When our next topic was to be culture, I wanted to die right away. I had originally thought that I would never have to set eye, nor ear over this blatantly vague topic. I had originally thought about the developing ‘new’ culture of Jejemons, but I get annoyed at the thought of it—therefore this entry will be Jeje free.
I had experienced culture shock. I have seen the fine line between friends and ‘best’ friends, boys and girls, barkada and other barkada. Culture doesn’t mean a limit to a country’s practice; it could mean a lot of things like culture as a tradition, practice, pattern or way of living. Looking at culture through a magnifying glass, could make the usual dull and boring topic into a lively one. For example, a girl’s reason to talk is different from a guy’s reason to talk. Nothing in society is exactly the same, and separating the traits that Filipino (or not) girls could inherit is something intriguing for me discuss.
Let’s start off with a scene:
Gurl: What’s wrong?
Girl: (sighs) Nothing, I’m fine.
BAM! Aren’t we all used to that answer? To the scene that chokes on lies? To that overly used answer that never really means what it says. All too often.
A natural pattern that girls have (well most of them) is the ‘it’s alright, I’m fine’ complex when the question ‘what’s wrong?’ arises. It’s only second nature for us to clarify to others that we are strong—and the weak part showing is just an illusion. Shoving to our minds that saying ‘yes’ would mean being an attention whore. So without thinking, we say ‘No, it’s alright. I’m fine,’ or commonly heard as ‘hindi, okay lang ako’ hand in hand with the grimace and the dark aura.
Personally I think this kind of mindset is ridiculous. No one in their right mind would believe that sorry excuse for a denial. But we say it anyway. It isn’t for the ‘I’m strong’ act, believe me I know, neither is it for the ‘leave me alone’. Actually, it’s the complete opposite of it, girls (like me) say ‘I’m fine’ either because they’re too lazy to explain, or want to test the sincerity (and attention) of the asker. Girls want nothing more than the complete attention of a person when she’s troubled and sharing her load.
There are a million mindsets that get into people; crab mentality, false-strength and hate-love-hate complex, but mindsets exist for a reason and whether it connotes a defensive mechanism is mystery. Us girls would like to think that having a strong façade helps us forget the pain or misery, but if analyzed further and looked at closer it was all just a cry for help. A shy yelp that we hope and pray that our friends would get the message; that all we are is broken and fixing ourselves seems to elude us.
It’s easy to misunderstand, and a lot harder to understand. Girls would do things that are confusing; mental games that mess with other’s thoughts, but to them solving just one of those puzzle would mean everything. It’s endearing, albeit weird that how it is. Behavior-wise, society would say it’s normal; Guys would say it’s annoying, frustrating and normal, and girls would shrug and shake it off with grin, saying: “What?” with their most innocent voice.
April Santiago
C31/ ENGLCOM
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