A friend
and I were chatting about men the other day, over a few glasses of a red drink.
The dating scene has changed drastically over the past years, from running to
the house phone every time it rang hoping it would be your crush calling, to
listening out for his whistle from outside because he couldn’t come into your
yard (those raised by black parents will relate) and you had no cell phone, so
that was his only way of alerting you of his presence. Then we had cell phones,
those big ones that didn’t even fit into the pockets of your jeans and now the
era of smart phones and social media (facebook, twitter and the likes) and who
can forget that oh so convenient BBM and whatsapp. We have made tremendous
progress, you would think with all these improvements the type of men we meet
would have also improved. That is unfortunately not the case, well so my
friends tell me because thank God, I have been out the dating scene for a
while. By that I mean that I am in a steady and committed relationship and
hopefully the halo over my head stays right there.
You know
how long it took you to finally figure out who you are and what makes you tick?
And sometimes everything that you think you know about yourself finds itself
under some scrutiny that makes you doubt it all, now imagine trying to learn
about someone else and what makes them tick and for all that work to go down
the drain when you break up and you meet yet another person that you have to
start from scratch with. Wouldn’t life just be easier if we were all paired
according to our likes and beliefs and you knew for sure that the person you
fall madly and deeply in love with, felt the same about you? But that is not
how the Universe works; in fact one would swear that it goes out of its way to
make mating and dating difficult and tedious.
Just in the
past year I have witnessed many of my friends fall in and out of love. Find
people who swept them off their feet and then made them spent countless nights
crying themselves to sleep or asking themselves questions that they had no
answers to. The dating game seems to get harder with age, I wonder whether with
time men and women date for the same reasons. Don’t get me wrong, I am by no
means using the same brush to paint all men, they are not all bad that I know.
I just wonder how come so many ladies I know fall into the trap of falling for
the wrong guys, men who mostly turn out to be totally different from the first
impression that the gave in the beginning of a relationship. Is it women who
miss the signs or fail to ask the most relevant questions that leads them to
end up in relationships where they are lied to and they are cheated on? Or is
it a simple case of being so desperate for something to work that you ignore
any voice of reason that whispers to you in the initial stages of a
relationship?
Listening
to ladies talk about the ‘frogs’ they have come across in the dating game led
me to the conclusion that, the strain of trying to meet someone new or finding
a potential suitor is the exact reason why so many other people choose to stay
single for years or for those in long term unions to stay in lovelorn
relationships. The conclusion is actually a question because I cant say for
certain, nor can one explanation fit everyone’s story. It just makes sense to
me, that if I were single, just the thought of blind dates and meeting weirdos
would be enough to put me off dating for a while or that if I was in a
relationship for years, I would stay with the notion that “rather the devil
that you know” than expose myself to the task of filing away years of all I
know about this other person, only to have to go and learn the habits of
another from Grade 1. It just seems easier and less stressful to stay with what
is familiar or to rather be alone and invest my time and efforts in other areas
of my life that I can control and be sure of the outcome.
Apparently
all good men are either taken or gay, that kind of belief could also play a
role in people refraining from dating and couldn’t we also say that, with that
kind of mindset one was highly likely to attract those types of men we perceive
as bad boys. If you don’t believe that what is in the sea is edible, doesn’t it
then make it a given that what you find you will not be happy with? And while
we at it, lets look at the expectations that our fellow sisters have and take
with into in the dating game. The bank account balance needs to be a certain
amount before you even look in his direction, then the physique has to be that
of Denzil Washington and he has to tell jokes like Trevor Noah, the list is
endless………….I am by no means advocating that women should settle just to be in
a relationship but with maturity should definitely come a different approach
and list of qualities that we seek in an ideal man. Love ends up losing because
it is not packaged in a way that we want, because it comes disguised as below
par and because it does not match what the lady next door has.
We look at
what others have publicly with no idea what happens behind closed doors and we
make that what should apply for everyone. Often times when you see your friends
“happy” in a relationship, you automatically assume that to be happy you also
need the exact same thing. But men are different and so are we, what works for
one couple doesn’t necessarily work for everyone. More importantly what we miss
is that, even the happiest couples have problems, fights, arguments and issues
but they work through them and then people want to break up with their partners
because they don’t do what their friend’s partner does. As important as it is
never to stay in a relationship that is not healthy, it is equally important to
acknowledge that no one is perfect, we have flaws, we have habits that annoy
others and if you going to run away every time that someone shows they are
human, you will be stuck in this dating game, complaining that all men are the
same when the problem isn’t the dating nor the people you meet but your
perceptions and expectations.
Dating and
a relationship to me are not the same, in the stages of dating; you are still
getting to know each other, finding what works and what makes the other person
tick. Be yourself but also find it in you not to rush the process by being too
serious too soon, enjoy it and make it fun and even when you meet those frogs
along the way, laugh about it but never forget the lesson that it was meant to
teach you.
