20180128 Women and the Tortoise I’d like to first tell a story of one of my roommates in college. She was smart, sensitive and always got good grades. In some way, she was even a bit proud in others’ eyes, though she did have the confidence to be so. Not long after the beginning of the junior year, we learned that she was dating a boy, one of her former classmates. The boy was the winner of a competition with another boy who also hoped to court her heart. So you bet he must have something that could match her excellence. However at first, she didn’t seem to give her boyfriend enough attention he deserved. She once said that she could dump him anytime she wanted, as there was no shortage of other suitors for her. And we believed that. You can easily spot a woman in love. Suddenly she becomes obsessed with makeup, something that she doesn’t bother to do before; suddenly she is keen on shopping, wishing to sweep off all the pretty dresses in the store, and suddenly she becomes so fond of gazing at her mirror, for a long time, while giggling in a silly way. That was how my roommate behaved after dating with that boy for a while, little happy girl in a budding kind of relationship. Yet one day, we found her sitting on her bed alone, looking blank, with tears rolling down her cheeks. It turned out that she had just got into a fight with her boyfriend. Fortunately, the fight didn’t last long and they got back together very soon. Yet for some reason, I could not erase that sorrowful face of her out of my head. So couldn’t help myself, I teased her, saying why she was so distressed at that time? Where her assertiveness was? Didn’t she have said that she could break up with him anytime she wanted? There was a moment of silence, and after a while she explained to me that at the point of the altercation, she found herself already accustomed to his care and love for her, as well as his constant presence in her life. She couldn’t raise the proposal of a break-up. If they did fall apart, she would be more deeply hurt, maybe way much more than what the boy would have experienced. I think this is true for many other women. In a relationship, a woman may be like a proud tortoise at first; staying in a solid shell that few others can get close to. Then one day comes the hunter, slowly and tenderly taking her out of her defense, shattering that shell of pride into pieces...However one day the storm strikes, and she wanted to come back, only to find she can never be back to where she was anymore.