Relationships 101

“…But I feel I feel like women that I know that are like myself...we accept.... we give…we support…we encourage.... we do s**t that a good woman is suppose to do build their man up…”

I recently had a conversation with a friend who made the above quoted gripe. As a disclaimer, I usually try to shy away from relationship conversations. I have them with my person, and that has more to do with really liking her than desiring the conversation. Talking about relationships, I have found, is a lot like talking about exercise. You are better off doing the work and enjoying the results. The conversation gets old and can be disheartening. Sadly, I theorize that most people who spend time discussing relationships are probably not very good at them. Just a thought.

This friend, a former coworker, was lamenting her latest disappointment. Trying to be supportive, I shared with her my own feelings on being with someone. It boiled down to this: you can’t change people. As we grow older and are fully capable of supporting ourselves, men and women see less rationale in change and compromise. If I can be crotchety old me and still more or less live the life that I want, what incentive is there for me to meet someone half way? Compromise, I mused, is the most overrated and nonexistent adult trait imaginable.

What she should do, I advised after she made her statement, was concentrate on two things. Knowing where her own power lay in being involved with someone, and not confusing the value of what you can give with what someone needs.

If you like someone, you like them. Whether or not you stay with them is based primarily on how much you like them, and if the undesirable things they do are offset by how you feel about them. Different things bother different people. My ex wife often lamented she would rather I cheated on her than disagree with her so much. I don’t do infidelity, but I have been accused, a time or two, of having a strong opinion. My current inamorata doesn’t mind if we disagree, but would be devastated if I started seeing someone else while involved with her. Both are Black women from the Midwest of similar age and education. They each have different sets of unacceptable behavior they can tolerate in a relationship. People are different.

In being with someone, I reasoned, my power lies not in the ability to change her to meet my wish list of traits. My power lies in the choice to either be with someone, or to leave her alone. Most people bang their heads into walls trying to grasp at power they will never attain while ignoring that which is inherently theirs. If Jewel is inconsiderate and prone to running around, no amount of love is going to change that. I am setting myself up for heartache if I think it will. My leaving won’t change that, either. What it will do, however, is remove me from a situation where I get hurt enduring such mistreatment.

My friend responded that was easy for me, a man, to do. I gently disagreed. I have been in love. I have been hurt. As a heterosexual man, the folk with whom I related and by whom I was hurt were obviously women. This knows no gender limitation. If people want to stop feeling stepped on, they have to start making decisions to not let people step on them. Pointing fingers and commiserating just are not an effective way to accept that your unhappiness is a result of a decision you made. Own up and make a better decision next time. Know where to say, “Hmmmm…this is where I came in”, wish that person luck, and move on.

Note: if you start walking around telling folk you are a person who will not be stepped on, you are a strong whatever, you actually come off as being pretty weak. Remember what Maggie Thatcher said about being strong. It’s like being a lady. If you got to tell someone you are, then you ain’t.

The second part of our conversation shifted to the things my friend felt she brought to the table. Now, I don’t know what they say in Essence and on Oprah, but a lot of the guys that I know don’t need our significant other to “build us up.” We had parents for that, and when their job was done, we had something akin to a self-esteem alternator somewhere in our hardware. The more we use it, the more it stays charged.

If I meet a woman and say, “I can pay your electric bill. That makes me the man for you,” I have not taken into consideration that she may be looking for a guy that shares her hobbies. There may be a woman out there who needs a power bill paid. That is wonderful relationship criteria for that other lady. This one, however, needs something different. I don’t need to give up on relationships. I need to find the babe whose lights just got cut off.

Many of my friends chase the opposite sex offering things their intended obviously doesn’t need. They then must deal with hurt feelings because what they bring to the table isn’t what that type of person wants. That’s real. Again, like the power to leave a situation, the sagacity to discern what someone else esteems is invaluable.

If you pride yourself on being the mothering type who needs to build a guy up, I am probably not your man. Many men that I know just do not value that. Personally, I have made it clear in every relationship that what I need is fairness, loyalty and a bit of understanding. The rest I can handle myself. A good woman, to me, can have many other traits. The good woman FOR me needs to be capable of those three things. As I grow older, sex is relatively easy to come by, I have my own money, and three dogs and a kid make for swell companionship. Confronting me with the logic that you can offer anything other than fairness, loyalty and understanding makes me feel like the lady who doesn’t need her light bill paid.

Someone may not play by your rules, but that’s ok. Just looking in the mirror,the rules I play by have worked well for 37 years. Chances are, I’m not going to change. No amount of anger or bitterness on someone else's part will influence that. Deep down, if we are both being honest, you should understand. Why? Because you aren’t going to change, either. It’s a big world. Find someone that values what you are. Realize not everyone needs what you have to sell, and that is ok. Know that in any situation, your power lies not in your ability to effect long term change in another person, but to leave. It will save you some headaches, I have learned, over the long haul.

My friend, needless to say, didn’t want to hear that. When we finished talking, she resolved to be more supportive, more encouraging and more giving to the same person that, thus far, had frustrated her.

What do they call it when you keep doing the same thing expecting different results?