerable as women. When we find someone, who we think can make us fly and do the things we could never do on our own, we risk it all for them. We risk our dignity, confidence and spend our energy on that person. However, when we finally take the plunge and ask a girl to start a relationship, it can end up like basketball. We can hit a perfect shot in or the ball fall up short.