During my single state of affairs, I had the opportunity to ask this one lady I was conversing with: “What kind of man do you want?” This question was one of those questions I totally was not interested in the answer for, but they are a prerequisite to the start of a relationship, affair, hook up, deal, alliance… you could never know what these are called nowadays. Anyway, she went to say “someone who can take care of my needs.” At 28, she needed someone to take care of her needs.
At Twenty Eight, She, Needed, Someone, To Take Care Of Her, Needs.
A person who has had a 28-year long head start to learn and understand what she wants and needs, and how to best satisfy those needs and wants. Wants someone to do all that analysis, draw up a mental report, figure out a solution within her set “trial period”. Then that someone must apply it for her eternal happiness. That impending relationship is broken before birth. The reply may have been a top of mind sort of to say standard rhetoric. She could have learned from magazine’s advice columns, friends, mother or it may even be a family heirloom passed on through oral tradition. She may have said it as passively as I had asked the question. Even if that might be the case, it is worth considerable scrutiny how a 28-year-old urbanite (asithi nje ucheri wase Kasi) answers a question that sought a description of the qualities of an individual they want but blurted out a job description instead.
Getting The Job
This is exactly where the problem with these kinds of relationships begin. The people are not aware of the “deal” they get into. Prostitution has worked so well since the beginning of primates because it is clear: One issue a tender, One performs a job. Simple!. What we call romantic relationships now are in fact massive recruitment campaigns. How a person types when the text is judged with just about the same grammatical Nazism applied to a resume. Dates are interviews on decorum and dress sense is a deal-breaker. The size of the wallet is somewhere between a business plan and a merger. Fittingly then the sex is the reward, the job. A job to make the other happy, after failing for 28 years. In all of this, the lady is not paying attention to her own contributions to creating an experience, the kind of relationship she wants. She shows up for the “interviews “ to scrutinize the man, and reports to her seniors: married and single friends.
All along the prospective “employee” actively puts in the work to impress the lady, he passes all tests and gets the job one Friday evening after a night out (which he most likely paid for). Then it should not be surprising when the “employee” starts taking moonlight side gigs to supplement his needs should he find that what the lady’s job is substandard. How can she provide superior positions when she perfected the skill of check listing a man on his capacity to satisfy her than her blowing the man? What will she do if she finds that the man has in own house, car, disposable income to pay for her wants and needs, impeccable eye for deco, a great cook, does not want marriage and his last relationship involved Kinbaku. What can she contribute to the man’s life when she still needs “someone” to assist her existence? There is a glaring difference between wanting a man and needing a foster parent, a financier, a serviceman or a marriage institute co-founder.
Want A Man, Be A Woman.
The lady thought she wanted a man but what she wanted was someone to fill the position left unserviced, a gap, her gap. She overlooked the opportunity to identify a man she can add value to as a woman. She overlooked being a woman entirely. If she focuses on being a woman to a man, her selection would probably not even lead to “someone” who is supposed to “take care of her needs”. It would lead her to the kinds of men who are complete by themselves. Men that would take care of her needs and wants because they do it to themselves daily. Chances of messy breakups, stalking, desperation and the “I can’t live without you” nonsense are down to zero.
The lady should be in a complete state at the time of looking for a man, a man is not her other half. She should be at a point where she understands the most basic aspects of her mind, emotions and her current and future needs and most importantly there is a plan. A lady that understands at which point an argument turns into abuse when support becomes exploitation when love becomes hate. She must be able to stand on her own and a man is an opportunity to see and experience another person’s world that improves the experience of her own. At this point, she has set the bar for what she wants and needs to give to the very very fortunate man she chooses… a man that needs and wants her.
Writer: Banele Rewo