Her boyfriend wants to marry her but her family is part of the mafia and she's afraid to endanger him by bringing him into that world so what does she do? She turns down the proposal and runs off. After they reconcile she realises, as she feared that he has gotten more involved than he should and in trying to extracate him she makes more of a mess and then runs off. She finally manages to bring things to a manageable level unbeknowst to him but then she shows him a picture that "proves" his infidelity and then, what does she do? Yeah you got it she runs off!

This got me thinking that it's true, the one thing that is generally true about women and relationships at least in the movies is that they run off. Sure, they slap men then they run off, they kick men then they run off, they throw a drink at men and then they run off or sometimes they just plain run off. So what do guys do? Well exactly like in the movie and Hugh grant's character men run after women, over and over again sorry to say, and in my present mood I'd have to say like dummies.

Don't get me wrong I've walked off on people and hung up on them as well and let me tell you especially with the hanging up part it's a waste of time because the other person starts hanging up on you and it hurts just as much as you think when you did it to them.

Excuse me for a bit but isn't it funny how technology can create new tools like hanging up that never existed before. I mean walking away or ignoring someone can in no way compare to a hangup because there's no way to leave a fight as completely as hanging up. But back to what I was saying.

When I walked away or hung up on people it was because the conversation was going nowhere as in just plain shouting or because the other person had gotten me upset right at that moment and on purpose. I would never think of walking away from someone I care about without letting them try to talk or just because.

I'm sorry, and this, as hard as it may seem has nothing to do with women really but is more about people in general who find themselves in the position that many women find themselves, people who run off from arguments or even conversations, as was the case when Hugh Grant's girlfriend ran off from his proposal, are just plain spoiled brats throwing temper tantrums that other people fall for.

For those of you who have seen the "SuperNanny" or other shows of that genre, what happens when you show attention even negative attention like shouting or screaming or give in to a child that is acting up or throwing a temper tantrum? Ding, ding, ding the answer is nothing or better yet, the child gets worse!!

Look around people, we are surrounded by grownups many of them in their nineties even, yes even grandparents, who have gone through their entire lives getting their way by acting hysterically and having other people bend to them. Why? because it works!!!

Is there any wonder why people get divorces? Many people, and I'm sorry to say it seems to be more women by far than men, think they are royalty and what they say goes? Many of them only run into people who won't take their junk far too late in life to change so for the rest of their years on the planet they run around making as many people miserable as they get the chance to touch. On the flipside though the people who have the tantrums are only half to blame. As hard as it is to believe the timid people  and in many cases the not so timid people who give in to the temper tantrums are those who hold the other half of the blame.

What happens on the Supernanny when the parents, sometimes crying, finally follow the nanny's direction and refuse to give into the temper tantrum by screaming or capitulating to unreasonable demands? Why the kid ups the ante of course and gives a performance previously unheard of. They pull out all the stops and try to bring home the gold! But eventually after losing that battle what happens? As we say in Trinidad they "boil down like bhaggi" and the thought enters their heads that "hold up, I may actually have to do as I'm told here or at least try to act reasonably," what a concept!! If people discipline themselves and hold to their guns those around them might actually realise that they can't do whatever they want!!

Heavens to Betsy!!! If we could teach children these principles why maybe we could change the world!!! And by teach I actually mean demonstrate by being proper examples rather than passing gas through our mouths.

But who will teach us, the adults to hold to our principles? The problem is that our greatest strength and weakness as human beings is epitomised in four simple words even as adults, "monkey see, monkey do." (No matter what view you hold these words tie us inextricably to other primates.) Who are we to see doing these things we aspire to? Why ourselves of course even if it is literally by practising in a mirror!

One of the great things I was exposed to in being an altar boy (please no priest jokes and actually, most other religions have the same percentage of predatory leaders but that is a different story) was one particularly strong minded priest who would lecture us on various topics. He spoke to us about how he trained himself to be disciplined by ensuring that he performed small even insignificant tasks that graduated to the larger changes that he wanted to make in his life. Things such as adapting to life in foreign countries and speaking other languges and even dealing with his own sexuality. This guy was maybe eighty at the time and a nice enough guy like most people unless you crossed him.

I took what he said to heart and I've tried to use it in my own life. My clearest memory of doing what he suggested is copying something I admired that I saw someone else do. It was a small thing. Rather than say "Wha or what" when he didn't hear what someone had said this person would say "pardon me". Just like the priest said it was hard. The priest had said don't worry if you forget the first time or the second or whatever, basically keep trying until sooner or later you won't forget, in fact you'll remember before the time comes for you to say or do this new thing you need to do then you'll just do it and you'll have a new habit. So eventually for me that day came and now I instinctively say "pardon me" when I'm in company or plain "whaa?" when I couldn't care less.

So this is all pretty great huh? Here you are and now you know what to do to fix your life, all you have to to now is keep trying over and over and you'll get it. Sure you'll be disappointed sometimes but in the end you know you'll succeed and you'll have enough confidence to try new things.

SO you don't have to run after your girlfriend or even boyfriend time after time like a patsy. If you want to do this for the rest of your relationship though, you go ahead go after her or him, spend your life begging for forgiveness even when you're right just because he or she is spoiled. Raise a family, make an audience of new people who have the example of the wrong thing to do.

And just for you other type of women, the ones who do everything for men and then one day have a breakdown because you've taught everyone around you to depend on you and not raise a hand to do housework and even men of that same kind, stop it, stop, stop it. You think you are helping your families but all you're doing is cheating them out of the opportunity to have self confidence in doing the simplest of things in life on their own. How are they to have confidence, real confidence in their own capabilities if you do everything? And at the end of the day you will either resent them for not helping and/or they will go on to ruin their own lives by expecting their spouse to be as much of a slave as you are.

Oh I hear you, just like in the sitcoms the first time they wash they will ruin something. Maybe the entire load or maybe something expensive that was just bought. The first time they cook or clean they will also do something wrong, I guarantee it, but maybe you've forgotten the first time you started doing for yourself you made a lot of mistakes too but miraculosly you survived. Actually you did forget didn't you, that's another thing I can guarantee and that's why you are where you are and that's why the world isn't perfect, really.

The greatest secret to success and failure in the whole wide world, throughout the ages and across the disciplines is remembering and forgetting. "The key to success isn't confidence in oneself, having a clear goal, being disciplined or any one of the thousands of things people sell" you say? Of course it is, most definitely but the one way to screwup any plan or path to success is to forget all or part of it and/or the reason why you choose it in the first place.

We learn literally millions if not billions of things in a lifetime it seems, we are often hugely successful in one or the other discipline in life when we bring across things that we've learnt from that into another. If we study history and learn the reasons why things went the way they went we can be geniuses at avoiding failure. But time and time again we see that success and learning is really just about remembering and failure and giving up is mostly about forgetting.

So we've seen that cliches like the woman running away from a conversation and a man chasing her may not actually be anything more than people using bad techniques learnt in childhood they never grew out of. We've seen that sticking to one's guns may help the world be a better place. We've seen that building discipline can be a slow but meaningful process but hold up, what do you do when you have no idea what to do to change your life?

When we're adult is it ever really the case that we don't know what we're supposed to do? If at any point during one of our failures or dissapointments someone were to stop time and ask up what we should have done instead to avoid the problem isn't it true that nine time out of ten we would know what we should have done? "How could that accident have been avoided? Well I shouldn't have been speeding, especially since the road was wet but I never thought it could have happened." "How could you have avoided being in prison? Well I should have called the police when my friend robbed that guy, but I didn't know he would have died and it was my friend" "How could you have prevented your daughter from getting killed by her boyfriend? I should have left her father when he used to hit me and given her a better example, but I never thought it would come to this." We always know what we should have done different (not 100% but mostly.)

I once read the books of Dale Carneige a self-help author. He is renouned worldwide and apparently his advice works. After I was finished reading and had summed everything up in my head, was it some new revolutionary ideas he was presenting, was it shocking? No it was basically do onto others as you would have them do on to you, the only thing that was revolutionary if this can be said to be revolutionary is that he spelt things out. For example, find genuinely nice things to say to people, don't say bad things about anyone, if you must correct people don't do it directly for example find a parable, I'm sorry an indirect way of saying it and then show how you've made the same mistake yourself.

I used to think that only weak people needed a psychiatrist. I certainly wasn't weak so no matter how depressed I was or how hopeless life felt I wasn't that crazy person who needed "professional help." Just listen to the words, "professional help", I can think of no combination of words more insulting at this moment than these two. When I was a kid that was how they were used, as an insult. But now, I've "monkey seen" and can see the point of "monkey doing." I've seen the "Sopranos" and "Analyze" this. I've seen the SuperNanny etc. and been shocked out of my mind by how week after week these shows provide families with the tools they need to make what seems like impossible changes in their lives.

Quite honestly I'm pretty down on television myself even though a substancial amount of my life is spent watching it, though albeit educational programs for the most part. That said there is no other medium that could ever have demonstrated how professional help can work than shows such as "The Supernanny". I've seen methods of resolving my own problems with my family demonstrated with real live people and families in such a way that I would never have believed it without seeing it with my own eyes. The facial expressions and the body language of the people are things that cannot be written or expressed easily and accurately.

In conclusion a big reason I won't run after a woman is because if I were in the wrong and taking the easy way out by trying to escape a situation I wouldn't want people being codependant with me. I would want them to do the hard thing that resloves the problem quickly rather than taking the easy route that has me living dysfunctionally and unhappily for years.

That was the course that my mother took with me on many issues. I never liked her for it at the time, and perhaps she could have explained herself better but I feel that it worked very well. She isn't perfect and wasn't raised perfectly herself either but the big things I learnt from her and even the inadvertent lessons have kept me from making many mistakes in life. Unfortunately like humanity and like myself she forgets to apply lessons learnt in one discipline to others and again this is what keeps us all from real perfection.