Wednesday 13 July 2016

WHO’S WEARING THE PANTS IN RELATIONSHIPS THESE DAYS?




As with most widely publicized celebrity weddings, a popular socialite got hitched a while back, and everybody had an opinion about her choice of husband. Many thought since it was apparent that she earned a lot, the guy was probably with her only because of her money or at the very least it was an added incentive for him being with her. Others thought he didn’t seem like a guy who would care about such things like an account statement that rang like a phone number. 

While everyone is entitled to their opinion, one wonders if it’s true that many guys care too much about how much their prospective woman earns or owns when making their decision as to whether or not to date her or to marry her.

It is not farfetched to say that many women are excelling above their male peers today, whether it is academically, intellectually, professionally or in other wise. There has been a massive outcry for the girl child/woman to develop themselves and vast opportunities are being provided to ensure that happens. It is little wonder that you find female students topping the best 5% in their respective courses. This then goes to translate to their getting great job opportunities and earning quite high pays.

With this new position comes the elevated lifestyle. She pays her rent, buys her own car, purchases a piece of land, and develops it. Now when a woman can do all these for herself, this then begs the question, doesn’t this qualify her to also decide to step up to a guy and ask him out? Does her doing so make her a pariah of sorts? Does that effrontery calls for her degrading? Shouldn’t that make her respected instead for growing a pair*?

I carried out a little recon on my own and I asked a guy this question the other day while we were having a discussion and I must say I was impressed by his take on this. Since he sees himself as a quintessential and social 21st century man, he believes and advocates for equality between men and women and so he thought it was admirable that a woman thinks so highly of herself that she can shirk all the trappings of acceptable woman behavior and approach a guy. To him, he feels it requires a lot of courage to ask anybody out. Being a guy, he can identify with the hours and days of preparation it takes a guy to study a girl he likes, come up with suitable drop lines, and then the courage to approach her. So to him, he gives any woman the thumbs up who can go through that preparations and still risk being let down. 

I asked another guy whom I thought a great liberal what he thought of this, but to my surprise he didn’t share the other’s sentiment. To him, he claims being very traditional at heart when it comes to men-women relationships and believes it should only be the man who has to do all the work at the onset. To woo, to flatter, to buy presents etc. He thinks if any woman is brazen enough to step up to him that would only intimidate him instead of gaining his admiration. In his words “I would totally become suspicious. I would think she has other ulterior motives and designs on me. Like there’s certainly way more than meets the eyes.” 

Even though I expected more from him, would I say I was disappointed to hear that? Not exactly. Because in reality, can we honestly blame him? Many of us grew up in societies where a man is in charge. And even if a girl fancies a guy, she would rather die in silence that to approach him. I am of the opinion that whatever’s good for the Goose is good for the Gander, hence it doesn’t matter who makes the first move. But I know many young women who would rather watch idly by as the object of their desire is carted away by someone else just because they cannot bring themselves to speak up.

Here’s something curious though, have you noticed that the next question guys ask women these days after what her name is, is “what do you do?”. In fact, one time my friend was at this barbecue party where they all sat around this long table and the guy who happened to be next to her didn’t even bother to ask her name but jumped straight to “so, what do you do?”. She straight-faced told him she was a prostitute and then sarcastically asked him what he’d do now armed with that information. He quietly skulked away.

You see, guys these days want to know what you do to judge if you’re worthy of their time right? They throw around words like ‘‘I don’t want any woman who is a liability, who is unable to lend me financial support when the chips are down’’, ‘‘I can’t date any girl who can’t return the favour and get me nice presents at Valentine or my birthday’’ etc. And yet when a lady who holds her own approaches him, asks what he does, gauges his status side by side hers, she comes off as creepy. Lol. Am i the only one reading the irony in this?

So let’s assume a girl decides to wait for a random guy (probably even a loser) to come toast her, where is the guarantee that he would do right by her? And when he messes up she ends up beating herself up just cause she thought by his approaching her, it means she meant something to him but apparently she didn’t. Wouldn’t you rather feel better knowing that you chose a man for yourself and even if things do not work out at least you put yourself out there right? At least in this case, you have the right to be the designer of your own destiny. 

If men expect women to bring something to the table, to be smart, hardworking, and to be an achiever, then so what if she makes the first move? Shouldn’t they be willing to accept that in addition to her qualifications she is entitled to have a mind of her own and have the liberty to make her own choices? 

So guys, when a lady makes an honest move on you, before you feel emasculated or threatened by her guts, first assess yourself and see if you two level up hmm? And I bet if you believe you do, you will feel honored and not intimidated.




Photo credit: IG