The Woes Of Being A Woman Who Is Constantly A Magnet For The Misers!

Imagine often attracting only misers when you date! All these incidents from my life make me wonder why women are called gold diggers!

This goes out to all my sisters who have inadvertently been magnets that have attracted misers. We have often dialled M for Misers in our lives without meaning to!

Honey attracts bees. Men do call me ‘honey’ endearingly and maybe that’s why I attract makhichoos men every time I decide to give a man a chance.

I have so many stories about these misers!

Should I talk about the boyfriend who used to make me go dutch even on toll bridges every time we crossed the Worli Sea link? And even the waiter’s tip which we split so often that I started getting repelled by anything with the term ‘split.’ Even banana split ice-creams!

Or should I talk about the fukre millionaire who never spared a chance to boast about staying at Worli and being a ‘Townie.’ And yet, not only was I footing his share of food and drinks consumption, matters came to a head when I was made to foot his friend’s drinking bill too. This happened when the said friend joined us for dinner at a pub!

As if this wasn’t bad enough, after accepting expensive birthday gifts from me, he would often ask me to book his transport to drop him home. I wondered why he didn’t borrow from his parents with whom he lived. Or even how his conscience allowed him to borrow from a single girl! A girl who was living on her own, footing the sky high Mumbai rent. And didn’t even have a family living with her, from whom she could ever borrow money for her transport.

Isn’t it funny how women are gold diggers now?

Or should I talk of the guy who asked me to at least pay the tip to the waiter, since his Sodexo coupons were being used to foot the bill at the restaurant. It was only fair, he said. And then we women are accused of being gold diggers? Funny, eh?

Then there was that guy whom I’d asked to get me band-aids while he was passing by, since I had accidentally cut my finger while chopping vegetables. He only bought one band-aid from the shop. So a few hours later, when my sole band-aid was peeling off, I had to step out to buy myself a stack of band-aids.

But this is the award winning one!

But…

The stinging stingy award should go to this bhalo chele (Bengali word for the quintessential good boy) who pleaded me to meet him on his birthday. Now I finish my meals by 7 pm. So, when I met him at a pub post 9pm, politely I refused to eat/drink. But he insisted.

So I ordered a hot toddy as an antidote to my sore throat and tasted a piece of chicken which was on his plate, upon his insistence. Who was to know this would come back and bite me later.

On date two, we went to a Spanish restaurant where he kept ordering wine glass after wine glass. I am a teetotaller and I ate little thanks to my workout regime while he had a very healthy appetite.

When the bill came, he made me go dutch. Then he made me pay for the transport to my place! On top of that, he self invited himself to my place.

He just got worse!

He, obviously, didn’t get lucky but borrowed cash from me to pay for his auto that night. And it’s not like he was hard up on money. In fact, earlier in the day he had shown me his credit card. It accrues cash-back if he books Ola/Uber. Yet he decided to forgo these options and borrowed cash from me for his transport.

Later when I asked for the borrowed cash, he reminded me that I owed him money. Apparently, the tiny piece of chicken he coerced me to taste and the drink he compelled me to order, on his birthday, I was supposed to pay for them!

So rather than return me the money he owed me, he played the part of an extortionist well. And this was a guy who boasted about, how he was a wizard with money and bought himself an apartment in Goregaon East.

Yea well, my closing lines to such Scrooge like characters would be – read up ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens. Then maybe, we will see a change of heart, next time they ask a girl out.

Picture credits: Still from Dice Media’s series Adulting season 2

Editor’s Note: This article is not meant to be a commentary on all men, but on those who fit the bill, as described here.

Enakshi Biswas

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