Mars and Venus

First of all let me begin by saying that wow I have sucked as a blogger. I didn’t do it very long because I had major life changes that sucked my time and energy away but boy do I miss writing. Over the last 7 or 8 months, I have had so many ideas and thoughts and longed for a free moment to just sit down with a hot cup of tea and just write. One of these days I hope to have the courage to blog about what has been going on, but for now I will just say that I do miss it and reading all of my people’s blogs. Maybe I will follow Jailyn’s advice and start a journal (and stick with it!).

Anyway, I am blogging today because I had an impulse to send a tweet this afternoon that I instantly knew would spark some controversy and rather than get into a debate on twitter I decided to just write how I feel and the readers will have to deal with it.

Sooooo, over the last few months, I have witnessed a lot of my female friends and family struggle with some pretty serious “man” issues. We’re talking cheating, beating, lying, sneaking, using, laziness, lack of intimacy, lack of interest… and the list goes on. (Before you dismiss this as a man bashing post, be patient, read on…)

I have wiped more than my share of tears, given tons of hugs, spent countless hours listening to stories of what he did and who he did and this so and so this, and that mf that… Every time I hear a story like this it saddens my heart and I began really thinking about the condition of our men and women in today’s times. It’s really rather heartbreaking so I decided to take a look at what I know to try to make sense of all this...

I am fortunate to have several very close male friends, brothers and uncles who freely and openly discuss with me in a very real and blunt way how they view and treat women. I hear all the time how they will mistreat and misuse a bitch or hoe but one day they hope to find their Queen. They expect this woman to be sitting somewhere educated, independent, beautiful, street and book smart, can cook, clean and doesn’t complain and she must be unused, unhurt and waiting for him to come scoop her up, marry her, have lots of babies and live happily ever after…BUT…. only when he is ready. In the meantime though, they have fun with the chicks that aren’t “wifey” material. They sex them, tell them things they think they want to hear, then get upset when it works and the women get all attached. They cut them off leaving these women scarred for the next man and this cycle goes on so long that by the time a man comes along and sees this woman for the Queen that she is, he has to work overtime to repair the damage and teach her to trust and love and forgive. That journey can be taxing on a relationship and if there is so much damage to reverse, a man may end up throwing in the towel before he is able to enjoy the fruits of his labor because it is just too much.

Now, I have been thinking about why this happens and I have several theories I will discuss. The first one requires a mirror. Women are by nature emotional beings. We feel before we do, when we do and after we do anything. We think and analyze and theorize and hypothesize… we judge and critique and assess. Our ability to feel so strongly is the very thing that draws men to us and if we do not control this ability it can end up the very thing that will run them away.

Because our emotions control us, we tend to make decisions based off our emotions. How we dress, what we eat, how we think… mostly based off emotions. Some of us have better discipline than others. Some of us can walk away even when it hurts. Some can say no when we so very badly want to say yes. Some of us can not shed a tear on the outside when on the inside we feel like we are dying, but note, I said SOME. The reality is that many of us can’t walk away. Many of us do say yes when we know damn well we should have said no and many of us cry more that we would ever care to admit. We are hard wired to be emotional and the way we are socialized reinforces this.

I say all of this to say that I think we as women need to make it our goal to strengthen our control over our emotions. We must be smarter in our choices and stop letting our emotions dictate our decisions because the consequences often times leave us emotionally scarred and when we enter into a relationship with a man and we are all battered and bruised and scarred up emotionally, we are really no good to that man. In gaining control of our emotions, we should be able to filter out and avoid toxic men and therefore eventually find some happiness. Ladies, grab that mirror and see what you can fix.

Now my second theory on why there is such a disconnect between men and women has to do with the fact that I really feel like the majority of men do not know how to properly love a woman. This may be in part because men tend to be more logical than emotional and it’s hard to love something you don’t understand logically. A woman doesn’t have to understand the man to love him, if it feels right, it feels right but for men you all have to understand something before you will commit to it and agree to love it.

I also feel like men are never taught to love a woman. In fact, I would go so far as to argue that we as parents teach our boys how to not love a woman. I say this because as I stated above, in our culture, men are taught that to show emotion is weak. To hold hands or kiss or rub feet is a sign of weakness. To tell a woman you love her when you do is weak. I am just curious, if mother’s and father’s are socializing our son’s to think this way, it would appear that we are teaching them how to not love a woman because emotions, holding hands, kissing and loving is the very essence of what we are as women.

So what can a man do to change this? *passes mirror* Men can also take a look in the mirror. Really look at yourself and ask yourself if you have control over your emotional side to the point where you can let go when it is healthy and you can remain strong when it is called for. Take some time to explore your emotions and you may end up really liking what you feel. Once you are able to handle the emotional you, find you a woman that is in control of her emotions, loves herself and make her your Queen, have lots of babies and live happily ever after… THE END.