You’ve probably heard about her. You probably don’t even like her. She thrives on that especially. It’s just a matter of time before you meet her. Or maybe you have met. Who the hell knows, I can curse right?

She often takes the seat at the window and stares at nothing. She just sits there and stares, her head resting against the window with a faraway look. Exuding an aura of beauty. She seems so calm. I guess I’m just describing her composure right now. It would be erroneous to say that she is quiet. Quiet is peace. Tranquillity. Quiet is turning down the volume knob of life. She is silent. Silence is pushing the off button. shutting it down. All of it.

Sometimes when she laughs, you almost fall in love. (I said almost) she looks like the goddamn package when she smiles. She experiences a strange sense of pride; life has taught her that only the strong survive. She cries on the inside, but on the outside she lets out a yawn. Her cards the few you know of, she plays close to her chest. She is the Alpha Female.

So here is the thing. You are used to Beta females, women who get too attached. Women who spend all their time with you and forget who and what they were before they met you. Women who stop doing the things they used to do over the weekends and start doing the things you do over the weekend.

They stop spending time with their friends and make your friends theirs. They start crowding your space with their omnipresence and soon start leaving their personal belongings in your crib. At some point, they start talking serious stuff. They ask if you should get a place together or what you think about them moving in. They send you pictures of other couples with the hashtag goals and say you two should go hiking together and do what it is people do during hikes- Burn calories and find one’s inner peace and such things. Oh, and to take selfies.

The Beta female

But you are already peaceful and dislike taking selfies, anyway, because you can’t stand raising your hand long enough for her to decide on a pose. And possibly because you feel awkward making faces to a gadget more so in front of a bunch of people you don’t know. But she is excited and keen and she is all up in your space with her Zen plans and when you appear uninterested she moans that you are emotionally aloof, that you’re hard to read that you don’t reciprocate her feelings.

You want her to go easy on all that mushy stuff especially when she looks at you with those puppy eyes and asks you “Do you love me?” And the truth is that you have actually never thought about it. You don’t even know if love exists for sure. You are just there for a good time but if you dare say that she will pull the sheets up against her naked body feeling chastised. She will then screech “so you’ve been using me, huh?”

There is that girl. Then there is the one who takes the seat at the window and stares. Oh, that one is an enigma. She is like a lovely book written in French. Madame Alpha. Outside “Bonjour” and “Oui” you are lost at sea. So you have this book with a story you can’t read.

The Alpha Female

She is peculiar because she has her own life and time which she seems to value and invest in more than the time she spends with you. You are used to women dropping everything to meet you when you want them to. You’re used to calling women when you’re lonely or about to turn up. You will call this one and say, “hey, what are you doing. Want to meet up for coffee?” Because that’s the line you use every time when you want to get some and it’s a sure bet. And she will say, “hey, I just had some a while ago, maybe next time.” She turned you down, how dare she!?

She is also fiercely self- reliant. Probably, changes her own light bulb. Your ‘maleness’ you start to realize with increasing horror isn’t even needed. She has built this high wall around her, and only she knows what’s on the other side.

Madame Alpha

A beautiful book written in French. You want to learn French. You want to ask her “tu m’aime?” (Do you love me?) You are frustrated that even when she is with you in your arms she isn’t quite with you. She isn’t falling at your feet and when she does she remains beautifully absent, that she doesn’t need you. And because you are male, because you tie your trousers with an ego, you are hooked on her emotional viciousness or lack thereof. You want to figure her out. To jump over the walls. You go to bed thinking of how one day she will turn into a mushy puppy in your hands.

Then a weird thing happens. One day you look at her and you catch yourself just in time before you ask her the most dreadful question a man can ask a woman; “do you love me?” and right there you know she has won. That she will never open that door for you. Even after you two have long called it quits, you keep thinking of how you never quite knew who she was. Yes, you knew what she liked, you knew what made her laugh, you knew all those things that you learn from women during pillow talk, but you realize dauntingly, that you don’t really know who she is. She will always be the girl that got away. The one who sat at the window. The one you couldn’t breach. She will forever remain to be the alpha female.