Today is my mother’s birthday. She would have been 64. Sometimes I think she knew she would not be with us for long. As a child, I always had my head in the clouds. Romanticising everything. So she tried to teach me what she could in the short time we had.
I am back in the dating game. Yes, I am the type that has to experience things before I learn. Not anymore, though. I would like to share some truths my dear mum told me that are helping me navigate dating in my adult life. My mother always said there is no single man. He is not taking time to discover his potential by enjoying being single. You just have not found his wife, girlfriend, friend with benefits or all the above. If you find just a girlfriend and below, decide if you want to fight for a bigger share. My mother was saved so if you found a wife, you are to walk away.
On coming home to announce that I was pregnant, I was also unmarried and relatively young, I was expecting to die from a beating. Instead my mother asked me if I enjoyed the sex. I thought it was a trick question, it was another of her lessons. She said if I did not enjoy it, I must walk away. After a while, bad sex would leave me feeling used and disgusted. Sex is instinct she said. You get someone you enjoy it with.
Do not marry a man who you love more than he loves you. My mother always said men do not learn to love. They either love you at the beginning or they do not. They will sleep with you, but that is not love. She said, go for the man who loves you. Even if you don’t love him at the beginning, women learn to love. Of course I did not listen, Mills and Boon had told me different.
Just because many men want your attention (sex) does not mean you are the most beautiful. Men just try getting women’s attention. It is called casting the net wide. So do not get a big head. No pun intended.
A man needs to be a man. If a woman looks after a man, she automatically starts to disrespect him. He will then look for a place where he is celebrated and respected. Let a man be a man. Never issue threats unless you are going to carry them out. Remember the first time you threatened to leave and he was scared. I know as women there is a certain high we get from that. My mother said if you keep threatening without acting, he will call your bluff, maybe even help you pack.
If you don’t want to sleep with a man don’t go to his house. She said people do not just start rolling on each other. It’s a process. One minute you will be sitting, talking and smiling at each other. Two hours later you are examining each others’ throats amongst other stuff.
If you do not like a man, do not engage him. Women seem able to turn from dislike to love even, the more we hang around a man. Watch carefully how he treats the women in his family, especially his mother. This is a direct reflection of his future relationship with you.
Sex is not love. That he makes time to copulate does not mean you are special. He will do it with almost anything with a hole. (I am not hating). Have sex because that is what you want. Not because you are trying to get him to love you or because you are trying to get back at yet another man.
I miss her dearly. I think we would have made even better friends now that I am an adult and I have experienced a little of what the world has to offer. We would have had great laughs, at my expense, of course.
I have started teaching my own daughter some of these lessons. I hope to be around long enough to one day sit over a glass of wine with her and laugh at life.
RIP my mother Mary.