Power and emotion
Are you a K-drama watcher? If not, let’s get you initiated a little today, ok?
I caught the K-bug late last year when I was winding down my business. I started with crash-landing on you, it was good. Then I watched a few more romantic shows, and I realised the plots are more or less the same (if you vehemently disagree with this, it’s ok, we can all co-exist).
As I see it, there’s a relatable female character, well educated, successful career, etc. and the male character is the epitome of a 30+ woman’s fantasy, married or not. He’s handsome, successful, wealthy, holds high status in society or some such proxy for power but highly emotionally unavailable.
But that’s not a problem, our woman fixes the dude by the end of the show, where he magically transforms into a highly desirable man who is also emotionally fully available for his woman. This deadly combo makes it highly addictive. I mean, which woman wouldn’t like the plot - you get the best dude on Earth, and you also manage to “change him” to make him even better. Come on.
But it also got me thinking about why powerful men, although emotionally unavailable are desirable (which I’ll write about today) and why the need to change a man is so compulsive in women (which I’ve vaguely written about before, but I should mull over this more some other day)
Power
I’d like to introduce you to a concept I’d like to call “the power quotient”. This is not a universal metric like the IQ where you have standardised tests to ascertain someone’s IQ. Power can have many different proxies - education, wealth, physical strength, social status, political connections, what have you.
If you’re a man with high PQ, you’re desirable in some section of the society which values the precise proxy for power you hold. You’re desirable only because of social conditioning. Since you’re desirable, you’ve no incentive to be emotionally available. In fact, you are emotionally unavailable, thanks to social conditioning.
Social Conditioning
A decade ago, when I was learning Japanese, I learnt something fascinating. The kanji for a man in Japanese is a stick figure next to a paddy field and a woman is a stick figure wearing a kimono. Does this symbolise strength/ power for men and beauty/ modesty for women? I don’t know. You go interpret this the way you want.
I wonder if this society believes there are certain features (whatever they may be) inherent to men and women, and a lack there of is a question on gender identity. If you think about it, traditional India is not dissimilar. Whether inherent not, men are conditioned to not emote, instead “show strength”.
Men are conditioned to not emote. As a result, traditionally, we’ve seen emotional quotient as a sign of weakness in men. Show of power in the marriage market has been modus operandi for ages (Rama deadlifting for Sita). Physical strength may have been replaced by intellectual/ professional or social prowess, but I hate to admit - men and women are yet to fully break free from social baggage.
But I hear the world is changing
As a society, we’re apparently making space for men and women to emote freely, show strength, be beautiful without having to be modest and thank god for that. At least, I hear it’s happening in America, and it shouldn’t take too long for India to import this culture, as we always do. But are we there yet? No, but I hope we’ll get there.
Anger used to be a trademark emotion for men, because that was the only one they were allowed to display. But for Gen Zs, a man who can’t regulate his emotions is a massive turn off. Rex Woodbury argues that Gen-Zs are much more concerned about having the ability to manage their emotions rather than having to hide them.
Managing Emotions
Traditionally, people used to place the burden of managing their emotions on their partners, by default. You feel down, somehow it’s your wife/ husband’s responsibility to cheer you up. But today, you’d be called demanding/ unreasonable if you did. Couples discuss managing finances just as much as managing emotions.
Trying to extort happiness from a partner is a recipe for disaster in modern marriages. While you build a life together, you’re still responsible for your own happiness. If your partner shares your joys or sorrows, that’s an add-on, not a responsibility, contrary to what we’ve been told for ages. Couples who fail to establish these personal boundaries upfront set themselves up for failure today.
Then you ask, what’s the use of marriage?
Several - the state declares legitimacy for your relationship, provides legal status for the father/ mother of your children, provides you with a sense of security that you won’t die alone like that spinster uncle/ aunt in your family and so on.
Having the talk
If you want to break the ice of topics like managing emotions with someone you’ve just started seeing, it’s always a good idea to understand what makes them happy, what makes them sad and how they deal with it. In fact, if you’re dealing with a very specific situation with your date/ partner that’s making you wonder how you’d cope with disagreements in the future, that’s fresh fodder for experimentation. So don’t be scared to explore.
It’s important to explore and understand before you choose to dive in or not. People with neurological disabilities, disorders and mental health issues are able to navigate relationships quite well, and so are their partners. But it’s an informed choice, and it comes with its own set of curated boundaries, although they may look drastically different from those of couples without these issues. And it’s okay.
Again, if not for social conditioning, we’d all have far less trouble accepting our varied personal/ relationship journeys. Don’t you think?
More from Shapely Gal
Blind Testing - I did another round of this last weekend with a bunch of 30-35 year olds. Most of this group was much more in the marriage market than in the casual dating market. I felt absolutely serene at the end of this, I wonder if it’s because the older you get the wiser you are. Someone asked me what I learnt from the experiment, but I think these experiments are much less for me and more for the people who participate in them and what they learn about themselves. It’s really just a moment to collectively pause, and widen our perspective to dating. When we’re on one of these dating apps, we get conditioned to see people as pictures, bullet points and as speed bumps on the road to meeting our soulmates.
P.S. - Women who’ve broken free from the shackles of social conditioning are far more turned on by a man who is in touch with his emotions, than not.