What are you thinking? Kevin asks Harry in Mobland season 2. These two best friends literally have been through thick and thin over decades and decades. They have been prison besties, two musketeers in a mom-and-pop-run mob dealing in murder and drugs. Among the best friends, it is only Kevin who shares his feelings before and after a kill job. Harry generally stays silent, so you see why Kevin has to be asking: what are you thinking? David Fincher in Gone Girl calls it the primal question of any marriage — what are you thinking? How are you feeling? What have we done to each other?
I support this question because it is in a sense a quest for some brain-brightening intimacy moment. It is about one human crossing past the barriers of two layers of skin, like Gone Girl’s husband — “scooping” out bits from your partner’s skull. This is an opportunity to riff as well. For instance, if I am asked what I am thinking about, I’d turn it into an opportunity to be a massive flirt. “About you, what else?” In fact, I see all the new-age enquiries as part of the same joyful bracket — one of them being, “If I were a worm, would you still love me the same?” It’s a golden question, makes you rethink your priorities and puts you through a small motion, puts you on the stop. The winners of this question-answer nokjhok (fun, romantic argumentative banter) are creative, funny and sometimes both at the same time. But that’s not how it is always received.
To ask or not to ask
Men have repeatedly protested this enquiry. Some of them call it a kalesh starter: she will ask you what you are thinking and when you tell her that you have zero thoughts in your brain, she won’t believe it and there will be a fight. Matthew McConaughey has publicly said that men don’t like this question. “We hate that when ya’ll do that,” he said.
“Usually, we are not thinking anything. Or if we are, you make us think ‘what are we supposed to be thinking?’. All of a sudden, we start out-foxing ourselves. Who knows where it goes.”
McConaughey was answering a question on the lines of ‘classic mistakes women make in dating’ during the promotions of How to lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003). He said the film accurately shows that out of nowhere at a movie date or in a long drive type of situationship, women don’t read the room that it is peacefull-let’s-have-a-good-time and start probing about thoughts and all. That’s when they lose a guy, or so the movie tells us.
The way I know Harry, he would also lose his mind if Kevin asked ‘what are you thinking?’ all the time, every day. Harry is taciturn and Kevin needs to know what he is thinking to feel the ground under his foot. Kevin might also be forced to think, “Does Harry hate me if he hasn’t asked me a single question in the last hour, nor has he shared any of his thoughts?” But Kevin has to control himself. He wouldn’t want to spook Harry. The modern man writes it down in his dating bio that his quality time is very quiet, very peaceful, full of telepathic, safe understanding. Or some such. Point is, in some sections of Gen Z, there is an open demand of silent nights, soothing vatavaran, no conflict, no bak-bak. If only it worked like that. For people like me and the Gone Girl’s husband, it is nearly impossible to not be assessing someone near and dear’s thoughts, spirals and the info about their software, their value system.
Also read: The lost art of waiting for love
The two types
Some women get paranoid when their boyfriends stare at them without saying a single word. “Is he thinking I am ugly?” A common fear. Over time, these girlfriends get a thick skin and just decide, this is what he is thinking. He’s just not saying it.
Actually, sometimes it is best not to know.
Loving, I have often noticed, is to live in another human’s mind. Try very hard to get under their skin and be sharing every feeling. But some people want to be loved like cats. They don’t appreciate all this.
Irrespective of the high-school logic of quiet boys and talkative girls, we are all divided into who asks the question and who gets to be on the spot. Some people like emptying out buckets of popcorn without saying more than a few words and dozing off on the cozy shoulder. The one bubbling with inquisitiveness stays still, keeping the cat undisturbed. Is that egalitarian though? That’s what keeps bugging me. Who knows what sort of people are worth giving up your voice, your questions over. Like okay, dear feline, take your time and take a nap, but can I expect you to answer some of my questions at any given date? I want to know what you are thinking, now and then.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)