CityGirl

“Women don’t understand how difficult it is for men to be monogamous.”

This was the beginning of an article in this month’s Essence magazine.  When I read that line, I groaned.  Oh Lord, I thought, here we go again, another bullshit article written to justify a man’s wandering ways.

But on a serious note though, not to condone infidelity, I have actually wondered if after say, 20 years of being in a committed relationship, I won’t feel the need to sample the goodies of someone else.   You know, just to see what it would be like.  When one actually thinks about it, isn’t it natural to get tired of having sex with the same person after 15/20/25 years? 

Of course the fact that I’m asking these questions has lead me to wonder about my own morality.  I’ve probably just written my own sure pass to hell!

The (very married) writer of the article in question spoke about his frequent visits to strip clubs where he gets his fix of lap dancing and actually advocate that this is a sure-fire cure for cheating. 

According to Mr. Married Man of 18 years, “Strip clubs take the edge off the desire to cheat.” 

Well damn!  This of course begs the question, is it not cheating to get a lap dance?  Afterall, cheating is not just limited to the actual intercourse?  Or is it?   I certainly can’t imagine that many women would be comforted by this alternative.

I can hear the conversation now:

Frustrated cheated upon wife:  “I’m so tired of Alfred’s cheating ways, he sleeps with everything that passes in a skirt.  We’ve tried counselling,  I’ve taken up a contortionist class to add something new, nothing works.”

Self-satisfied wife with a knowing smirk:  “Oh Ethel, I no longer have those problems.  Since I started sending him to the local strip joint, where he gets a hot looking, young thing attired in a string that barely covers her twat, to writhe and grind upon him until he’s erected, he’s been as faithful as a newly married young husband who recently lost his virginity.  He just pays for the dance and runs home to me now.”

Right!

What I do know is this.  Almost every married man that I know has made some type of advance or has hinted in subtle ways that he would not be aversed to having more than a little dalliance with me.  These include men who are on the surface wonderful, caring husbands with a great marraige, and not just the ones whose relationships are going through 7 year (or 15 minutes!) itch.

Frightening huh?

I wonder.  Are we as women (or even men - afterall cheating isn’t limited to males) being unreasonable to expect monogamy after several years of marraige? 

Oh Lordy, what do I do?

I was just complaining earlier this week to my favourite girlfriends that I miss the feeling of being ‘in love’ or even ‘in like’.  I was wondering, when again am I going to experience such a feeling.  They in turn teased that I act like such an idiot when in the ‘throes of love’ and somehow I seem to morph back into a silly teenager.  Hehe.  Love is wonderful.

The last time I was ’in like’ was approximately a year ago.  And the cad wasn’t even deserving.  The last time I was ’in love’ was much longer.  And he was crazy as hell, lovable and married.   And we would have ended up killing each other if that had worked out.

I have no interest in travelling down that road again.   The someone else’s partner road that is.  That was a major error in judgement and I was wracked with guilt the entire year we were together.  I’ll never do that again.  

So now ‘long-time suitor’ is in town for the weekend.  Gave me a gold ring.  I saw the box and panicked.  Run! my whole being shouted. 

Last night while having dinner at the nice little mediterranean (sp) restaurant in town, he told me I’m the reason for his frequent short trips to Jamaica.  Run the other way girl! Run!  Fast!

I don’t have a fear of commitment.  I do crave that.   He’s my good friend.  I’ve known him forever.  I’m very fond of him but definitely not in love. 

He’s a good man by any definition.   Where are the sparks?

I still can’t stand the smoking.

Can I keep two men?  I have been thinking about this lately as I ponder my drought and the recent temptations to end same.

I think I want a real man.  Meaning an older kind of guy.   They’re experienced and knowlegeable about lots of stuff, confident in their established careers, know how to treat and please a woman, exposed to the finer things of life.  You just feel safe and cared for around them.

And I want a young guy - age 20 to 25 years.     Youthful, with members firm and sinewy.  Emphasis on firm.  A virgin would be fun.

I  have no desire to cheat.  It’s really not my personality to sneak around. I wouldn’t be able to handle the stress that comes from scheming and lying.   Plus my failing memory would not be able to keep track of the different made up stories to account for absences or cover my tracks anyway.

I would therefore need to find two men who will acquiesce to my weird proposal.  How difficult is that?  And then there’s the small matter of the law.  Polygamy/Polyandry isn’t exactly recognized in this part of the world.  Pity.

On another (sad) note, I read this today and was in tears.   I’m still shocked that people have gotten so cold and heartless.  Sigh.

I came home just in time to catch the last part of Tyra’s show this evening.  She was discussing my favourite topic.  Men’s views on a whole host of issues involving sex and females.  So she was asking questions like, what they like hearing in bed, how they like the women to act, what type of women turned them on, what are they insecured about (first time with a woman, or in the locker room with other men). 

I love discussions dealing with men’s thoughts.  I think they’re just very interesting creatures.    One of my fave things to do is to hang with my guy friends, listen to them discuss issues about their relationships, their fears, etc.  I love being the platonic female friend because then, since they’re not trying to get into my panties, there’s no need to impress me so they’re more open. 

Of course my interaction with my platonic male friends have coloured my own intimate relationships with men.   The upside is that I see men as people too, and not just someone who pays for things.   I have been told that I treat my men friends like my girlfriends.  And why not?  They’re just as cool.  The downside is that, especially in a situation where I’m not yet comfortable with the person, I’m so very careful about the things I saw, fearing (after listening to my many male friends) that it might be misinterpreted. 

Some years ago, I met this guy while travelling to the States.  We got to talking on the plane and he turned out to be quite cool so we hung out a lot while I was there and he met my family.   When I returned to Jamaica we kept in touch and he called quite frequently. Fast forward a few months and several long, night time conversations later, he invited me to spend christmas with his family in the States.  He also mentioned that he’d be quite happy to buy the ticket.   

I had recently returned from studying overseas and had not started working yet so his offer to buy the ticket definitely earned him a few bonus points.  However, as much as I appreciated the offer I didn’t think it was right for him to pay for the ticket.  Never mind the fact that he was the one inviting me and I wasn’t working.  But I really wanted to go.   My females friends all cursed me out telling me how silly, stupid I was.   I remember one friend saying,  “Listen fool, men love to spend money on women.  All that studying must have fried your damn brains, take the ticket already!” I kept thinking we knew each other for too short a period to let him buy me a ticket to the States (I didn’t tell him all that though).    

Those years as a young girl listening to my mother impressing upon me to not accept money from men seem to have left an indelible mark.   And I chided myself for being such a good student.

I turned to the source of my problem for a solution.  My dear mother after listening to my woes,  not only bought my ticket but provided me with pocket money to buy gifts for my friend and his mother.   According to her, she didn’t want me to be in a position where I’m forced to give away the goodies because I had nothing else to offer (you’ve gotta love her!). 

The surprising thing about the above is this.  After my return, I decided to poll my male friends (I already knew what my girlfriends thought).   I wanted to know if in their opinion I did the right thing.   I was blown away by the result of my informal survey.  They all (young and not so young) thought I was silly to not accept the ticket.  Go figure.

I have to post on this. It’s too long to include in someone’s comments. I have been following KG’s little problem about whether to date an older person and the comments from everyone who has been weighing in on the matter.

I so totally relate. It really isn’t the easiest thing to find a partner. Or rather find what you consider the ideal partner. I don’t think my standards are too high. I just really need someone who has the following qualities.

Not bisexual
Honest and non-womanising
Caring and supportive and respectful
Intelligent
Preferably don’t have a string of children but I know it’s difficult to find a man who isn’t a father so that’s negotiable
Non-smoker
Financially OK (I don’t require rich but he must have a job, or something going, at this point in my life, I can’t handle any less)

I also realize that it might be pointless to even have a list of desired qualities, characteristics because the person might have all that and there’s just no chemistry. We’re talking about a life (or part of) partner so it really can’t even be reduced to a list. I sometimes wish that I could adopt a more pragmatic approach to finding a man. A friend/acquaintance of mine certainly has no such problem. My oh so practical friend sat me down recently and told me that I’m the ideal woman for him. He sees me and knows that I’m exactly what he wants because:

I’m quite educated
In a management position
Look nice and dress well
Has the potential to make plenty money
I’m of the right age

According to Mr. Practical (who’s also eductated, great management job etc) we’d make the perfect couple as two nice looking, young executives. He even went as far as to calculate (yes he actually crunched some numbers) that with our combined salaries we could purchase a nice $20million house together. According to him together we could have a good life. He tried to convince me that that’s the way to go and cited examples of Jamaica’s top rich families who seem to seemed to merge their families to their advantages.

Now I must admit that he had a point. He wasn’t doing anything that women haven’t been doing for years. Somehow though, I felt like a commodity. You know, I could easily well have been another pants or shirt. While listening to him, I couldn’t help thinking “but you don’t know ME, dont you want to know ME?” I couldn’t help looking at the contrast between my ‘suitor of 15 years‘ who I have not given the green light and thinking what a difference.

I find that you can find an ‘age appropriate’ person who is financially secure, good job, blah, blah but why is it that the ‘older’ person demonstrate the more caring attitude?

I had a very interesting day on Wednesday. During the morning while at work, I got a phone call from this woman advising that I “stop f–cking her man.” At first I thought it was a wrong number (after all I haven’t slept with anyone since last year) because the person didn’t even have the correct name. She had asked to speak with ‘Alicia.’ Anyway, after I heard the name she asked for, I advised that she had the wrong number at which point she insisted that it wasn’t. So I asked “Who is it that you want Miss?”
Response - “I want to speak with you.”
Me - “What’s the name of the person you want?”
Response “That’s irrelevant right now, if your cell number is ——–, you’re the person I want.”

I was just about to hang up on this time-waster when she shocked me with the “You’re fucking the wrong man” statement.

WTH!!! I’m being blamed for a game that I’m not playing? Shocking!!!!! I wish to hell I was sleeping with someone.

After getting over the initial shock, I started to think of all my male friends and which one would have someone in their life who would make that mistake.

So I ticked them off mentally. There’s the ‘person running me down for last 15 years that I feel like I’m starting to like’. Check. Nah, couldn’t be him, he doesn’t deal with those dramatic types. Ok, then there’s neighbor who has girl-friend overseas and obviously sleeping with people out here -more than 1 person I think. He did say once that his girl-friend is into drama like that. Hmmm, I wonder. I didn’t have long to wait to find out. The phone rang again. Even though I have an office for myself, I didn’t think it would be conducive for the conversation that I expected would ensue, so I stepped outside.

I tend not to get into these situations, stayed far from them. Apart from a major error in judgement some years ago when I very briefly dated this married man (silly, silly me) I thought I was in love with, I don’t mess with other people’s person. I was nevertheless, quite intrigued by this unfolding drama.

Outside:

“Hello? Excuse me? I’m not sleeping with your man.” (didn’t even think at the time to confirm which man I’m supposedly bedding)
“Yes you are. Your number is ———–, you’re sleeping with my man, and I’m coming to Jamaica to sort it out.”
“Huh? I’m not sleeping with your man! You have the wrong person!!!” (Still haven’t found out which man this was, but sounding like a stuck record, see how much experience I have dealing with this sort of thing??)
“My name is G——. My man’s name is ——— ———. Don’t you know that person?”

At this point everything became quite clear. At this point too I realize that if the woman seemed so sure she had the right person, I should have inquired about the identity of the man, but that didn’t seem relevant since I wasn’t sleeping with anyone at all, regardless of identity.

It was as I suspected, my player-neighbor. Now, how did I come to be in this situation? This is not even someone I hang out with. We do talk a lot, have a good neighborly relationship, I know about his girlfriend(s). He’s hinted that things weren’t too right with girl-friend overseas (the irate caller). I know that he sees other people out here, have even given him suggestions on what to wear on one of his dates with girl here in Jamaica. I have even spoken to irate-caller on her trips here, she doesn’t even realize she’s speaking to the neighbor she has hailed up cheerfully on more than one occasion.

Anyway, I don’t know if I managed to convince irate-caller-girlfriend, but I made it very clear that not only am I not sleeping with her man, I have no damn desire nor interest in doing so. Can you imagine upon hearing that, the next question was “What? You don’t find him attractive?” I replied that I’m just not interested and her response was “Well, he wants to sleep with you.” Dammit it woman, if the man wants to sleep with me how is it my problem? He can take a number!!! (Well, I didn’t say this but I was thinking it).

Sigh. Why do women do this anyway? This woman is going to fly all the way from the States to deal with the situation of her man sleeping with someone. Is it logical to try and track down all the women and warn/intimidate them into not accepting the advances of her man? Isn’t it simply to just kicker the f–ker to the damn curb? I don’t get it. To me even if a woman is sleeping with ‘your man’ you need to deal with the man about the situation because 1)the other woman can and more likely will be replaced if the man is determined to sleep outside the relationship 2)the other woman probably don’t know that she’s the ‘other woman’ instead of the main one. 3) the other woman didn’t make a commitment to you and probably don’t care too hoots any-dam-way!

I wanted to advise her to kick neighbor to the curb because I know he has other other women but didn’t think it was my place to do so.

If she insists on coming to Jamaica to deal with it, I do hope she quickly identify the guilty party though, don’t want to be fielding slaps and kicks meant for someone else.

In the meantime, maybe I should install a peep-hole in my door.