ONE STEP AT A TIME

I will forever be grateful to God for creating me a girl, but I wish sometimes that I came as a boy, I say to myself I would have done God ‘proud’ and times and situations that warrant this statement come up when I see the male specie so clueless about their women, yet they think they know it all!


Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, ‘of course she would think that way, she has a girls’ perspective!” True that. I am girl and so I think, talk, reason and behave like a girl would. I take up the emotional nature characteristic to women and naturally flow in the role set out for a woman. Some years back, I realized I didn’t know so much about guys and when I checked it, I found out that I didn’t have a lot of male friends, the larger percentage of my friend’s were females, blame it on my single sex secondary education. I knew I wanted to be married someday and I wanted to be able to understand my husband when he is communicating or not, and to have an insight into what ticks and moves him. So, I knew I had to get closer to guys and this increased the number of my male friends. We began to interact and as we did, I started seeing things I didn’t know before, through the questions I asked, I got information and a little bit of insight into how they are wired and what triggers their ‘network’. I didn’t want a warped view, so I took time out to study guys and while I wouldn’t claim to be a guru in the dealings and affairs of the male specie, I know I am better than who I used to be and my knowledge about them has definitely increased (and I am thanking my male friends for giving me the opportunity to learn about them) because as it is, the larger percentage of my friends are now guys, I just find them very interesting.

What am I saying? To know about something, you have to be willing to seek information about that thing and not just assume you know. When you study a thing long enough, when you quiz yourself about something for awhile, at a point, you begin to get a feedback and your mind just picks the information you need out. Our minds were created such that when we tax it, it develops. You would agree with me that what ticks a lady off, will probably have no effect on a man and these two species are very different in their dealings; or how do you explain the willingness of a woman to express her emotions when she loses a loved one while a man seeks to bottle his up so he can ‘be a man?’ or why a man seems to always wear a serious look and you wonder if he ever smiles, or why a boy naturally wants to be the boss of even his sisters when he is many years younger than they are? Or why a man can go berserk when you step on his ego? Our God is just awesome! The best sculptor that ever was and would be. The physical differences of both species are a wonder to ponder on too; a woman is tagged ‘a software’ while the man is called ‘a hardware’. Interesting, don’t you think?

Now, when you see or notice a person and you find out you want to get to know more about this person, you go ahead to first of all initiate (note that word) contact and you proceed from there. I used the word initiate because that part is sensitive. The first impression you give matters. I’m talking about approach and the manner of it, especially when we are dealing with the other specie. How on earth would a guy I know not from adam walk up to me, or send me a mail and qualify me as ‘babygal’, or ‘baby’ or ‘mami’ or ‘shorty/shawty’. Geez, I don’t know about everyone, but I speak for myself and my close friends that a guy who ‘enters’ with this automatically gets a ‘delete’. I don’t know where guys got the impression that ladies want to be addressed as such, but to me and mine, those are ‘pickup lines’ that earns an immediate distaste and disinterest. For real. Or a guy who has just initiated contact and hasn’t even had the opportunity to know just decides he is in love; say a lady meets a guy today, Monday and by the end of the week, he is proclaiming undying love, I tend to see such a guy as ‘unserious’. Likewise, when a lady meets a guy, especially if the interest is romantic and her next question is how much he earns, the guy gets the impression that she is sizing up his pocket, probably to exploit it, or a lady meets a guy and all she can talk about are his obvious flaws, be sure he would keep his distance. Men especially like to be celebrated and appreciated.

For every relationship that will blossom, there are stages involved. It will be a breach to jump from stage 1 to stage 7 so to speak. For me, I break it down into contact, acquaintance (getting to know), leveling, friendship, accountability, intimacy. I naturally get pissed when someone I just met is trying to jump to the accountability stage. I don’t know a thing about you and you expect me to be accountable to you? And don’t say it doesn’t happen, because it does! I don’t know about you, but I choose my friends and that largely depends on how much of the person I get to know. I am not friends with everyone I get acquainted with. I do this because I understand the gravity of what wrong relationships can do to a person’s life. Most guys these days are not willing to take things slow and steady, the instance they meet a girl they think they like, and contact has been initiated, they begin to rush the getting to know and friendship stages. Some don’t even get to the friendship stage before they begin to ask for intimacy. People, the next time a guy/lady says he/she loves you, reflect on how much this person knows about you and how much you have shared about each other and you could decipher if the person’s for real or just disillusioned. I say this because you cannot truly love what you don’t know, you can argue that, but it’s the truth.

Guys love to say ladies are complex and difficult to please, I say it’s because they haven’t bothered to know enough. You cannot just box every woman you meet into the status quo of their sex; each lady is an individual unique in her right. A guy who wants to woo or ‘chase’ a lady cannot just decide that if he does this and that, she’s gotta trip; that it worked on Salewa does not mean it would have any effect on Kanyinsola. You have to find out what particularly gets through to her. Some guys feel they are the most romantic people to ever live and no woman can resist their charm, but have you bothered to find out if you are charming the right way? For some ladies, sweet words make them ‘melt’, while to some it’s just the fact that you care a lot. Take time out to find out the best way to get your message across to her, get to know her, be her friend.

We should learn to let our relationships grow steadily. Communicating a lot helps growth. Ask questions. Seek information. Study the person because sometimes the words and actions might not match up. ‘Breathe slow’, take it one step at a time, there’s no reason to rush.

Much love.