The other day I got this email: -
It seems like a harmless email from a guy I may have broken up with or had broken up with me but that was not the case. Now, this is a very personal story. You see, let me start from the last sms I got from the guy before this, it might sum up everything.
Now, let’s start. This experience taught me that I am a typical human being, vulnerable and at times easily manipulated. Now the question from the above communication would be why I would want to friends with such a man. You see I learnt that psycho dudes have the weirdest mood swings, one minute you are evil, the next they are apologizing and want the very first thing you wanted in the first place, friendship. This happened so many times with him saying he was going to get help at some point.
I will keep to the basics of what I learnt about being in a somewhat abusive relationship. All the signs were there I did not miss them, I ignored. It was supposed to be a ‘teach me how to swim’ relationship nothing else. On date number one, as we are swimming he says, I am not like other guys in the pool, trying to fondle girls, I am different. Yet he took me to the deep end and tried to kiss me when we were under water, I immediately popped up, and pretended not to have noticed that. Then when we are having coffee he says ‘you are not like other girls, they are b******. That was sign number two, I said as a young woman you cannot respond to every guy that cat calls you or shows interest, interestingly enough I became a b**** soon enough. I ignored that! And it’s not that I wanted to be in a relationship desperately. I did not but I thought he was a really nice guy. He was a gentleman, and you do not meet these quite often, he wanted to pay all the bills, he wanted to know how I was doing, he seemed like a gentle soul battered by the world and I wanted to be the savior.
The third sign was on that same day. He said he had volatile temper and his friends had crossed him and he retaliated and I asked ‘why not let go?’ I should have stopped there, I did not.
He said he was a jealous guy and I said, I cannot date a jealous guy, I have very good male friends who have stuck with me through thick and thin and I would drop a man first before I dropped them. These are men who have believed in me when I did not believe in myself.
You see I have never been in a volatile relationship. It has always been so easy with other others that I have dated, when it ends it ends, there were no words thrown at anyone, but whether it was me or the guy that chose to walk away, nothing like this has ever happened to me. Yes the usual challenges were there and there are some frogs and jerks along the way, but mostly it was typical.
I said I am attracted to you but I do not want to be in a relationship, I had a lot in my plate, work and school and I did not think he was the one. He agreed with me. I said if I enter a relationship too quickly, it will not last and I would rather we be friends if it grew from there that I would okay, if did not, okay. I really thought that was clear, one week later I was his background picture, he was holding my hand in public, he wanted me to use his tuk tuk driver to go home, he was telling me he had told his parents about the girl he was going to marry, at two weeks, he could not go anywhere without me, and not feel lonely, he was planning a tour of Mombasa, he talking of waking me up in 2017 to vote, and he was the victim in his last relationship which was sketchy, she left him but now she wanted him back. Something was off, but because he passed the gentleman’s test, I kept ignoring everything that I saw. It was clear yet not so clear… Someone said something was off. I said to my sister ‘this is the kind of guy that you would want to be friends with if I decided I did not want to be in a relationship.’ I was wrong!
To be continued...
The truth about nice guys
I was once holding a conversation with a guy, who was well educated, but average looking in a hotel and out of nowhere the guy says ‘nice guys never get the girls.’ ‘Girls are not interested in the nice guys.’ You see there’s a misconception about nice guys and what that phrase means. It should not be mistaken for any of the following: -
• It’s not a self pity phrase, that woishee kind of guy, date me, I am nice, date me. They pity everything about their lives and how their lives have turned out.
• Nice guys and average are not the same thing,
• Nice guys and poor guys are not correlated; just because you are poor does not mean you are nice. There are enough poor guys that have battered their wives and made the lives of women a living hell, so no! Poor and nice do not mean the same thing.
• Nice guys do not live in the ghettos necessarily.
• Nice guys are not ugly
• Nice guys are not pathetic
• Nice guys are not short, I have met enough short guys who assume just because they are short they are automatically nice.
I think this guy had a type of girls that he was interested in but they were not interested in him because he was not their type and their rejection he pegged it down on women not wanting him to his nice guy image. I dated such a guy once and I speak from experience, there is nothing nice about self pity and it went from self pity to putting me down. It started as ‘I am so nice I have been rejected a lot.’ ‘I am sorry you have to date a short person.’ ‘It’s obvious you have settled’ ‘Look at me, I have asthma, I look weird.’ I tried saying all these did not matter to me, but soon this self hatred was now directed to me ‘Do not put on weight, you would not look as lovely.’ You should have seen the look on his face every time he said. He wanted me to pity myself. He once said ‘I know I am not the pretty at all.’ ‘You are okay’ I said. ‘You know you are not the most beautiful woman in the world.’ That was his response. I was like ‘dude I am very okay with my looks, no low self esteem issues other than the ordinary, I wish my hair was no longer, I need to loose 2kgs, only that.’
In short nice guys does not mean, poor, looks down on self, thinks that women should date him because they are nice or he thinks that the nice guy phrase was invented for him. Nice guys come in all shapes, colours and sizes. At times they are rich, at times they are poor, at times they dark skinned, other times they are light skinned, other times they are tall, then at other times they are short. Just because you feel less endowed by nature does not mean that every woman should be running into your arms. I do not agree with Sauti Sol, chances are there are women laughing on boda bodas as there are crying, there are also women laughing in Benz’s as there are women crying.
Even in the traditional African community, men needed to work hard to get the girls of their dreams and it was tougher then than it is now. I have realised that every time a guy says he is nice and starts to throw himself a pity party, he turns out to be a social misfit and their behavior borders psychotic.
The solution would be to stop wanting women who are out their league and pay attention to the nice girls out there who feel ignored.
