Man is a Social ANIMAL

Some nutty philosopher of yore, in a constipated moment of madness, famously declared, “Man is a social animal!” and went on to be profusely quoted, misquoted and over-quoted across all literary texts that cater to the young pre-teen student. The nutty philosopher did try to make amends by claiming that the focus of the sentence was on the word ‘social’ but the damage had been done and feminist groups of the ancient world pounced upon the last word of the now infamous quote and proceeded to poison the minds of all women to come.

“All you guys are animals”, declared a friend of mine making it the millionth time that her sex had conveyed such sentiments to ours.

To lend the statement some perspective, she was had visited my heavenly abode once and was mapping it to a pig sty when her husband intervened and emoted he also lived like me till she came and spoiled it all for good. She had hence concluded that half the human race had missed out on the process of evolution at some point of time and was very, very animal to this day.

“What animal?” I asked just to give it a humorous touch her judgment.
“YOU?! You’re a pig!”

We broke off from the discussion on a pronounced resignatory note. This pig thing from womankind was getting all of mankind down by now... and thinking I am leading from front...its just not Kind.

I decided to get alternate opinions on this.

I asked another woman who always seemed to have something to say about men and never a nice word at that.

“You guys are dogs! Pigs would be too cute and cuddly a way of describing you. You all are just bloody dogs!”

I wasn’t convinced and I ended up thinking loudly“Dogs, eh? I’ll take that as a bitch’s perspective!”
“Excuse me?” she didn’t like hearing my inner voice.

I can still see, which is testimony to my ability to make a timely escape if the situation so demands. I decided I’d talk to someone older and more mature. A friend of mine happily married and well into her late thirties seemed to be the ideal candidate.

“Men? I can only talk of my husband. He’s my world, you know!” she said, all doting.

I remarked that while it would not be the most representative of samples nor would she be the most unbiased of respondents, we would have to do with it for the time being.

“Animal? He’s a boar at times!” she said and chuckled.

“That’s like a pig but wilder...a hog you mean?” I asked, taking notes.

“Oh no! I meant he can be boring. You know… bore, boar! You get the connection?” She chuckled again. “Anyway, he’s a deer, my dear husband is!” she said and started laughing again.

Her phonetic puns were bringing me down.

“Ah! So I think you mean he’s horny!” I concluded, still studiously taking notes.

She seemed to be in a hurry and didn’t let me finish the rest of the lemonade she had offered as she ushered me out of the house.

The market research has proved non-conclusive though a statistically high percentage of the population claim that all men save their fathers and brothers are animals which gives a “frame of reference” angle to the whole problem and hence needs a Darwinian Einstein with some Feminist experience to solve it. One has also decided on discontinuing the research lest such probing questions lead to the “social” bit itself getting removed from that infamous quotation.