To Marry or Not To Marry

Everyone around me seems to be getting married or engaged; I’m just getting more awesome! No, I really am.

I found out the other day that someone that knows someone that knows someone that I know got married after 5 months of dating. That is good for them but I was sceptical. Do you really know someone well enough to want to spend the rest of your life with them after just five months? In my opinion that’s the honeymoon period, the period where you blog about this man saying he’s perfect; you’re seeing them through rose tinted glasses *ahem, coughs* 10 Signs That I Like You *coughs* so it’s really hard to tell if you can live with this person for the rest of your life or if you’re just infatuated. Is it possible to be in love after five months or is that infatuation?

I have fallen in infatuation quite a few times, I have, yeah. I'm not ashamed, I'm a sucker for love dammit and I will stand there and say yes I have been infatuated but love? Only once but does this make me cynical to the fact that if you get married too soon you’ll be marrying blindly? Hell no! I think that when you are dating someone within the first few months you can see part of their character, you can assess if their personal traits, characteristics, beliefs are something that you can live with for the rest of your life but not everything comes out within that time and because of infatuation you don’t realise how much some of those traits will annoy you a year or two down the line unless you are spending every day together then the honeymoon has a shorter life-span.

Is it an age thing that makes people panic and marry sooner than they previously would have had they been younger. I am talking about when you are dating in your early twenties; many of these tend to go on for about three/four years but had you been married you probably could have stretched it a bit longer. Which makes me think; does the absence of marriage allow relationships to break easily?  If I had gotten married to my first love when I was 18 would we have broken up two years later? Or because we would have been in it for the long haul we would have been more enduring and willing to work through our problems?

At 26, I have met men who I have seen some husband qualities in and thought of them as potential husbands but had they asked me to marry them would I have said yes? The love junkie in me wouldn't have allowed me because I can only marry if I'm in love. Look at it this way, I have only been in love once and that’s when I was 18. I have since had 2 other serious relationships which lasted about 2/3 years which at the time thought I was in love but I wasn't. Had I married either of these two men with the hopes that love will come because I would have seen qualities in them that I would have admired I would have lived in regret or divorce. Divorce not being an option for me means I would live in regret and grow to love this man because I’d never have fallen in love. I would still chase that high, that floating feeling, that tightness in your stomach and that sigh (you know the sigh I'm talking about) that I had had the first time round.

Do I think people should get married once they fall in love? Absolutely! So what happens if they fall in love within three months of their relationship? I say wait. Wait to see if this is real love or infatuation. Wait to see if you can tolerate this person’s anger, their stubbornness, sloth or their farting in bed. Long term relationships leave too much room to leave (when I say long term I'm talking about 2 years+) If you both hold the same values in life and marriage then why the delay? Chances are if you stay in a monogamous (or polygamous whatever works for ya) relationship a bit further down the line if you come across difficult times you’re going to want to leave because there is nothing tying to that person BUT if you are married, have the no-divorce policy and are committed to your marriage and to each other then you will work it out.

When people get married so soon it makes me wonder if they actually grasp what marriage entails.  That commitment is now being taken too lightly. It’s so easy to get into a marriage and to get out of it. I don’t know if the vows “for better or for worse, til death do us part” mean anything any more. Unless we are beating each other up like Ike and Tina, I ain't leaving. We said til death do us part and that’s how I intend to leave; you gonna have to kill me! I'm staying! So I need to get to know you as much as I can before I say “I do.” If we get married within five months and then I find out something in the sixth month about you that I really couldn't deal with because I was so lost in the honeymoon period; I am forced to work through that. Had we waited a while longer until the rose tinted glasses had gotten clearer and we decided that we don’t want to work through this thing; we both would have walked away and no one takes half. When the going gets tough and the tough gets going and the man I'm marrying he decides he doesn't want to be with me any more and has a divorce policy but I didn't know about this because we hadn't known each other long enough he’s going to take half. I don’t want him touching my half. Half of what I hear you say. Half of my millions of course! *cue crickets and tumble weed* What?

Men Aren't That Bad

I, like a lot of men are driven by the visual. I'm enticed by beauties with brains. I find nothing sexier than a matured frontal and parietal lobe carried by a dark skin beauty, caramel, milky way or look like he just stepped out of Green & Black's chocolate factory; I do not discriminate.





Starting from the low cut Caesar with deep waves. 
His eyes that look into your soul; undress you by watching your every move, sparking up something delicious in the pit of your stomach and at the meeting of your thighs.

The curve of his lips; that Colgate smile. 
I enjoy listening the vibrations of his deep masculine voice, deep laugh and the huskiness when he says sweet nothings or when he's telling a story.

I love the muscles on him, from his trapezius down to his biceps and triceps. The bulging veins that run down his fore arms to his metacarpals. I like something pretty to look at; not necessarily in the feminine term but in a way that I lick my lips and do a low grunt "mm!" when I watch his back shirtless while he moves around nonchalantly. 







It's also in his height, the confidence I take in wearing 5 inch heels knowing I'll still have to look up to him; metaphorically as well as literally. When he looks down at me, suddenly I feel small. I feel protected. I feel like he is King. My king.






I'm not shallow, I promise; I just like what I like.
Abercrombie and Fitch type guys, the abdominis rectus so defined, so cut and mesmerizing with his boxers hanging low enough to see the "V"; if you know you know.



From their waist down to their glutes he walks with such pride and purpose. A stance that dares to be challenged, that of a gladiator. He is a man with purpose, a goal. He is not perfect and he knows this. A man who treats his woman like his mate. He is King and she is Queen. 

I reside in the grey area

People say that relationships are hard. After being in one for three years and being newly single and on the dating scene I beg to differ. Relationships are easy. You know each other, there are no games, no questions about what's going on between the two of you. You both know exactly where you stand with each other and when one starts going off track you correct that shit. As you can probably guess, I was rusty. I didn't know the dating etiquette, it was so bad that I had to Google how to act. I have been out of the game for so long they have DMs now, KIK (what the hell is kik), InstaDM, Whatsapp, Screenshots (don't slip up because you'll get screenshot.) 
After getting over my break up I decided to start dating. I hadn't attempted to spit my mac-daddy-a-class game since my ex boyfriend and that was four years ago! First on the to do list to figure out what I was looking for out there in the big world filled with plenty of fish (no pun, ok maybe a little.) I knew I didn't want to be in a relationship, hell I'd just gotten out of one a few months ago I was not keen on jumping into the deep end of meeting the parents, sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews and don't get me started on the five year plans. I wanted something stress-free. Meet someone, go out, have fun; good clean fun which to most sounded like I wanted to knock boots. No, I did not want to do the nasty, which meant to most people sounded like I wanted a relationship right? No, I wanted to date.

I understand that it was naive of me to expect a man to want to spend time with me without getting some ass.I wasn't necessarily putting the booty on lock-down, I was merely not looking for a booty call.

So here's what I was looking for: a man who could hold a good conversation, funny, witty, didn't take himself too seriously. I did not care about his future, his five year plan, his short term goals or anything else that Steve Harvey was talking about in his book. I, my friends, wanted to "kick it." I wanted the grey area which consisted of dinners, movies, theme park rides, weekends in Paris or Rome and I did not want to be his girlfriend. What do you call this? The grey area. I wanted the company without having the complications of a relationship and yes, this company might have the same job description of a boyfriend and yet that's not what I was going for. When seeking advice from friends they too assumed I wanted a relationship, no I just wanted to hang out. So that means I wanted to just have "fun?" Yes, but not fun as in sex *sigh* I give up.

No matter how much I tried to explain my requirements, my needs and what I was looking for it seemed either black or white. It was either I wanted a relationship or I didn't. In my mind I wanted the Grey Area.
I'm still seeking the Grey area but I also understand that the Grey area to most is non-existent but to me it seems like a no brainer. I'd rather have a Grey area than just have a sexual relationship with someone who I call when I want to be "held" *ahem.* Sometimes you just want to go out and have a nice dinner with someone, good conversation and just have a cuddle. Who says that all this can only be provided by a boyfriend? Let's break all the rules and make the Grey area a thing because I sure as hell am not looking forward to going to any family reunions any time soon.

Once A Cheater, Always A Cheater...?

I am yet to meet a reformed cheater. I have faith but I'm still waiting. Someone always falls off the wagon or at least I'm waiting to see if they'll fall off the wagon because they always do. I met a handsome brotha who was cheating on his girlfriend. Any opportunity he got he'd drop his pants. After we became close friends I started seeing that this guy really, honestly and whole heartedly loved his girlfriend. He professed his love on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Myspace (if it still existed), citing hopes of getting married and for her to bear his children. At the beginning of the year he told me he was done cheating. His New Year's resolution was to do right by her and wasn't going to cheat on her any more. You know it's serious when you have to make it a New Year's resolution to stop cheating. It took him 3 months to fall off the wagon. He honestly loved her and I believed him and when asked why he continued to cheat on her he said it was because he knew he was going to be faithful when he married her. He basically wanted to get it all out of his system. So I asked him what guarantee he had that he would marry her since he was repeatedly cheating on her...Silence.

What I found interesting however from a conversation I had with him (I love our little heart to heart moments) was that when I asked him if someone who had cheated in the past would do it again. He said if someone cheats once they'd would definitely cheated again. Why? Because once a cheater always a cheater. In order for a man to be truly faithful; he said, he needs to have very strong will power and he needs to make up his mind that he doesn't want to cheat any more. It's all up to him.

So I thought, what about women? If a woman cheats does that mean she will do it again? I don't think so, only because I believe that a woman will cheat on her man if she's looking for something that she's not getting in the relationship. If her man doesn't listen to her, encourage her, give her moral support she will find a man who is willing to give her that. It is a psychology of making up what the other one lacks. A woman can have a man who's the kindest, most generous man, funny, good job, everything is amazing on paper but if she wants someone who will throw her around the bedroom and looks like he has a baseball bat stashed in his trousers but her man looks more like MMG's bawse (Rick Ross) and is holding a chipolata under his 10 month pregnant looking belly she might be stepping out.  If she stays with said man she might cheat on him continuously until she gets what she really wants out of the relationship. Cheating could be tit for tat thing. You cheat on me, I will cheat on you. Two wrongs don't make a right but they surely make you sleep better at night!

So what happens when your boo cheats on you? Do you forgive them and try to rebuild that trust with them or do you keep it moving? I had to think long and hard about this, had a few debates too! I think it's very naive to believe someone when they grovel and swears to you that will never do it again that they won't because no one can predict their future actions. I believe in love, I love LOVE but I also believe that a snake will beg for your mercy and then bite you right after you spare it's life.
Forgiveness is something we all need to do. We need to forgive in order to move on with OUR lives, when you forgive it stops being about the other person and more about you. At the same time we do not need to go back into a cycle of infidelity because of love. Not taking someone back after they cheated does not mean you don't love them, it means you're not willing to risk your heart and feel like your world has come tumbling down again. It is protecting yourself from the betrayal, paranoia and insecurity. In the same breath I will say that taking someone back after they've cheated on you does not make you a fool in love, it means you have hope that people can become better. It is understanding that human beings make mistakes and they can come back from that. It is understanding that it was never about you (well, maybe it was but hey!) and that people change. Sometimes they don't and such is life.

But fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.  Fool me thrice then you're damn fool because I'm coming to get your ass!

Give me HOLLYWOOD lurve anytime baby!

I often get amazed at how different we are as human beings but at the same time how similar we are. In the last month I have come across three women who were in the EXACT same relationship situation and they did not know each other. They were in long term relationships with men they didn't love. Well, they loved them but they were not in love with them. So I asked why they were still hanging on and I got the same answer: "I don't know." The fear of the unknown often paralyses people. It is hard to leave someone you have been with for years because that is all you know and you don't know if you will get something better. You don't know if what you really desire is even real or if its attainable. 

I often look at people who get married and wonder what sort of feeling they had when they decided to get married. We all know that falling in love is a temporary feeling and the real lasting feeling comes when you have settled in love. Gravity has done its job and you are not getting those butterflies any more .. or are you? After years of being together, will you still have that clenching feeling at the pit of your stomach that you used to get when you first started dating and has he now become "that guy?" Yes, he's your boo, you've "settled" in love and you are happy but do you still have that feeling? This is what I think a lot of people struggle with. Love is like crack, you want that high feeling so you keep going back. Trying different types so that you keep having that "falling" feeling because it's like a drug. But for my friends who are comfortable in their relationships yet they yearn for more are they settled in love and are just acting like crack fiends or is there really more out there for everyone? Is love for everyone? Is long term love for everyone? 

I've met some serial daters because they cannot be in a long term relationship after the butterflies have gone. Its boring, mundane, redundant and routine because it takes work so they start looking around to see what else is there. In life you're always going to come across people that are funnier, better looking, wittier, smarter, sexier the list is endless on how many fishes are out there in the sea but are they worth letting go of what you have at home? One of my friend's situation is  that she could not forgive him for the past and yet she could not let him go. The solution is pretty simple and clear. The writing is on the wall; if you cannot forgive him for what he did in the past you're punishing both you and him and are wasting valuable time when you could be out having fun getting that "falling" feeling. That feeling is great isn't it just?

But for those who do not have past problems to deal with (well every relationship has problems but some minor than others) at what point do you realise that you're settling in your relationship and you deserve better or if you're settled and now have to put in the hard work because you're committed? Is it a thin line between the two or does it take logic instead of emotion to decide whether you should stay or if you should go?