So I was watching this David Attenborough documentary about elephants. Turns out, herds of elephants are all female. The bull elephant wanders alone until mating season, when he must find a herd to couple with. Often two bulls will compete for mating rights to the same herd, which means they will fight it out in tusk-to-tusk combat across the savannah while the females watch on. If they’re evenly matched, the fight can last up to 18hrs and result in death for the loser.
However, that’s not the end of the story. The victor must then choose the female he wants, but before he can mount her, he must chase her. Only if he catches her can he mate with her. So, despite the fact that he’s just fought an 18 hour EPIC BATTLE, he’s still gotta chase her to get her.
In the olden days, men fought duels and jousts, solved impossible riddles, performed feats of prowess and bravery in order to win the hand of the woman they love. But note: they always chose the girl first. The feats, the solving, the bravery came after they decided which girl they wanted.
Today, men have none of those requirements in order to win the heart of their one true love. And so women have to invent the obstacles. Why? Because fundamentally, we all want to be chosen.
In the final season of Sex and the City, Carrie says to Big, “Tell me it’s me. Tell me that I’m the one you choose,” to which Big replies, “Carrie...I can’t.” So Carrie flees to Paris with Petrovsky, until Big comes to rescue her. He stands on a bridge in the middle of Paris and he says, “Carrie, you’re the one I want. I choose you.”
Those are the words that every woman wants to hear. And because there are often no obstacles to winning us, no duels to fight, no riddles to solve and rarely are there Parisian bridges to cross, we are forced to create the duels. We start fights that we know are ridiculous. We play hard to get, we don’t answer phone calls, we are purposely difficult. We want you to show us that we’re worth it. We want to be CHOSEN. We need to be chosen. And so, every time a woman picks a fight for no apparent reason (none that’s apparent to men at least), you know why. It’s because what we really want him to say is, “I know you’re difficult, I know it’s sometimes hard, but I choose you. It’s you I want.”
We all want a Man On A Bridge. It’s Elephant Theory.
Hey Urban Detective, love the blog! Very interesting the Elephant Theory. I'm trying to go back to my first few months with my girlfriend and wonder whether she was trying to be difficult. I don't think she was though. She also doesn't start fights for no apparent reason. I definitely wasn't the man on the bridge but i did let it be known that i chose her!
ReplyDeleteHey Wedge! If you chose her, then you WERE the man on the bridge. Also, if she's still with you, you must be doing something right! :-)
ReplyDeleteThis is beautifully written, Sari. Of course you are confronting a man's inability to make a decision or to commit at the same time. Maybe it's why male elephants spend most of their time alone ;)
ReplyDeleteOh and I have no idea why Typepad did that to my OpenID.
ReplyDeleteOh, splendid observation about the Elephant theory, and I think it is more interesting yet;
ReplyDeleteTo my experience being proclaimed "the chosen" is seldom enough. There are, I am sure, many girls who dream of nothing else than finding mr right and then living happily ever after, content. There are, I assure you, at least as many guys who dream the same dream. That being said, one can also observe a tendency of humans, female as well as male, to after being chosen, chased down and proclaimed the love and choice of the chaser, to not be content.
I might be getting a bit cynical, but there is a reason why people are gaming eachother (this goes both ways). I have yet to meet someone who lets the Elephant male catch her after he has won the right to chase. Instead she will keep running (perhaps mostly subconsiously) until the male becomes fed up and lose interest. Then, and only then you are right about your point about wanting to be the one, the chosen. Carie doesn't crave Big because he is the perfect guy or because he is the victorious Elephant male, or even because she loves him. She craves him because she can't have him.
This then is a direct parallel to the Green Grass metaphore. I would argue that it is not so much the greener grass that creates the urge to jump the fence, it is the existance of the fence itself. What you can't have, you crave. And in the case of my observations, the people being offered the grass usually know intellectually that the grass is not greener on the other side.
So, my question becomes this; why is it that human choice, attraction and urge has been so tighly connected to refusal that we look for, are attracted to, or even create, objections, strange expectations, boundaries, fences, selection criteria?
Give me an individual who knows what she wants from her Elephant male, and who stands true to that knowledge from heart to mind to love to urges and attraction, and I'll salute her enlightenment.