Love, relationships...CONTROL

Hi folks. Haven't blogged for a long time because I didn't know what to say.

But having listened to Simon Kelner's fabulous lecture last week about newspapers needing to find a new niche in the market, I've given this blog business a rethink.

I always agonised over how to mash up a news story in a 'blog-savvy' way - then realised there was no point.

I am never going to beat the BBC or Sky news in terms of breaking news - neither are most newspapers. So I've decided to create my own brand of blogging, consisting of discursive opinion, comment and debate. If you like it, great. If it's not 'hard news' enough, allow me to direct you to the BBC homepage. That's not what this is about.

Kelner reckons (and he's editor-in-chief of The Independent, so I'd listen to what he has to say), that newspapers are increasingly going to become 'viewspapers' - based more on analysis of news, rather than the news itself. This way it gets round the problem of the internet always pipping us to it when it comes to scoops.

So I thought I'd blog about something that interests me, and gives me room for exploring. You guessed it - it's a rip-off of Carrie Bradshaw's musings about sex, love and relationships. It's not particularly aimed at specifically men or women - it's aimed at those who are interested in relationship politics in a changing world. And other stuff I have to say, obviously.

Love, relationships and control? My point is this, and I'd be interested to hear what people think. Basically, it's widely believed that even in a very even-handed, democratic relationship, there is one party who has the upper hand, even if this is slightly.

Who asked who out? Who said the 'L' word first? Who is more needy? These are the markers that decide who is more into who. It sounds trivial, but it's true.

The games played in the early days are a perfect example. Both parties are trying to establish who is in charge. Timed interludes between texts, not returning calls, not having sex on a first date - it's nothing to do with morality, it's to do with feeling in control.

The trouble is, you can't have your cake and eat it. Having control means you have power with nothing to show for it. Not returning a text means you won't get one back. Not having sex with someone (not necesarily because it's a first date, perhaps that was a bad example) but because you want to feel in control and the one with all the cards is fine, but you don't get to experience the intimacy, pleasure and fun of having sex with someone you are attracted to/in love with.

Yet - if you ask a guy out first, make the first move in the bedroom, ask him to marry you, and all those other things that turn the traditional male/female roles on their head, it is exciting, but you have potentially lost 'the control', or the power that comes from knowing someone is pursuing you relentlessly.

But why should this be? Why can't women make the first move without suddenly feeling vulnerable and 'out of control'?

Society has drummed it into us that men are hunter gatherers, while women are passive and sit in towers waiting to be rescued. They put this down to biology, using the examples of male and female reproductive data. Sperm are active, pursuing the egg and swimming furiously towards it, while the egg is passive and sits there waiting to be fertilised. Believe it or not, this has been the blueprint for defining gender relations for a long time.

I think a lot of women have got themselves into a pickle because of these firmly defined roles. They hang onto the 'control' in a relationship for dear life. "I'm not texting him. He can call me. And I'm making him wait for sex." But surely these small victories are fruitless because you are then depriving yourself as well?

However, give in to instinctual feelings or urges and very quickly the man has tired of you because there's no 'challenge', or because somebody openly pursuing him threatens his masculinity and makes him feel emasculated.

So what the hell, as liberated 21st century girls, are we supposed to do? Sit in the tower twiddling our thumbs while we wait to be rescued? Or text him saying 'Pls cum n rescu me' only to get no response because you were too 'available'?

Sod that lot. I'm having a cuppa soup.