Of men, valentines and feminism

Prequel: my friend Anna is studying for a master. I already admired her a lot when she got back to study, but now I admire her even more because she went back to study AGAIN, while working, and this takes a back spine in adamantium (yes, like Wolverine) that I don’t have, so she’s like my personal super hero.
Anyway, this master of hers has some perks: we’ve started this tradition of friday-master dinners, aka she comes home late and, with Chiara that drives us around (thanx!!!), we go at a restaurant to have a girls night out.

minion wolverine

This also meant this phonecall I had: I was calling the japanese restaurant we chose for our third friday
“Hello, I’d like to make a reservation for friday night”
“St Valentine’s?”
Shoot! Friday is St Valentine’s! But I don’t care! I have to go out with my friends, so no, it’s not for St Valentine’s, but yes I do realize that that friday is St Valentinte’s but I don’t want to get caught in one of those overpriced and cliches menu, I just want some good, old (possibly salmon) sushi, with my friends…
“No, we’re three” (wow, such logic, much smart, so intelligence…)
“…well, yes, but… Ok, friday the 14th” (thanx, you got it!) “We have two shifts, 19.30 or 21.30”
Dang you, master… “21.30”

Friday night comes, 21.30 comes (I nibbled three peanuts, Chiara two chips her son kindly offered, Anna was high on the sacred fire of studying or whatever).
Seventh circle of hell.
Of course.

wolverine burton

Though, despite the panic (and the shameless need for red rose petals on our tablecloth, as otherwise seen on other tables…) the evening went well.
Between minuscule tables with loving couples and big tables with family and friends (celebrating St Valentine’s the british way: a day to celebrate all kinds of love and affection) or tables with girls only, clearly out to get reveng on this commercial “holiday”.

But we’re good at people watching, and we spotted different social dynamics going on, between the tables, and we started talking, not about the people around us, we didn’t know them and sure we can’t judge, we would never, instead we ended up talking about general “archetypes” for men and women: the alpha male and the bitch lady (this not being a greek letter) and so on and so forth.

superheros

From left to right: Chiara, who knits like a boss; Anna, for the aforementioned adamantium; and then there’s me… let’s say that the light is me blogging on my laptop 😉

Some of the things we discussed we had already talked about, other times, I chewed on them for a long time, I fed the topics when randomly listening to strangers passing by… and now I’m ready to write you two full posts, so I’m here to tell you what’s up and coming.

So don’t tell I didn’t think about you during St Valentine’s!!!

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3 thoughts on “Of men, valentines and feminism

  1. Lanterna

    Anche a me Anna appare con la spina dorsale di adamantio!!!!
    Proprio oggi con le mie colleghe parlavamo di una signora russa che si è rimessa a studiare (medicina, mica ca$$i) alla bella età di 40 anni, perché la sua laurea sovietica non è riconosciuta in Italia. E io l’ammiro come ammiro Anna: l’idea di rimettermi a studiare, qualsiasi cosa, mi sembra ancora meno attraente del pulire il bagno.

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