“I don’t know where to start.”
“Let me help you then, okay?” Yes, let me fuck your head, mister.
“Sure, shoot.”
“Complete the following sentence: A girl is a what being?”
“Complex”, I uttered to him, hoping that that would end his childish games.
“'Complex'?”
“Yes, complex”, I said again, thinking that the word would work its magic soon.
“Explain complex to me.” Oh crap, it backfired! Plan B, Plan B!
“Well, girls are, generally and most of the time, moody and emotionally complicated.”
“I’ve heard something similar to that before from other girls. Go on.”
“They are moody because, well, you have taken biology before, right?”
“Yes.”
“So you know the answer to that already”, I replied, hoping that was that: the end.
“Okay, but do girls know that they are moody when they are moody?”

Suddenly, it struck me hard – this guy was genuinely interested in having a conversation with me. And it was not necessarily about me, but still, he was genuinely looking forward to have this bizarre topic for a conversation. I was a bit disappointed that he showed no interest or desire to know more or less about me, or to let me know more or less about him, but okay, if he wanted to have this conversation, he will have it! He was serious about it and I think it should be just of me to pay the same attention to him.

“Yes and no”, I answered him, without thinking much, and wanting to create an extra controversy so that the conversation would go even more interesting for the both of us.
“How is that true?” He inquired, with his eyebrows drawn close.
“Well, it’s kind of difficult to express in words, but, take me for example…”
“You is good…” he retorted, with a sly smile.
“I only know that I am moody only after I am not moody anymore, you see?”
“But, how do you know that you are not moody anymore?”
“Most of the time, somebody would tell me about it.”
“Like who?”
“Roommates, or girl classmates, or sisters, it depends on where I am.”
“Oh.”
“And then, when I know that I’ve been moody or irrational because of that change of mood, I would reflect on what had happened and sort things out.”
“Give me an example.”
“For example, let us say that I’ve been in a fight with my boyfriend and that I’ve said something to him that was nasty or hurtful or that I did not think thoroughly about before saying – and this was because I had a mood fling, okay?”
“Okay, go on.”
“When everything has cooled down a little, somebody then informs me about what I had said to my boyfriend that was insensitive, and then, if I think that what I had said was not proper or blindly driven by my emotions, then I would go back to him and say that I am sorry for what I said, get it?”
“Okay, but what different is that with us guys being angry and getting ourselves into an argument - but later, realized that what we had done was wrong and then we shake hands?”
“Oh, anger is a whole different issue. It’s not even a hormone thing, remember?”
“But having mood flings is?”
“Yes!” I shouted, almost too close and too loud to his ears.
“God sure is generous to provide you girls with an innate excuse to behave irrationally.”
“Yeah, well, tough luck for you guys, eh?”
“That is not fair, man”, he said, to my disbelief, as if questioning God’s decision. I remember thinking to myself; ‘I’d better change the subject or divert the issue into something else, before he starts to talk about something blasphemous.’
“But, hey, that example about you guys shaking hands after an argument – that is bullshit. That never happens, ever. You guys have egos the size of a mountain each – no way in this world would you guys ever shake hands. That, I am sure about.”

He looked away and sighed a heavy sigh. At that point of time, I sensed that he was a little bit distant about it, not wanting to share his true feelings with me on the matter that reflected his frustration. He looked like he was asking himself, trying to search answers from within. He rubbed his closed eyelids gently, and then moved them over his coarse chin in a swift caress before looking back at me.

“Do you like being a girl?”
“In this culture and time, yes, I like being a girl. We have our perks and privileges.”

He shifted his seating leisurely towards me, nearly facing each other, and drew his face closer to mine.

“Tell me more.”
“Well, for one, we drive guys nuts.”
“You like that?”
“Yes, it is so easy to get what you want if you know how to. Guys are easy prey.”
“Have you done things like that?”
“Oh, a few times or more, I guess. Sometimes, it would be completely unintentional, and sometimes, I like to do it just so I could see what happens.”
“Does beauty play a large role in that?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean – if the girl is a real beauty, that would surely work, but what if she was not such a babe? Would it still work?”
“Like I said, if you know the proper know-how, you’d get anything that you want.”
“I don’t believe that. I think that that would only work for the beautiful ones.”
“Believe me – anything.”
“Anything, you say?"
“Yes, anything that a girl wants, if she knows what to do and how to act, she’ll get it.”
“You sound almost too confident about it.”
“Oh, you should know better, you’re talking to a pro here.” Me, a pro? Hah!
“Well, I just have to trust you on that – you are a very good-looking girl.”
“Thanks”, I replied with a red face, blushing to my own self-appraisal.

He then moved back and to the side of the wall, leaning against it and with his head placed slightly touching the wall – almost in a relaxing manner. He stared at the ceiling and wrapped his two arms around his knees closer.

“Do you believe that there is someone out there, waiting, destined to be your soul mate?”
“Yes, I do believe that there is such a person”, I said.
“How do you think he would be like?”
“He’d be funny, understanding, sensitive and loving – the whole package essentially.”
“You really believe that there is such a person as perfect as that for you?”
“Well, maybe not that perfect, but yeah, the right person is out there.”
“Bullshit – no guys I know are that type”, he answered, with a nasty sneer.
“Maybe not in from your viewpoint, they don’t”, I snapped back at him.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, sometimes girls see things that guys don’t see in other guys.”
“Oh, that explains perfectly why nice girls hook themselves up with jerks.”
“I don’t think it is right to judge people like that, calling them jerks.”
“How do you know? You don’t share an apartment with them, or live with them.”
“And why are you angry at me then?”
“Sorry”, he said, whilst withdrawing his eyes from mine, and looking down.
“Some nice girls like their men to be bad, okay, or a bit rebellious, that’s all.”
“But what’s wrong with a normal guy - a polite, sensitive, respectful normal guy?”
“Well, nothing”, I replied, with a rather high tone.
“A guy who is parent-loving, good with children, ambitious – why?”
“Nothing! It’s just that…”
“Well?”
“It’s just that we girls don’t want to rush in to settle down, okay? We are not in a hurry to commit to a certain someone yet. Maybe that normal guy that you just described is a really good candidate for a husband, the kind that our parents would really loved us to have children with. But…but, we are still young, we want to live life first, okay?”
“Oh, I see, you want to live your youth promiscuously first”, he retorted sarcastically.
“No, you idiot, girls just want to have fun”, I countered angrily.
“Whatever, whatever, suits you”, he said, with his palm stretched across my face.

Slowly, he moved back towards his laid down, dark green jacket and sat near it with his legs stretched far forward and his arms holding back the weight of his body. He seemed to be trying to cool himself down from all that bubbly talk. He breathed a few loud breaths and saddled his chin onto his chest.

“Sorry about that. I get easily stirred up sometimes.”
“That’s okay. Sorry about calling you an idiot.”
“Sure, but answer me this. Since you strongly believe the existence of a right person, doesn’t it bother you that that person might be already taken by someone else? Married perhaps, to another girl who thinks that he is her right one?”
“Hm…come to think of it, yes, but, well, then, doesn’t that tell me that he is not the destined one? That we are not actually meant to be together? Correct?”
“Well, yes, correct. But why not go and find him first, before somebody else does?”
“Well, girls don’t want to be perceived as kind of desperate or horny, chasing a guy like that.”
“So, they are willing to risk losing that right person?”
“No, it’s just that we girls don’t do such thing, we don’t come up to a guy.”
“But why? Why must it be the guy who does all the work?”
“Well, because we girls don’t want to be rejected, of course.”
“And guys want to be rejected?”
“I believe not, but, well, that’s the risk that you have to take.”
“But why only the guys need to take that risk? Why can’t we all have the equality of rejection?”
“Hey, that’s the way things work, okay? I don’t know the why of it, but that’s it.”

I felt bad not being able to give him a satisfactory answer – I just didn’t know how to answer his questions. In fact, his questions still haunt to this moment.

“Don’t girls know that they are seen sexier if they were to walk up to a guy?”
“Guys think so of girls like that?”
“You don’t know?”

To be truthful, it was not that obvious or so much of a secret that guys think girls who are like that are so sexy or attractive. Well, okay, maybe most of the time we don’t realize that, but I think most girls know that. But the way that he put it into context made me think more about how I see the way this world of boys and girls work. And the knowledge that even a guy knows more about girls than a girl really changed the way that I see guys as a whole, and not just as the bothersome opposite sex.

“When is your chemistry test again?”
“Oh, shit!”

To be frank, I hardly knew him then and I only learned a tad more about him after that. In fact, I think that that was the first and only time ever that we talked to each other. But so much have I learned about myself as a girl from that short talk, and so much more about boys and girls in general. I still found it difficult and unbelievable that I learned all that from a guy the other girls call “a weird child”.

‘Weird’ because, well, he behaves in a manner that no one fully understands its rationale. His open hatred for girls his age, his refusal to talk to girls in public, his annoying principal of not saying hi to other people when meeting on the streets, and his show of lack of interest in making friends and being a gentleman are just to name a few. And a ‘child’ simply because he is so innocent-looking and so quiet and harmless that you just can’t help yourself from feeling a little bit of pity for him for his creepy behavior.

But with all his knowledge of girls, he really does live his life behind a screen glass.