Dear Jack,
Well your mail was quite expressive but I won’t underestimate the importance of love in a relationship.
You need love, especially as a man. And I’ll say date the one who loves you, genuinely. The one who loves you wants you with sincerity of purpose, needs you, has a passion for you and wants the relationship. She’ll love you more than the one who has no need of you. Why date someone who behaves like she’s doing you a favour! She’ll be economical with love, affection and expression – emotion as transaction, withholding of affection.
As men, we get carried away with relationship miscellany – unimportant attractional elements – junk factors, nonsense! Young men are particularly prone to such carry-aways as they tug between needs and lusts. But what’s the value of a woman’s school or profession or diction if she doesn’t love you? Love is important. And friendship too. These must be constants with which other variables are combined.
Peace is also very important and believe me, as you grow older, it will take on more meaning. Boyfriends and girlfriends fight once every while. Most stem from willfulness. But constant fights of increasing ratio and amplitude may be pointing to compatibility challenges. Recurrent fighting is the antithesis of harmony. And harmony is a major component of peace.
Harmony must be distinguished from commonalities. That she doesn’t play chess or love Barca doesn’t mean you can’t have a wonderful relationship. She may just not be wired for Barca. Harmony comes from accepting each other, embracing differences and appreciating those differences. And anyway she’s not Messi’s girlfriend! Though I concede she must love you with your Messi, or it will all becomes messy! Funny how football can mess up a relationship! She can’t obviously be interested in Barca at the level of your passion. Few women can be. But because she loves you she’ll serve Coke to Messi when he comes visiting! She’ll embrace Messi for your sake.
I’m not asking you to date out of your cultural league. That has consequences, and adjustments may prove unfeasible. All I’m asking you to do is distinguish mutuality of interests from compatibility and harmony. They’re not the same. And mutual lovers of Messi can still create relationship mess if the fundamentals are not okay. O what a mess! All that said however, there should still be some mutual interests – things you’re both agreed on, especially values.
But sometimes boys and girls break up. It’s a reality of life. If the love is genuine it will be painful for someone at least. If you must break up with your girlfriend, do it with a sense of fairness. She has feelings. Don’t be mean or cavalier. Boy meets girl. They can’t work it out. Boy and girl separate. It happens all the time but the manner of approach matters. Be realistic in assessing your relationship. If it can’t work it won’t work. Don’t string the woman along on false promises. And breakups need not be mean and messy. Don’t lose your breeding to anger.
If you’re breaking up, make it a break. Don’t be ambivalent. You’ll confuse the woman. One more thing: Women hate break ups by text. Hurts and devalues. Talk it over if the context permits. Explain your decision and resolve. She may or may not see your point but at least you accorded her consideration. Don’t create bitterness and enmity. It’s unnecessary. An after-taste of bitterness can linger for decades. As you grow older, you’ll realise it’s a really small world. You can’t afford righteous anger in a woman. If you’ve made up your mind you’re not interested anymore, let her know so she moves on. Don’t waste her life. Don’t give her the impression you’re going to marry her when indeed you’ve vacated such thoughts. That’s mean and wicked. She’ll keep investing her years and resources in hope on a false set of promises. At the end she’ll feel “used”. You don’t want to be responsible for some things. Some women never recover. Confront your issues like a man. Don’t layer another relationship on top and then say, “It’s complicated” to avoid telling uncomfortable truth.
It’s quite simple actually: Don’t mess up lives. Remember the lady who tweeted me some weeks ago, telling me I just saved a life? Some man brought her to that point. You don’t want to be that man.
Consider these things I’ve written seriously. There’s a heavy burden on my heart concerning them.
Your mentor, LA
©Leke Alder 2013