Have you noticed it’s taking men a long time to settle down these days and make an honest woman of one of the ‘catches’ they always have on the leash? When Joseph hit his 30s, I often counselled him on the advantages of settling down and having all his children whilst he was young. “What’s the hurry,” he always told me.
A suave gentleman with a good job and a nice to-die-for pad, he believed it wouldn’t be an effort to meet a partner when he was good and ready to settle down. He recently hit 40, and a dad to an adorable son whose mother doesn’t want to get married! “I couldn’t really believe it when she told me”, Joseph said, scandalised. “I was too old for her? Too old?
She was in her mid 20s, when we met and already had a child.
“When she became pregnant, I grudgingly decided to ask her to be my wife thinking she would be grateful to have a stepfather for her child. She was also for it at first, but after she had the child, she told me she didn’t think I was financially buoyant enough to look after her and two children. That her furniture business was doing well and she would rather be on her own. I was free to visit my son any time I wished and contribute to his upbringing. I was speechless? Not even my mother could talk her round. She’s put a big dent in my self-esteem, I tell you! I’m now 40 and don’t think I’ll ever have a genuine girl-friend to make a wife of. I want to settle down and have children by one woman. As things are now, it seems I’ve mucked up and made a mess of my future. It’s true I loved clubbing and each weekend, I’d take home a different girl and we’d have a great time.
“I was young and all I wanted was sex and more sex and I didn’t see anything wrong with what I was doing – that was until now. To my embarrassment, I’ve discovered, that no decent girl will come near me. Yes, I do get girls, but they’ve been around a bit, and I’ve slept with most of them. Just before the end of the year, I went to an office and met a lot of girls having a natter. It so happened that, out of the seven of them, I’d slept with five.
“They greeted me warmly but I was shaking in my shoes with embarrassment. I was sure that as soon as I left, they’d be having a good gossip at my expense! I don’t want that kind of life again. I know it’s my fault that I suddenly found myself out of the market. I mean, I never dreamt I would get involved with a single mother, not to think of such a person giving me the elbow!
“I know I can’t change the past but I need to find a girl to settle down with. I can now see how my stupid behaviour has affected my future. Do you think I can get rid of my nasty reputation?” The way he looked at me as if I could utter the magic word to turn his life around made me feel sorry for him. But I told him to pull himself together. The mother of his son had dented his ego, but that didn’t mean there weren’t nice girls out there who would be happy to settle down to married bliss with him.
He needs to get over his ‘depression; then forget his love them-and-leave them’ attitude once he gets back on the dating circuit.
He shouldn’t act as if he was desperate either. But apart from the excuse the mother of his son gave for not marrying him, he should find a way of widdling the real reason why she threw him over. This could help him in his future relationships.
Some few weeks after our little talk, I ran into Joseph, in the company of two lovely girls. “Looking for a wife materials, are you?” I asked him as soon as the girls were out of earshot. “I don’t think I’ll bother about any wife”, he confessed resignedly. “These two girls are friends and I’ve taken both of them to bed at one time or the other. When they found out, they didn’t look too worried. In fact, they are quite happy to go with the ‘there’s joy in sharing’ jazz! Tell me honestly aunty, where are the wife materials?
“My mum now jokes that I’d treated the wife materials as one-night-stands and they’re now making other men good wives. I don’t think so. The unfortunate bit is that, like women, if a man stays too long before deciding to get married, the preferred candidates would have been taken…
Source | Vanguard
