My dear Jil, loneliness can be difficult, very difficult. But it can also turn deadly. If you’ve been waiting for a man for some time it can drive you to do things you won’t ordinarily contemplate. Continue reading
My dear Jil, loneliness can be difficult, very difficult. But it can also turn deadly. If you’ve been waiting for a man for some time it can drive you to do things you won’t ordinarily contemplate. Continue reading
My dear Jack, seems to me you’re speed-dating women. No, I’m not talking about the other variety – those events in which you’re given two minutes to consider dating someone. Or is that the date? You can see the conceptual paradox. You can’t achieve a reasonable objective in that context. At best those programmes are about eliminating whom not to date, and such a person must be an obvious misfit. The whole thing seems like guess work on a multiple choice exam paper. You go for such events with the attitude of “Who knows!” rather than “I’m sure to meet someone.” It’s really not that efficient when it comes to qualitative decisioning. The structure favours certain stereotypes – guys and babes who can make their case in two minutes flat. There’s just something rushed about it, something superficial. That’s why I said it’s at best an elimination exercise. You’re at the mercy of the quality of the pool of prospects. But that’s not what I want to talk to you about.
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Dear Jil, surely you can see these plans are asinine. I mean, how does it make it sense?! You’re dating a guy who lives abroad and hardly comes to town – may be once a year. So you don’t see him much. You face the typical challenge of long distance relationship. However much you do Facetime it’s never like being together. But instead of talking marriage, this man is talking about making you a baby mama. Why would you want to be baby mama instead of wife? And according to him you’ll have to stay here for two years after you’ve had the baby. You can’t travel to stay with him immediately. This allegedly is to ensure you don’t do menial job when you travel to meet him in UK! I’m lost and confused over this logic. So you stay two years apart so you don’t do menial job in the UK. Don’t get it, what’s the link?
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My dear Jil, you’re not going to have everything you want in a man, any more than you can be everything a man wants. The man who is EVERYTHING you want has to be someone you made. In which case you’re divinity. Man is the sum total of his genetic ancestry, nurture, knowledge, environment, cultural and spiritual influences. It’s hard to therefore, imagine that a man will be 100% of your requirement. You have no influence on any of those factors. By the time you arrived on the scene the man was already “formed.” Every other modification is now voluntary. And so we marry those who are largely what we want, not everything we’d desired. Or we’ll never marry. That man you want doesn’t exist and can’t exist. You’ll have to create him yourself. And you have to be afraid of creating such a man for yourself considering flaws in your judgment, character and make up. That means whatever you create must necessarily be a flawed individual. You’re flawed in your thinking.
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My dear Jack, we all make mistakes. Some mistakes are immediately apparent. But some others take nine months to manifest. Yours will take nine months. Impregnating your girlfriend while still in school is the nine month variety of mistake.
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My dear Jil, you’ve got to break this chain of she said, she said, she said. It’s all gossip. Gossip is why there’s present continuous fight among you and your friends. Hardly is one she said settled when another she said resurfaces. Sometimes she said within she said. And so your relationship with your girlfriends is in a constant state of she said she said she said. And you’re so few. There’s a fluid alliance generated by all this gossip. Your friend today may say something behind your back tomorrow. Then to defend yourself you have an ally with someone who said last week, only you fought before the new she said. It’s like someone is playing you guys like marionettes, like someone stirring up strife among you. With all this gossip you and your friends are more or less a “Real Wives” TV series now. All we need is cameras.
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My dear Jil, but he’s not a lazy fellow. In fact he’s a very industrious young man. Just got laid off. And that happens. I mean the economy tanked, banks downsized and he got laid off. Could have happened to you. Assuming it did, what would you have expected of him? Start berating you? This is the time to show you love your husband. He’s at his lowest ebb. He just lost his job. You should feel for him. There he was one day everything going right in his life, just got married to the love of his life…then suddenly this. Call it downsizing, rightsizing or whatever sizing is going on…as if it’s some shoe! Fact remains that at the individual level, rightsizing is not shoe fitting. It’s someone’s regular income gone! Continue reading
Dear Jil, I really don’t blame your parents for insisting your boyfriend must have a job before marriage. You may not understand because your experience of life is little. And your knowledge of men is limited. But your parents know, and they’re actually trying to protect you though you may not see it. The makeup of men is radically different from that of women. Both sexes react to lack differently. I’ll talk to you in a bit about that, but truth is you don’t even know how you will react when there’s acute lack. Continue reading
