Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

There's this part in My Big Fat Greek Wedding where the main character, Toula, wants to go to college but she knows that her extremely conservative (Greek) father will frown upon that, as there is no need for a woman to get an education.

Her mother, Maria, tells her not to worry, she will handle it, but Toula is skeptical.

Maria nods, "The man may be the head of the house," she says firmly. "But the woman... she is the neck, and she can turn the head any way she pleases."

Sure enough, the matriarch convinces everyone to act helpless and befuddled enough by the demands of their family businesses that the father -- after some consideration -- finally  throws back his head in triumph and says, "AH HAH! I have it! Toula will go to college and learn the computers!" Problem solved.

It's the classic literary archetype of Eve the Temptress and follows a rich tradition of women manipulating men into doing what they want. In Thackeray's Vanity Fair, Becky Sharp cunningly plays the damsel in distress card often enough to have all her bills paid AND snag an unwitting husband (one she eventually poisons, naturally).

In Edith Wharton's House of Mirth, Lily Bart studies her mark -- the rich but boring Percy Gryce -- and pretends to be captivated by his interests in order to secure a marriage proposal and her continued place in society.

More chillingly, in Steinbeck's East of Eden, Cathy Ames inspires the sentence, "I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents." A true sociopath, Cathy, too, studies her prey and with dexterous emotional manipulation, secures her own safety at the hands of a farmer after being beaten nearly to death by someone else.

Whether for benign purposes like those of Maria Vardalos, socially-sanctioned ones like Lily Bart's, or outright villainy like Becky Sharp's and Cathy Ames', it cannot be denied that women know how to manipulate men.

The question is, Do all women?

There was a time when I was absolutely sure who I wanted to spend my life with. He was someone I'd been friends with and had an on-off relationship with for years. I respected him immensely, but we were on the "off" cycle of our friendship, me having pissed him off, I suppose. I needed us to give things an actual chance, but how to accomplish this when we were barely speaking? I came up with a plan...

Step One: Move to New York for the summer
Step Two: Convince him to go out for a drink "for old time's sake"
Step Three: Ply him with questions about his volunteer work with "The Church" (his Achilles heel was talking/instructing)
Step Four: Do not talk about Self at all; merely listen, nod enthusiastically, and look impressed
Step Five: Wave goodbye airily and wait for eventual call from guy who will obviously leave the situation thinking I am an amazing conversationalist

This worked. One drink stretched into calamari in Bryant Park that lasted 3 hours, 'til the last bus left the island. That led to drinks at the Lamb's Club on the Upper West Side, which led to dinner in TriBeCa, which led to him cooking for me at his place... which eventually led to premarital classes 3 years later and Christmas in Point Pleasant.

I would have married Nick. I loved him. The trouble was, we never grew beyond that initial interaction in Bryant Park where he talked about himself and everything God was accomplishing through him and I listened. I guess I figured that at some point in our relationship, he would start to care about my thoughts and perspectives, that they would matter. But why would they? I had set the relationship on its track during that first drink. It wasn't his fault for believing I would always be content to listen and nod adoringly.

Anyway, that summer I realized that the hubris of men is their downfall and that an intelligent woman can control even the way someone feels about her.

I don't know if the art of reading men is a superpower that only some women have, or if all women possess it and use it to their advantage, but I don't like it. I decided I would not use the superpower anymore. From now on, I would say exactly what I think and feel and want, if anyone asked; straightforward. No coyness, just truth.

There's a certain power in knowing that you are intelligent enough to manipulate someone's feelings and perceptions of you but good enough not to. I would rather someone like me because they recognize my worth, not because I'm smart enough to control what they think of me. Let the chips fall where they may.