All Letters

My dear Jil, my question to you is really quite simple: Do you want to be life’s victim? Of course what he did to you was despicable, and I still don’t understand why guys do that. Why string a girl along and with very active lies build false hope in her about marriage, knowing fully well you plan to marry someone else? It takes a certain kind of lying capacity to string two girls along with the promise of marriage, actively taking marriage steps like visiting their families, and yet have no intention of marrying one or either of the girls. It takes a certain kind of character. It’s appallingly selfish, abominably unnecessary and most destructive. Such behaviour guts the life of the victim. They become life’s carcass, the flesh eaten off their soul. These things destroy other people’s lives – emotionally and psychologically. Sometimes financially and socially. That’s not something one should be responsible for.

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My dear Jack, I was very worried about what your girlfriend told me you said. You said you’ll never forgive her. All because she reported you to a third party. And to think she did so because she wanted to get you help. You were in a dire situation. There’s the morality of that: how do you punish someone trying to help you? You were in trouble. She didn’t know what to do having exhausted herself. I thought it’s such people you would stick to. She’s your true friend. A true friend is born for adversity. Fake friends run away in adversity. Yes, she made a mistake in form but the substance remains germane. She meant well for you.

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My dear Jil, I’ll try and answer your questions and address those issues. The definition of beauty from a man’s perspective is actually more complicated than even men realise. It’s why it seems we don’t know what we want sometimes. In practical terms, we tend to separate attraction quality beauty from relationship quality beauty, from ogling quality beauty. These are complicated mechanics. I’m just trying to break them down artificially. It’s actually a mesh of overlapping and integrated gears.

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My dear Jack, I don’t get it. You mean you’ve dated your girlfriend for four years and your friends are still insisting you’re rushing into marriage! You’re lucky a more focused candidate or credible alternative hasn’t shown up. You’d have lost her. She’s either a very patient person, or she loves you very dearly or both. Either way, you’re a lucky man.

So how long do you want to date her before you marry her? Or is this a case of perpetual dating, you know, being in a state of date. What exactly do you need to find out about her that you’ve not found out in four years of dating? That question may imply you’re thick, unobservant, negligent or lacking in the capacity for insight. If you don’t know your girlfriend after four years of dating, I’m really not sure you’ll ever know her. You mustn’t be paying much attention or she’s a very good actress. Some people are very talented no doubt but it’s hard to keep a ruse up for four years with utmost constancy. That requires inspired capacity.

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My dear Jil, let me tell you a story. There was this guy who always seemed to over-reach. He never sought to date according to his station in life, he always reached above his station. He had an unestablished car repair business, was moderately educated, was not blessed with good looks or good anatomy though he imagined otherwise. He didn’t have much money either. He struggled with finance. But he was blind to all these. He somehow felt his calling in life was to date the most beautiful women in his local assembly, and not just beautiful women but rich, beautiful women. As one can imagine, it takes guts to date a rich beautiful woman. You need a sense of self, and also your own money. You hardly get respect living off a woman. If you don’t want to be known as a toy boy to a rich woman, you must have sufficient means relative to the status of the woman. That brings respect.

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My dear Jack, it’s a very rare family that will allow you to date two sisters successively. You were interested in the older sister but you went for the younger once the older one travelled out of the country. Which should make you question what you really want? Was it her you wanted or just a woman? Any woman seemed to fit your bill, including her younger sister. If you didn’t have an awful relationship with that younger sister this discussion will be moot. You won’t be mailing me. It’s because that relationship broke up you renewed your interest in the elder sister.

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“There she was standing by the roadside in the morning. The air was fresh. It was just a few minutes after nine. She stood there wistful in proportions, her face ever so subtly animated. The shadows of her thoughts passed over her face like the passing of the clouds above. Or like the shadow of a plane descending over a terrain, the shadow trailing it like a disembodied entity bound to the locus. It glides surreally.

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My dear Jil, sometimes it’s good to talk to married women so you learn from their experiences. You have to be discerning of course. Be careful what you listen to. You have to exercise judgment about what is good for your ears and what’s not. We can learn from the bitter marriage experiences of others without imbibing a bitter spirit. A forerunner is a walking traffic sign, a harbinger of news about dangers ahead. So it’s good to talk to those who are married so you learn from their experiences. Save a gifted bachelorette, there’s hardly anything a bachelorette can teach you about marriage. She has no practical knowledge. There’s the theory of marriage, there’s the practical of marriage. Experience matters more. Continue reading →

My dear Jack, this is a casus belli situation. In case you don’t know what “casus belli” is, it’s a Latin expression meaning an act or event that provokes or is used to justify war. Perhaps you don’t realise it but you’re turning this issue into casus belli – a provocation scheme or justification for war. You’ve already had a discussion on the issue, drop it! The answers you got may not be adequate but they’re a reflection of your girlfriend’s portrait of you. She’s fessed up but you’re still driving the issue as if you’re a criminal investigation department interrogator following leads. You’ve got the answer you need yet you insist on humiliating her into a full scale confessional.

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My dear Jack, you’re going to lose this woman if you’re not careful, and you’re well on the way. You’re stoking her primal fears with your casual attitude towards money and your philosophy of relationship finance. She comes from a family in which the father behaved just as you’re doing now and she doesn’t want to experience what her mum went through. Her mum had to step in several times for her dad; she ended up bearing the total burden for the children’s education. It all began the way you’re behaving now – not taking total responsibility for your finance, somehow hoping she’ll always be there to step into the lacunae. Her father was not financially responsible and the family would have suffered immensely had the mum not stepped up to the plate. They suffered nonetheless.

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