Micky Barnes is ubiquitous. You see him everywhere….in the balcony across the street when you are drying your clothes on the cloth line, in a local train offering you a seat even if there are a few empty ones available or smiling gleefully at you near the coffee vending machine kept in a corner in your office. The only prerequisite for him to be visible is that he has to be married and you have to be a female.!!
Micky Barnes has had his share of problems in his life already. As a teenager, he had to gulp down the fact that he wasn’t the apple of the eye of those curious, giggly mini-skirted creatures in his school (if he was then worse still as we will discover later), he was cognizant that his father won’t leave him a legacy to doze upon for the rest of his life and was thus edgy throughout his puberty not to watch too much porn lest he should fail in the exams and might have to serve as a clerk in a PSU for the rest of his life. He then had to get into the college where the haunting you-look-like-a nice-guy curse never left him. Then he had to get a job which left his shoe rack piled up with peep-through-my-sole (pun intended) kind of shoes.
Hufff…..and after all these hardships that he endured with his mouth sewed, finally the day came when he got married. Now you can’t undermine all what he has achieved in his life after so much of toiling– ‘coz he has a wife you would envy him for. She is like an angel from the heavens whom you would kill for to touch once – heartbreakingly gorgeous and unbelievably sensuous. Now what are you looking at….close your eyes you shameless voyeur, Micky and his wife are having their honeymoon. !! God, I wish they would live happily ever after….CUT……..
…CUT….(3 years have passed) .
MB : ”Honey! You know Ms. Kapoor who moved in this Sunday in the next building, I bumped into her yesterday and she looked very tired from that shifting and stuff. We should go and give her a helping hand”. *[I need to see her again…she has such big…]
Wife:”What is her boyfriend there for….I saw her with him today”*[I know what you are upto Mr….grrrr…whoof whoof!!]
MB:”Oh..I didn’t know she had a boyfriend.* [Damn I thought she was available…she talked so invitingly to me…but what the heck…!!]But I think we should still pay a visit…as a courtesy call”
I think you recognize him now. Yeah! He is the Micky Barnes as we all know. You must have at least dozen and a half in your society. I got curious and decided to ask him once –
ME: “Micky how do you guys maintain your numbers…means men your kind have been around since the days of Mr. Adam and you just seem to be increasing all the time”.
MB:”Buddy…there are no various kinds of men…there is only one kind - and that is my kind”
I gave him a sheepish smile…I didn’t need to ask that question in the first place.
ME: “So how does this work…what is that thing that a female does to get on your mind?”
MB:”Nothing much I guess! She just has to show up!”
There it was.. the whole truth right in my face, as straight as it could get. Not that I didn’t know it before (being on the same side of the human species) :-). So what is it with men? Why do they have to imagine every hot damsel that passes by in her undergarments (or even without it)? Why is it that their wives are the last one their list when they want to make out?
Well to start with - it’s their hormones. If you as a wife haven’t still noticed your hubby giving any hot chic on the road an eye-full then you can be sure that either your guy is suffering from some psychosomatic sexual dysfunction or your observation power is not all that good. But you can take heart from the fact that though Mickey(s) are always thinking about other women, they are highly unlikely to go the distance.! The reasons for that being: 1) Its not possible to make out with every woman they think about …:-) and 2) (this one is serious)…they still love their wives the most in the world.!! (I see some raised eye brows already) Often the men who commit adultery are very much in love with their wives. No…if any women activists are around I would like to clarify that I am not defending any of this behavior, no use actually. But it’s a fact that most men view sex and love as two different things. It’s easier for them to reach out even for mindless, casual sex just to satiate their lust. While women find it hard not to get emotionally involved with the one they are sleeping with.
But this is not the issue I want to explore about. I want to know (and this is for both men and women) that does thinking about a person outside of one’s marriage qualify for infidelity or adultery? Does the mere fantasy of imagining oneself in someone else’s arms make you unfaithful? Or is it the actual physical act that you would term as forbidden. After all...How Much Is Too much?. I am sure you have something to say about it.
I personally believe that if we start calling people unfaithful at the very thought of someone else then I fear we won’t have any so called ’’faithful’’ people left on the planet...because no matter how deeply you are in love with your partner, there are times when you do think about another man/woman. Often its a fleeting thought when you meet an interesting stranger, you shrug it after a while and move on with you life. You do not have too much control over your thoughts. But committing the physical act is a very advanced step and it is something which you could have controlled. That’s where I believe the line of ’’Too Much’’ lies which should never be crossed.
And do you know…Mickey Barnes has just rushed out to get his wife a diamond ring. It’s her B’day today.
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PS :* Micky Barnes is the name of the character played by Mike Binder in the critically acclaimed series produced for HBO – “The Mind of The Married Man’’
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