Not Into You?

It all started on the play ground, as a nine years old girl learnt a valuable lesson that will remain with her for the rest of her life. This life lesson was brought about by Billy - the 10 years old cool kid on the block pushing her off the swing. As she cried her tears of pain - her older sister running up to her gave her these home truths, “the reason Billy pushed you off the swing and hurt you is because he really likes you”. This lesson will remain with this young girl for the rest of her life as she wades through her story of love realizing that often times hurt and pain often comes with that thing called love.

I remember a couple of years ago - a book came out chronicling this tale of love and hurt and this book became an instant success as the mantra for all single dating women became, “maybe he is not that into you”. But, despite the success of this book and of course the movie that came out a couple of months ago - many are still falling into the same trap and realizing a little bit too late that there often is no correlation between love and sex. This write up applies to both men and women. These are the points to keep in mind that he/she is not that into you.

1) Emotional signs: He finds it difficult to call you his girlfriend or his significant other. He has been with you for more than 6 months and yet still hasn’t said,” I love you”. He loves that word, “friend” and in his mind that often means - “fuck buddy”.

2) He shows you disrespect - I have always believed that the way a person treats another one defines what you think about that person. A person who is condescending, always never has anything positive to say about anything you do is definitely not a person you should have around you because what that person does is bites away at your esteem until you find yourself asking for their opinion on anything that concerns you. Any person that puts down your values, ideals , your ideas is definitely not into you. I will go as far as saying that you are setting yourself up for an emotionally abusive relationship that can potentially be physically abusive if care is not taken.

3) Mr. Chaser: Now, this is a special breed that most women have met at one time or the other in their dating lives. This guy is just thrilled with the chase. He loves looking like a God. What he does is that he chases, romances, buys, spoils and makes it seem as though he is in love with you and only you and when he gets what he wants - he moves on to the next person. The only way to avoid getting hurt by this special breed is to have a ‘breathe button’ where you constantly assess everything he does and you try to ensure that you do not get caught up in the ’superficial’ or ‘things’. Find out what he is about? Who is he really? Don’t fall for the lines. “You are the only one for me” often is a line that he sprouts to several people at the same time, you and the person he meets online at 10 pm at night.

4) Friends with Benefit: I am not going to say anything more about this. Please, read previous posts to see what I have said about this. I will recommend that you do the friends with benefit thing only if you can handle it. Don’t start and start thinking about a relationship unless HE brings it up.

5) Dwindling communication: Remember how you two met? You could hardly get enough of each other. Every moment you were either texting, calling, or using other communication tools to keep in touch and then all of a sudden he is too busy to call, text or use those tools. Or most importantly when you two talk, you don’t talk about anything really important. You don’t know about his family, work, friends etc. Trust me on this - someone else is getting that information and enjoying the privilege of these communication. As I often say, if you suddenly drop off the radar - someone else IS on that radar.

I chose these five points because I have seen so many African men and women fall into these traps. If you feel the need to drop me a line, or comment, you can meet on facebook (Pamela Stitch).

Could Your Man Be Cheating?

I know a couple of men started muttering when they came across this topic: “what is up with Pamela and these kinds of topics?”. Yes, I know I have approached this topic from several tangents in different write ups -”men like wolves, small house problem etc”. But, I realized, that there is still a lot more I have to say about this. Maybe, this will be my last write up on this, who knows? Okay, maybe till I come across something that ticks me off. Last week, I got a chance to talk to a guy friend of mine who I had lost contact with in years, and he let it slip that he knows that his daddy was cheating on his mother. I remember being in shock at the blase way he mentioned it. I know African men cheating in most of their love/lust relationships isn’t a new thing but the tone that this was mentioned, made me realize that to many African men - CHEATING IS NOT A BIG DEAL! Having to deal with this onslaught of emotions, I decided that I need to discuss this with my co host and friend on radio. Bringing my co host - Mwangi on and chatting with several Africans who were logged on, I realized that these two rules seem to be quite true of our men:

a) African men WILL CHEAT.

b)There is a cultural expectation for these men to cheat, as there is a cultural expectation for African women to forgive them and take them back.

At first, I was in shock at this feedback, because I am being told that as women, I should not expect simple givens like trust and ‘fidelity in a truly ‘committed’ relationship. So, my question really, if the situation were the reverse, “should I expect my man to be blase about it?”. Yes, I can hear the chuckles of some of the men at that statement. We know men will not put up with a cheating partner. I would have taken this further and called for an open relationship but that is a topic for another day.

Let’s deal with the basic question: Why do African men cheat?

a) simple answer: because they can and they can get away with it.

b) complicated answer: because they want to explore something extra, greed, insecurity.

Now, back to the main topic at hand: how do you know your man is cheating?

a) He picks up an argument every time - nothing seems to please him. The main reason for this is because, he is looking for an opportunity to connect with his new, “connection with the classic line, I am so misunderstood aka she doesn’t understand me but you do”.

b) Erratic behavior

c) You come across condoms in his car, his wallet or you notice that there are missing condoms in the pack.

d) He suddenly becomes too nice. For example, if you have a miserly man and all of a sudden he starts buying you stuff like there is no tomorrow, he is doing that to assuage his guilt.

e) He doesn’t notice you in your sexy get up aka freakum dress.

f) He suddenly becomes experimental in the bedroom.

g) calls you by another woman’s name during that moment.

h) Spends all his spare time on the phone with a particular female friend.

i) Raises hypothetical questions like, “do you think it is possible to love more than one person at one time?”.

j) wants more sex

k) wants less sex or no sex

l) turns off his cell phone when he’s home or with you or goes outside to make his phone call.

m) charger problems/lost cell phone/lost charger - being the reason you can’t get a hold of him for days.

I will end by quoting an African man who states -”if he’s African,he’ll probably cheat” and if you are a virgin and you are dating an African man - he’s probably cheating.

By the way - men could we change the lines a bit, if I hear, I am so misunderstood one more time - I will literally scream. oh yes, emotional cheating is still cheating.


Till next time,

Pammy

Ntjamrosie - Cameroonian Song Bird




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