Mr. Per(Fict)

Recently I read Ramayana (the abridged version by C.Rajagopalachari) and Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, two books which couldn’t be more different to one another. Rama is such a beautifully etched character. Every person loves Rama as their hero. I would say, compare it to Edward Cullen. Both were awe-inspiring to me, but both two different characters, one a God and the other, a vampire. I found a serene mysterious beauty in them.

So that makes me think, why do women fall for men in literature, fiction, movies and plays. What makes them so appealing? So exciting? The reason is that they are not like the men we encounter in real life, who according to me, have at least one major ‘Tragic flaw’ (originally used in Julius Caesar, work of Shakespeare, meaning, a flaw in the character of the protagonist of a tragedy that brings the protagonist to ruin or sorrow) that overshadows all other qualities. We see a guy, fall for him, then comes the getting to know each other part. That is the time we get to know, “hey this dude is quite different from what I thought he would be like!”/ “what I fell for in the first place is not as appealing as I thought”. We still make-do and move on, liking and relishing the differentness, somewhere within, even accepting it.

Then later, in most cases, after considerable time, the guy unleashes his ‘tragic flaw’, which catches you off guard and makes you miserable. Anything that is very hard to accept at that stage, qualifies as a tragic flaw. Something you have not paid attention to earlier perhaps, but has always been there. And of course, all guys have one. Talks with friends, reading extensively have revealed certain traits, for example, some could be compulsive liars (these guys would lie extravagantly like there’s no tomorrow), some brag endlessly, some are too fake (read wannabes), some penny pinchers, some with funny ‘engliss’, some don’t know how to treat girls, some are addicts (could be anything), some hide an inferiority complex that consumes him whole..phew..the list would never end.

Every guy possesses one or more of these traits in different combinations. The basic fact is that at some point in time, any of this, to a girl, does become a problem. That is when a girls heart squeaks, “Maybe he is not the right one..” As to a girl who has grown up reading about Rama, Prince Charming, Darcy, Peter Parker, Edward Cullen, the standards for the perfect guy are set too high. It’s best we stay happy with a few qualities out of the skill set, a subset. But is there actually something as the Perfect man? A myth in all probability.