Not long after I wrote my post on being the 'just before girl' I ran into a friend of mine - let's call him Yoda - at the wedding of my ex-unboyfriend/best friend/roommate (another blog post for another time). We got to talking about why I should never have been invited to my ex's wedding relationships and my sister suggested that he fix me up with one of his single friends. He said "Nah she's not ready for it. She's the girl that guys get with before they get with the girl they marry".
Marshie-poo and I gasped simultaneously.
Marshie-poo and I gasped simultaneously.
"Did you read my blog?" I asked breathlessly.
*blank stare*
Okay then.
"Why is that?" Les poos (marshie-poo and maxie-poo) asked.
Yoda went on to explain that I was too cool, too easy going, too laissez-faire for any man to take me seriously. "You need to learn to make some demands" was his final word on the subject.
Les poos proceeded to the wedding reception, at which I was too busy trying to stab myself with a butter knife listening to speeches and watching the lovebirds coo lovingly at each other to really think about it. But since then I've been taking an informal poll and it seems that Yoda is right. Which i guess shouldn't be surprising because Yoda was always right in the movies wasn't he? I don't know.
Anyway. let me share with you some responses:
My cousin's wife gave me a long, long lecture about the art of making demands. And how a man doesn't respect you if you don't set clear boundaries and guidelines for his behaviour.
The ex-unboyfriend/best friend/roommate (who thankfully married a cool girl who "allows" him to continue to plunge my toilet and take out my garbage be my friend) said that when we were in our unrelationship he interpreted my coolness to equal disinterest. i.e. the fact that I let him do whowhatever he wanted to do gave him the impression that I didn't care what he did.
My girlfriend also insists on not only setting clear boundaries, but that I make the men I date take me to expensive restaurants and buy me gifts in order to impress upon them that I am something special. And that when these men "misbehave" I call them on their shit.
None of this computes to me at all.
Here's my take on it: I don't have any children. I'm not about raising anyone so why do I have to set rules and discipline people? I grew up with a very demanding mum who yelled when she didn't get her way. Everyone in the house just did what she wanted so we wouldn't have to hear her mouth. This is a kind of death to me. I don't want men to do things for me just because they're afraid of what I'll do if they don't, I want them to do things for me because they want to. My relationship style is to give people the freedom to be who they are and see what they do with it. And no, I don't call men on every little thing they do wrong - but I do notice and file it away for future reference. When I reach my breaking point (yes, I do have one) I'll let him know.
This, apparently, is not the correct way to approach relationships. Go figure.
Meanwhile, as those of you who know me know, I have a healthy concentration of male friends. And as a result I get a lot of inside information on how girls really behave (not the remixed versions of stories we tell our friends in which we make ourselves sound much harder than we actually are). I see the pathetic and desperate emails they send, the begging BBM's and texts, and hear the crazy-ass voicemails they leave. These women rant, rave, cry, threaten, beg, and bargain to get these dudes' attention. Now and again they'll show up unannounced or freak out because they found a bobby pin that doesn't belong to them at the home of a man they know is seeing other people.
And you know what? These guys eat that shit up. Nary a one of them has ever stopped talking to a girl because of her crazy-ass behaviour. Meanwhile my private parts - and the private parts of all my female friends who are normal like me - are drying up at an alarming rate.
All of which leads me to conclude that us calm girls are doing something wrong. Should we be going all Jazmine Sullivan on these dudes? Is that what it takes?
Please enlighten me.
