LATELY, I've noticed that the men around me have developed a strange affliction.

There's my colleague C who, for some reason, is attacked by the slow motion bug every time the rest of us are waiting for him to leave the office.

Suddenly, every other thing except the task at hand - that is, going to the pub for a post-work pint - needs urgent attention. The dog-eared wall calendar needs to be straightened out; a decapitated toy figurine on his desk needs to have his head screwed back on; and at 11pm on a Friday night, he decides it's time to update his laptop's anti-virus software.

'It's not my fault that you guys come and immediately expect me to be able to go. My laptop takes a very long time to shut down,' he grumbles whenever I start pacing around his desk impatiently.

Another male friend of mine, J, is also a victim of this disease, except that it manifests in a different form.

J's been wanting to ask a girl out for a few months now but can't decide for the life of him where to take her and how to word his proposition.

A sample SMS exchange between him and his object of desire would go like this:

He: 'So what r u up to today?'

She: 'Oh, nothing much. U?'

He: 'Nothing much too.'

She: 'K.'

The end. Credits roll. The hero and his damsel remain apart.

Having spent sleepless nights pondering this mysterious ailment, I've decided to name it The Curse Of The Wishy-Washy Man.

Wishy-washy men come in all shapes, sizes and colours but they boast one defining characteristic: They think. Real hard. About everything.

Now, I'll chose a thinker over a dud anytime, but when the cogs in a man's brain go into overdrive over the smallest of choices, he begins to come across as indecisive, vapid and well, weak.

Think about it (but not for too long, please): There's one of this sort in every group of friends.

He's the one who shows up late for appointments because he spent an hour wondering if he should drive to the venue ('I didn't know if we were going to drink tonight'); who takes half an hour to order his food ('Waiter, I'd like to know where your beef is from'); and who rarely has an opinion on world affairs ('I'm reserving comment about the situation in Myanmar because there is just so much to be considered on both sides').

In fact, if you were to ask him point-blank why he was so wishy-washy, he'd probably go: 'Um. Ah. Am I wishy-washy? No what. Um. I guess so...'

Like C and J, he's incapable of Just Doing It.

You want to strangle him with your bare hands and beat him to a pulp. Except you can't because most of the time, he's a fundamentally nice bloke who probably has no idea how much he's getting on everyone's nerves.

There's no denying that some of us women have refined the act of being wishy-washy to an art. We're probably equally guilty of all the annoying habits I mentioned earlier, and more.

Wishy-washiness is not a gender-specific problem and yes, I'm aware that I'm a pot calling the kettle black.

But us pots have always been associated with such traits. There is, however, something quite wrong when the kettle starts behaving like the pot.

Blame it on an overdose of Mills & Boon romance novels, but shouldn't a man still be sturdy, unwavering and, as a bonus, look dashing on a white steed?

No red-blooded female's fantasy ever climaxes with a roguishly handsome duke tearing into a castle to kidnap his raven-haired princess, only to get waylaid by the king's guards because he vacillated between exit routes A and B.

Problem is, macho went out of fashion sometime in the past decade with the rise of new labels for men like the Sensitive New Age Guy and its various incarnations.

Because some women now want their men to be in touch with their softer side, they are perhaps willing to bear with a certain amount of wishy-washiness from them.

I guess it really depends on how you look at it. A man who over-thinks every scenario and hesitates to jump into decisions - especially big ones concerning relationships or his career - could also be seen as careful, thoughtful and less likely to act foolishly.

Me? I'm still not buying that. I'd still prefer my man to be curse-free, take control of situations, and to live life with some measure of spontaneity.

Otherwise, I simply might have to live vicariously through my two good friends, Mills & Boon.