A Little Less Conversation

Women: It’s time to put the volume firmly on ‘mute’...

Tonight, eighteen million people across the planet will be making sex eyes at each other. One can only hope that this will be cumulative rather than collective.

In most aspects, women are (and deserve to be treated as) entirely equal to men. Anything men can do, women can do in a similarly rubbish manner. But, (with the exception of pacemakers) when it comes to matters of the heart, women behave in incomprehensively daft ways. I know this because contrary to popular opinion, I am in fact a woman and have been so for several years. I’ve seen women on the telly, read about them in books AND cohabited with them. I’d consider myself to be somewhat of an authority on women and their ludicrous antics.

Somewhere deep in the XX chromosome lurks a dark and deviant creature hell-bent on turning the most rational, effervescent display of womankind into a neurotic harridan. This evil sprite only feels the need to surface when its host body is accompanied by other females. I blame Sex and the City. Its shadow has loomed over women of my age throughout adolescence and deep into adulthood, sending out the message that it’s perfectly normal for gaggles of females to sit in cafes and discuss their conquests in excruciatingly raucous voices. It’s NOT acceptable. Yesterday I was in that last bastion of femininity, The Changing Room, when two women were loudly regaling a tale involving fellatio and an unspeakably daft prop. It baffles me that females feel the need to talk endlessly about their relationships, regardless of sexual orientation or marital status. Sometimes I think they should just pipe down.

Some of my single friends vocalise every pathetic aspect of their lives to anyone who is unfortnate enough to be with in earshot. They spend so long hypothesising the reasons for their abject loneliness and frequent solitaire-playing that they fail to notice anyone remotely eligible and therefore will remain alone for the rest of eternity. These women ignored the chain e-mails that told them they’d be unlucky in love forever unless they forwarded them to ten people before midnight. These women believe that the God of the Internet is punishing them for this very oversight. These women trust the horoscopes in the Sunday supplements. You’ve probably encountered at least one of these women.

Other women are very single and very predatory. They find that the length of the queue in the bank is directly proportional to how may people they’ll cop off with in any given month. They spend time pondering which colour combinations and shoes will make them seem more alluring. Once they do find themselves entangled in the sinewy arms of another, they inform their friends of every nano-speck of the previous night’s shenanigans. Although I’m partial to the occasional salacious titbit, I really don’t care if so-and-so touched your inner thigh at 11.45pm. The only time I’d be interested in hearing detailed accounts of base-conquering would be if one of my friends had attempted to climb Everest AND simultaneously copulate with members of Ace of Base.

Coupled women are infinitely worse. Not only do they spoil the view at gigs putting their hands in their loved-one’s back pocket at gigs and rubbing their bottom, they also continue to dissect things that simply require no discussion. Just because he normally texts you six times per day and only text you five times yesterday does NOT mean that he is having an affair with the only vaguely humanoid girl in his office, period.

It may well be Good to Talk, but perhaps we should take a leaf out of the Man Book and fashion ourselves into emotional mutes. The fact is that talking to your mates ISN’T going to make Barry from the Morrison’s cigarette counter fancy you. I propose that the purported paranoid streak in the female psyche is a result of too much discussion and not enough deep breathing. I’m off to put some heavy-duty duct tape over my mouth and buck the trend. And let’s face it; Carrie Bradshaw was a massive slag.