One would think that our very idea of romance is hinged on the customer service culture. Always say ‘yes’ to the patron — in this case, the man. If you don’t, he will wait with a boombox right under your window and then slide in late at night only to watch you sleep with cute concern.
That is, when he is not sliding into your DMs.
The ‘no’ shall be waited upon with predatory cues till it translates into a ‘yes’. Women aren’t at liberty to decline a man’s painstakingly-crafted chase. “It’s adorable!” an entire gamut of toxic pop-culture references will coax you into believing.
Take The Notebook, for example. It is a complete creep-coaster. There, I said it.
Noah practically begs Allie to go out with him and pulls the most self-serving, entitled stunt ever — threatens to let go of the Ferris wheel he’s dangling from, if she doesn’t say yes! Giant red-herring.
Then, in Raanjhanaa, Kundan slashes his wrists — surely to placate the man-child in him — when Zoya tells him that she loves someone else.
Let’s not forget Snape’s so-called ‘love’ for Lily in the Harry Potter series. It is a much celebrated one, and, for the most part, it is what redeems him in the eyes of most readers. It is slightly disarming how this ‘love’ is completely one-sided — right from slurs like ‘mudblood’ to tear-jerkers like ‘always’.
Of course, pop culture only serves to magnify the reflexivity between art and society. Especially when commercialised mayhems like Valentine’s Day and the like are egging us all on to ‘win her over’, no matter what.
When an entire baby-just-say-yes culture is glorifying and softening wolfish behaviour, where a happy ending is one where the woman gives in, what we’re left with is this:
As mentioned, the photographs of the girl in question were allegedly circulated on a Facebook group — all in the name of ‘love’, at first sight, no less.
It is 2019 and wallowing in self-pity is still a thing, especially when spurned by a woman. This immediately metamorphoses a man into a tragic hero with a poetic aftertaste.
What’s better than a huge, bloated, and romanticised ‘NO’?
Maybe a bonfire where we burn all such literary matter.
The misread sub-text that this ‘no’ comes with must be done away with at all costs. When a woman says ‘no’, leave her alone, for ‘love’s’ sake.
It is not a twisted message to cajole her into submission. That’s stalking and harassment, punishable by law under Section 354D of the Indian Penal Code.
Recently, journalist Rituparna Chatterjee shared screenshots of an excerpted conversation between her and a Twitter user:
In 2018, comedian Aziz Ansari faced serious allegations of sexual harassment. The episode was a clear indication that men and women view ‘consent’ rather differently.
When the survivor spoke up, her account was diluted by Ansari’s — “The date was, by all indications, completely consensual.”
I am afraid that our concept of ‘love’ was perhaps never a stand-alone dynamic based on mutual consent, but one that relies on making the first move the man’s prerogative to an extent that transgression of boundaries are packaged into the ‘chase’ that must not be slighted.
The distinction between professing and learning to take ‘no’ for an answer and professing and blindly dogging the woman’s footsteps despite a ‘no’ needs to start from the very beginning. Maybe our fairytales need more princes bowing out gracefully when the princesses don’t give a fig.
We need to teach our boys not to harass and our girls not to submit.
We don’t need happy endings, we need love, that started off with consent.
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love,
Which alters when it alteration finds... ”
That was Shakespeare. When our classic canons have excerpts that could be misread, viewing ‘love’ as a coy chase with or without consent, we surely need to take a step back.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)