Why Cypriot men keep mum
WHEN a colleague walked into the office the other day, I noticed that her usually bright and cheerful countenance seemed to be cast over with an unfamiliar gloom.
I initially put it down to post-holiday blues, but further exposure to my usually charming colleague’s blue funk suggested that it was more than post-holiday blues that was putting a damper on her mood. When at one point we got to discussing the options to the UNIX kill command, all was revealed.
“I wish there was an option like ‘kill all Cypriot men’,” she moaned.
“Ah,” I said. “Finally the reason for the long face and short fuse is revealed.”
“I wish you wouldn’t be so sarcastic,” she retorted.
“Whoa,” I said, “hold your fire, young lady. I am certainly not being sarcastic. I am merely suggesting that what you see as the source of all your woes may actually be a good laugh, if you only look at it from the proper perspective.”
“Cypriot men couldn’t be funny if their pathetic, sad lives depended on it,” she protested.
“On the contrary, my dear,” I said. “We Cypriot men can’t help but be hilariously funny.”
“Oh, please,” she said. “The average Cypriot male’s sense of humour would be laughable if it wasn’t so sad.”
“I’m not talking about our sense of humour,” I clarified. “How can you help but be amused by a guy who spends three hours in a gym every day, and pays handsomely for the privilege, in order to build muscle with the prime objective of looking macho? Having pumped enough iron to sink a cruiser, macho man then goes off for dinner at his mum’s.”
She brightened considerably. “It’s ridiculous how attached these guys are to their mums,” she said. “Do they never grow up?”
“They would if they could,” I said. “But you have to see things from their point of view. The average Cypriot guy’s mum can put him on a bigger guilt trip with a single tear-jerking phone call than ten wronged ex-girlfriends could by committing mass ritual suicide. After all, ex-girlfriend has a choice; when all is said and done, she can go off and find another suck…. er, boyfriend. But mummy has no choice, she only has but one son and she only wants him to be happy. She only wants what’s good for him. So she only calls him twice or three times a day to make sure he’s properly fed, hasn’t managed to kill himself with his reckless driving, and isn’t squandering himself on women unworthy of him. Voiced appropriately, this can induce guilt to the point of complete sexual impotence.”
She laughed. “I never thought of it that way,” she said. “I thought they were simply spoilt rotten, used as they are to being treated like kings by their mums.”
“Then there’s the question of their buddies,” I baited her.
“Oh God,” she pleaded. “They go on and on about how madly they’re in love with you, then you fail the buddy test and that’s it — you don’t get a second glance, let alone a second chance.”
“Again you’re failing to see the humour in it. If the buddies like the girl, that is, if she’s better looking than their girlfriends, they’re going to do their level best to make sure they undermine her. If they happen to feel she’s not up to scratch, they’re going to make sure he knows. It’s all in the male culture of asserting your position in the hierarchy. According to this world-theory, the only way a guy would feel secure was if his girlfriend was so drop-dead gorgeous that she caused road accidents, stopped conversations, and destroyed relationships by her mere presence. However, the system collapses of its own weight because that guy would then be too insecure because of her.”
“Where’s the humour in that?” she said. “It’s downright pathetic.”
“It’s hilarious,” I said. “Everyone seems to be concerned with nothing else, yet everything they do is directed towards making sure no-one is ever satisfied. It’s a great laugh.”
“Yes, but the joke wears thin after a while. What do we do to end this misery?”
“You can start laughing at it to begin with,” I suggested. The phone rang. Checking the number that appeared on the display, I excused myself. “I’d love to continue this conversation later, but right now I’ve got to answer the phone.
“Hello, mum. I’m fine. How are you? Yes, I’ve had lunch…”
