Character 1) Mary
Mary, a girl who attracts everyone’s attention without trying!
Mary, a girl who can be best described as Mysterious because “you think you know her, but you almost always never see the other side”!
Mary, a girl who metamorphosizes from a girl next door to a suave and svelte “chic” in a blink of an eye!
Mary, a girl who is mature yet childish and who is irritating at times yet forever adorable!
Mary, a girl who has somehow made her confusion and inability to take decisions, her most sought quality.
But this story is not about Mary. This story is about all those who like Mary.
See, Mary isn’t one single girl, Mary is a concept.
Marys are everywhere. They are the ones whom everyone likes and whom everyone wants to be in a relationship with. And, they are also the ones, who end up with the most unpredictable underdog..!
Alas! Every time a Mary goes away, another Mary walks into a man’s life. It’s a vicious cycle! And hence, we never learn a lesson.
3 types of guys like Mary, based on their nature and, more importantly, their behavior with the Mary in question. For the sake of the story, they have been named with their most distinct character trait.
Character 2) Mr. Courage-the desire for Care
He is the stud. He is the quintessential Hero.
He is a famous guy, famous for all the right reasons. He is everybody’s “go-to” guy, everybody’s favorite and cynosure of all eyes.
He is not polite with Mary but is definitely very fond of her.
He troubles her, fights with her, throws tantrums at her and yet manages to take care of her.
However, for Mary, there is another behavioral trait added to him-Anger.
Anger and love go hand in hand, mostly because of jealousy and indecision.
But for our Mr. Courage and Mary, there is a stranger source of Anger in their relationship-Care!
It is hard to care for someone who is careless about herself.
And that’s exactly what bothers Mr. Courage.
Mary is careless about herself in every possible way-her image, her choices and her preferences. Mr. Courage can’t handle that and can’t be quiet about that either.
That’s why he is called Mr. Courage because he has the guts to tell her, right in her face, that she is wrong. He doesn’t mince his words and is pretty blunt at times.
Not that Mary doesn’t approve of this or doesn’t realize his importance in her life but after a point it becomes unbearable for Mr. Courage to see Mary getting hurt so often.
Ignorance is strange. It is both an action and a reaction of the human mind. It is both a problem and a solution, though a short term one.
It is a weapon used best used by Marys of this world. They ignore whatever, whoever and whenever at their own sweet convenience.
Even our Mary, when loses the patience and courage to face him, ignores him. Mr. Courage also has to distance himself from Mary to protect himself from the pain and anguish.
While Mary ignoring him is a short term solution (or a reaction), him ignoring Mary eventually become self-destructing and requires immediate action.
Therefore his attempts aren’t very successful and he falls back to the vicious cycle of Mary damaging herself, him getting angry, trying to change her, failing in that, distancing himself, inability to take that distance and then its starts all over again!
Character 3) Mr. Attention Seeker-the desire for Time
Not white, definitely.
Not black, probably.
Grey.
Grey is the color of life. Grey defines the persona of Mr. Attention Seeker
There are two types of attention seekers, Loud and Silent. Loud ones are dubbed as cheap while the silent ones masquerade as intellectuals.
The Marys fall for the silent ones.
He is one person who lives on the extremes. He swings between being the best and the worst.
His love is different from others, his is obsession. He started off as a normal guy, friendly. But soon his other side was revealed, a side about which probably he was unaware too!
What’s surprising is that Marys acknowledged that. What you can’t achieve in passion, you can snatch in obsession.
Calling Mary gullible would be an insult to her intelligence but maybe it’s the inherent curiosity or the love for drama of the female mind, which leads them to a point of no-return with such guys.
He craved for Mary’s attention and her time. It was suffocating for him and both were well aware of that, but neither of them backed out. Whenever Mary tried to do it, his silence and his masochism dragged her back into the vortex. He manipulated her at his own will.
His silence became his most potent weapon. His silence, his sadness, his suffocation and, in one of the rare cases, Mary yielded to, well, his fakeness!
If she is with him, it’s all fine. But the moment she goes away, his drama starts. He preys on Mary’s kind-heartedness.
He sits alone in the dark as if he is the biggest loner of the world. A loner is not the one who stays secluded, but the one who feels lonely in a room filled with people. But Marys don’t get this simple definition. He calls her when she has company, makes her come out of the group and be with him. They may not even talk or may do their individual things, but still, he needs her in his vicinity. Mary not only loses her friends but also her repute. He is her Achilles Heel!
The kind of mental torture she has been subjected too because of him is unprecedented.
One wonders why a modern, educated, 21st century girl would undergo all this. Probably, because she is too nice or because she has the guilt of pushing a guy from a state of normalcy to a state of pathological obsession.
Nobody will ever know!
“Triya Charitram Purushashya bhagya; Devo na janahi kuto manushya” (Even God couldn’t understand a woman’s mind (and a man’s luck), how can a human even try!-a saying from the Vedas)
Character 4) Mr. Sheer Admirer-the desire for Utopia
He is a believer who believes in Life and embraces it, with open hands.
He believes in Love and how it triumphs all.
He believes Love is expressed-good with actions, better with words and best with silence.
He is a dreamer too.
His dreams are extremely orthodox, yet they are re-assuring of the fact that why fairy-tales can still exist, why poetry is still alive and why utopia can still be created.
In this crazy world of betrayal and break-ups, divorces and debauchery, his take on Love is as pure as dew, as refreshing as the fall breeze and as deep and profound as a woman’s heart!
And yes, he believes in Marys of this world too.
He didn’t just fall for Mary. He adores her.
There is a sense of innocence in his liking for Mary.
He is an intelligent guy, but with Mary, he is just an admirer. A fan, if you will!
His love is simple. He doesn’t necessarily want her, he wants her happiness.
While he is there to protect her from the attention seekers he doesn’t mind pushing her towards Mr. Courage too.
In some ways he resembles Mr. Courage when he wants her to make the right decisions. However, when he realizes he is not going to succeed, he doesn’t react as Mr. Courage. He quietly let her go ahead, make the mistake and then waits for her at the other end to save her from the fall. He advices her, consoles her and prepares her for the next challenge. His belief and positive attitude keeps him going and that’s his only, demand, from her too. Just keep going!
Life could be easy if someone wants it to be. Every roadblock can seem small in a larger picture. His attempts to make Mary see the larger pictures are based on his own way of leading life.
He laughs off all the tough situations life has to offer him and that’s where Mary misconstrues him. She takes his humor as carelessness and interprets someone else’s (read:Mr. Attention seeker’s) silence as intellect. Naturally, a person wants to be intellectual than careless! What she doesn’t see is the pain behind that smiling face, the silence behind that chatterbox and the loneliness in the life of a man who is never seen alone!
In the words of Mark Twain, “The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.”
He thinks someday Mary will see the larger picture; someday she could clear the cloud of self doubt and indecisiveness. And that day, he may or may not have her, but she would be happy. That smiling image of Mary, which is etched in his mind, is his Utopia!
The Dream is on!
Epilogue
This was never about a girl with 3 men in her life. That would be over-simplification of the whole idea. It wasn't about just men. I am very confident that there could be a female version of the same post, with even more characters!
These characters may not be present at the same time as well. All my male protagonists could be a single human being too, just reacting distinctly with different Marys or struggling to find their real persona after a series of failed pursuits!
However, the under-current is striking a balance between your character traits. No one is perfect.
The day we strike that balance, with the one who is meant for us, we could be as careful as want, as possessive as we want and we would have a Utopia regardless!
