I totally was going to write today about gender's role in education, you know, to show you guys I can write about diverse topics, but this one spoke to me a little bit more so we'll save that one for monday...it's more of a monday topic anyway.
I was talking to @manywomen about my forays into the dating world. I've always been boycrazy, so it only makes sense that at my age, I would be, ummm....man crazy I guess.
Standing in her office, I made the very public decision not to settle for things in a relationship that made me unhappy, uncomfortable, unsettled. In my past relationships, I had a tendency to make excuses for things I knew I shouldn't because in my mind I constantly heard that little nagging voice, the one terrified of growing old with my dogs and my gheis:
What if he's the one?
Is he my special someone?
Is this my happily ever after?
I could accept his proposal, or I could keep holding out for his brother....hmmm
My mom married my dad when she was 24, had me at 25, my little brother at 28, and my baby brother at 31. For those who know me, even a little bit, you know that my Mommy is my template for womanhood. She is who I model myself after, who I long to be, whose possible embarrassment I consider whenever on the verge of wildin' out /spazzin'.
Even when I wasn't trying, something inside me was always forcing me to hangout in relationships that should not have been because I felt like I was decades behind her in my personal accomplishments.
I had the degrees she had, but not the solid personal life, so stick around I did.
Make plentiful excuses I did.
Settle over and over again, I did.
Maybe he had access, power, faux confidence that lured me in.
Maybe he spoiled me.
Maybe he could lay the pipe well.
Maybe, maybe, maybe....
All these maybes mean d*ck when things just are not right. At the end of the day, settling is settling and all the wrongs will come to light usually at the most inopportune times, like at a work function when your beau misreads a ghei supervisor's catty exchange with you as disrespect and storms out of the function in front of ALL of your coworkers. *sigh*
As I was rambling on one of my many tirades in @manywomen's office today, she mentioned an article that she'd just read.
The site was reviewing Lori Gottlieb's upcoming book Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough the premise of which is essentially to stop holding out for your ideal man and marry the dude that's almost what you want.
Umm, 'scuse me Ms. Gottlieb, but isn't that what most chicks have been doing all along? I mean, if I had a penny, not a larger coin or bill mind you, for every time one of the homies said:
"I mean he's not___________"
OR
"I don't really like it when he____________"
OR
sh*t...
You know what all the apologies for reckless dude's behavior sounds like...either shorty has made them about you, made them to you about whatever she went through before, or....hell, you get my drift.
Anyway, I'm really curious, when did settling become what was hot? I know I did it, well, I didn't really settle per se as much as I was sold a false bill of goods. I have fallen, time and time again, for someone who wasn't what I thought he was, mostly because each and EVERY time I shrugged and figured that whoever I was with was as good as it gets.
Time & time again I had the one I pretended was the ONE, but we both knew he wasn't.
This is not something new for me, or really for most people I know.
Why?
Because ultimately, everyone is TERRIFIED of growing old and dying alone. So, we settle. More times than not, we accept the lowest and most base level of treatment from a lover because it is emotionally cheaper to keep'her than start all over again with someone new.
We keep an unfaithful lover around.
We ignore known deal breakers to have an occasional arm piece.
We pretend certain annoying little things don't grate on our nerves.
We accept only being happy marginally happy instead of looking completely happy.
But is this anything novel?
Not trying to knock Gottlieb's hustle, but pretty much what she's "discovering" is damn near exactly what Terri McMillan wrote in Disappearing Acts. A successful, educated woman can't find a mate on her level/in her lane, so she settles for a blue collar man with more baggage than the chicks in the Badu video.
If you can't have a partner that is your equal, one that compliments you and urges you to grow and develop as a person, you may as well have one that will make you weak in the knees, even if half your salary goes to pay his child support to his baby mommas, plural, since he doesn't make enough money to take care of them on his own.
The greatest problem with Ms. Gottlieb's theory is that it is only encouraging WOMEN to settle and accept that "you ain't getting no younger, you might as well do it." She has essentially crafted another woe-is-me-woe-is-my-womanhood-reality for some into a theory.
Why doesn't this same brilliant theory apply to the men they're pursuing or waiting with baited breath for?
Possibly because the itch to get hitched for fellas doesn't kick in until later in life (in their 30s and 40s) whereas for many chicas, checking into matrimony hotel is a college post graduate plan. More often than not, the fellas approach marriage from a much more practical standpoint than merely bad romance.
Marriages that start later in life have a higher success rate while those who get married too early, tend to have more issues and a greater rate of divorce. Research shows that it tends to be because people who marry young are ill equipped for the roles of husband and wife.
You mean to tell me that marriages work better when they occur between two GROWNups as opposed to younger people?
hmmm....
Who knew?
So basically, it isn't the notion of settling we should be focusing on as Gottlieb, the 40 year old single parent tells us (shots fired) but rather that we should make sure we are mature enough to handle the concept of happily ever after.
SMOOCHES!!!
SHINE ON!!!
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