theheartofmen

Women are blessed with a natural gift that they are all aware of but they seldom use. No, I don’t mean their physical gift. I mean that gift that makes us good wives and excellent mothers “instinct”. All women were born with the power to discern if a man is right for them or not. Whether or not they decide to acknowledge and use that power is entirely up to them. I had this conversation with a friend of mine this morning, believe it or not, this friend is male. He said women are so blessed they have no idea. What he doesn’t realise is that although its heart breaking the unnecessary pain women go through, some of them could have actually dodged the bullets that end up killing them. What I will never understand it this; what gives you as a woman the impression that you have the power to change a man? I read somewhere once that if a man were to change because of a woman, it would be because he had found a woman who to him is worth changing for and not because she wants him to change. I can totally relate to this analogy.

I’m not saying throw compromise out of the window, but I’m saying be smart, use you instinct. Once upon a time, many many years ago, I dated a guy I knew only wanted to have sex with me and dump me. I gave myself choices; either I date him, give him what he wants and accept the consequences, or find a way to use his wants to my own advantage. I won’t spell out the option I took, but let’s just say that relationship was most tasking 3yrears of my life. The right option would have been to walk away because even though it lasted 3years, it left me with scars that I’d rather not have. What’s my point? Use your instinct my dear sisters. The moment the alarms in your head start going off, take a long walk and don’t look back. It will pay you in the end.

Your man is upset with you and is shouting like the world is about to come down, you look into his eyes and you instantly get scared, don’t walk, run. You have no business with a man you are afraid of. You should respect your man not fear him. There is a difference between being stingy and being thrifty. A man might be careful about the way he spends money because he is not exactly buoyant. If you can deal with that then fine but I don’t know who in her right senses can deal with a stingy person. When a man is stingy even to his own detriment, don’t think that when you become his wife he will change o, because he will only get worse. A man, whether he is rich or not, should aspire to be able to provide the best for his family because they are his pride. Run away from a stingy man, he won’t do you any good.

The signs are always there, listen to them. Are you not tired of crying about broken hearts and failed relationships? It’s not enough to want to have a man in your life. It should be that you want to have the best possible man in your life. When your heart tells you that a relationship will not work, listen to it. Take your time, always follow your instincts they almost never steer you wrong. If you feel a man is bad for you, he probably is. If you feel your man is sneaking around, 9 out of 10 times you are right. If you feel there is a strange way you husband reacts to a particular girl or situation, something is probably up.

I’m not advising you to lose you minds and trail your men or act like lunatics just because you want to prove your point. Deal with things as maturely as possible, ignore the irrelevant ones, but if you are not married to a man and you alarms are on overdrive you need to advise yourself before you wreck yourself.

This article does not refer to those overly paranoid and somewhat mental women o…

I wasn’t gonna blog this week but just a few minutes ago something hit me. I remembered when I was younger, just a few years back actually, I fancied myself in love with one guy like that. In hindsight I realise that it was clearly not love but there was no way I’d have agreed at that time o.

Anyway, I thought I was in love and boy did I make a fool of myself. Right now it’s an amazing conversation starter but then it was painful. I’d make up all these feelings and all these conversations. Don’t get me wrong, the dude and I were friends, and maybe at one point he fancied me or maybe it was pity but I’d never really know because I went all cray cray, just like in the movies. It took an emotional blow to my ego (which is bigger than it should be) to bring me down to earth after 2years of complete and utter stupidity. What’s the point of this story? I’ll tell you.

A lot of girls make up relationships in their heads. A boy is nice to you and you conclude that he is into you. Next thing you know you are building on that and acting a fool. It’s important to realise when a boy is into you as a friend and when he wants more. It is always important to remember that when a man is into you as more than a friend he will tell you. Don’t assume, it could only land you in trouble; but in the event that you do assume, ask him before you start kissing his pictures and telling everyone how he supposedly got jealous because he saw you talking to someone else. Disillusion is like quick sand; once you allow yourself to get sucked in you’ll have a really hard time getting out.

The next group of girls are those ones that don’t know when it’s over. When your relationship has ended let it go, stay friends if you want to, but let him go emotionally. Just because you guys are still shagging doesn’t mean he is still your boyfriend. The moment he finds the kind of girl he really wants he won’t touch you with a 10foot pole, and even if he does, there would be no mistake as to what he wants. Stop thinking you know him and that you know for a fact that he really likes you but he just has factors hindering him. Trust me if he really wants to be with you your tribe, his financial situation, not even his family will hold him back. Harsh? Maybe, but I’m tired of hearing girls lie to themselves, because it can’t be me they are trying to deceive lol.

It hurts when a relationship ends, or when you really really like someone but they don’t seem to like you back; but take it from a person who has hit rock bottom in this area, it hurts a zillion times more when you wake up from your disillusion and realise that you can’t talk in front of some people because they have seen you at your lowest, because they have probably “tabled” your issue behind you and you can always see the laughter in their eyes….lol… It’s never too late to get your dignity back; all you have to do is WAKE UP.

Boys, please stop taking advantage of these poor ladies and stringing them along while you know deep down that nothing would ever come out of it. I think that’s pretty low. You shouldn’t take advantage of a person who is emotionally vulnerable.

#okbye#

I often times find myself blaming some girls for their long-term singleness, but there are some stories you hear that make you vibrate with anger. I just got off the phone with a dear friend who just got out of a run-in with a modern-day Wizard. I asked for permission to publish her story and I got it. I’m not telling this story to make us even more scared of guys, but it’s just to show that there are higher levels of evil than being cheated on. As for the men, I am not going to speak in your favour today because after hearing the heartbreak in my girl’s voice, I’m not your biggest fan now either.

For the sake of confidentiality I’m gonna call my friend Steph and the guy Jerk.

Steph has always been one of those girls who tell the world how sceptical she is about men but deep down she is an optimist, always wanting to give an eligible looking guy a chance. It might take her a while but she basically has an open heart…at least she better pass me. Anyway she met Jerk  10 months ago. They had been introduced by a mutual friend. Steph disliked him immediately. There was something about him that didn’t quite add up. He acted like he wanted to marry her the next day and she was well aware of the fact that nothing good comes that easily. So my girl treated him like a 3^rd class citizen. It was hilarious. She made him work for every smile he got out of her. After a while everything seemed to fizzle out. He wasn’t her type and he seemed to be getting tired of chasing a small girl around..lol.

One day, out of the blue, Jerk calls her up to catch up. They talk as just friends and seemed to have a decent chat, maybe because he wasn’t trying so hard anymore. Over the next few weeks they seemed to get along. She was giving a chance to someone who wasn’t typically “her type” and it seemed to be working out. I even remember her saying to me one day “Babe, in my almost 30years on earth, I have never had a man love me this much”. I was so happy for her I remember wishing that I’d have such luck. He had started to get close to her family. Had drinks often with her brothers, bonded with her sister and her family. He promised her the wedding of her dreams (he could afford it), had started to search for the perfect engagement ring. An epic love story if you ask me. It wasn’t a relationship based on materialism or looks. My friend is a gorgeous girl but the guy isn’t the sharpest knife in the cupboard. She loved him either way. He made her feel special and found new ways to make her feel like a princess EVERYDAY. Before you start judging he didn’t need to spend money to do this, I guess he just knew how to love her right. The only place where they disagreed was SEX. She doesn’t believe in sex before marriage and he did. He wanted to have sex as soon as possible and she kept avoiding it. He’d claim to respect her decision but after a few weeks it’d come up again. In hindsight, maybe it was God’s way of warning her.

Anyways fast forward to my phone call with Steph.

“Shebbi you advised me to date outside my comfort zone and give this guy a chance?” I said YES with excitement, hoping that the quiver I heard in her voice was from joy and that she was about to tell me that he had officially proposed.

“I just found out that Jerk is married with kids.” I almost collapsed with shock. In my life I have experienced and heard some horrible stuff but this is the most shocking so far. It doesn’t make any sense. How can someone go through all that stress to get a girl? To what end bikonu? Was he going to marry her as a second wife? Was it just about sex? I’m not sure we’ll ever have the answer to these questions. I just advised her to cut him off and put herself together which I hope she would be able to do eventually.

When I hear stories like this I embrace being single with both arms and legs too. When a girl who typically would stay in her shell deeps her foot in the water and discovers that it’s boiling hot what do you tell that person? How so you convince her that it’s just that one guy and that the others would be different when you don’t even believe it yourself. Married with kids? That’s like the height of it o!!!

I honestly don’t know how to help my friend and I won’t mind a few ideas so I don’t end up making things worse with my own anger.

Last week I had 4 single female friends celebrate their birthdays. When I mean single I mean very enterprising, very pretty, very well brought up girls but they don’t have boyfriends. It’s really sad the sort of land that seems to lie fallow these days. Over time it gets more difficult to know what men want and in the bid to find it out or become what we think they want, most girls lose themselves. I’ve had a few theories as to why I have so many single friends, but I learnt a new one over the Easter holiday, when I did my babe auction, and so far this has made the most sense.

When most guys see a beautiful established young woman they automatically assume she is NOT single and it takes more than a lot to convince them.

If every guy assumes a pretty girl is hooked then she will never get hooked. Ladies don’t worry there is nothing you can do personally to change this view because the harder you try to convince him you are available the cheaper and more desperate you wind up looking. So today I wanna have a talk with the men.

Dear Men, if you sight a hot babe that you like walk up to her and ask her out, or at least get her number. You can’t just assume that she’s hooked and walk away. Besides, so what if she has a boyfriend? Haven’t you ever heard of snatching? Yes, I said it. You might not set out with the intention of snatching but sometimes that boyfriend was just destined to watch over her and keep her honest while you get your life together. I know it sounds cold and mean but a lot of success in life is achieved by injecting a little meanness. There are so many hot single girls out there and even more unhappy hooked girls. By hooked I mean in a relationship o, don’t go and toast someone’s wife.

Personally if a brother doesn’t treat his girlfriend well then he should prepare to lose her to a guy who will treat her good. Besides, how many girls above 26 start dating a guy and declare him “boyfriend” publicly without being certain of the destination on the relationship? Girls are allowed to have several suitors before they pick one provided they are not test-driving said suitors.

I guess my point is that you will never know until to try. Walk up to that girl today, tell her how u feel, she just might be single and if she’s not remain a good friend, you just might be able to rescue her from the monster she is with. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

A friend of mine recently got engaged. Yes…we were all happy for her. In fact I carried the wedding on my head because the girl has been my friend since I was a toddler. All of a sudden, we discovered we were all off her blackberry, and I’m thinking “omg, what’s happened to me friend”. So I give the girl a call and she gives me a speech about how she decided to work on her life and take time off from the world and blah blah blah. To be honest I can’t confidently say I understood what she was on about, but I went along, told her I hoped she found her way and all that. She told me her wedding would be at the beginning of the second quarter and I was excited. Couldn’t wait to see what the ashebbi looked like. Was waiting for a date so I’d buy my cheap Aero tickets.

Fast forward to last week; I am talking to a mutual friend and I hear the babe has changed the cell phone numbers. WHAT!!! Sacrilege!!! She changed them and she didn’t even bother updating anyone. Wedding is in a few weeks from what I remember even if I was never given a date. What does that tell you?

I really wanna address this issue. What is it with girls thinking that marriage signifies rebirth? Yes if you were a wh**e you are expected to shed your old ways and start afresh; but when you are a regular girl, who may or may not have done regular ish, then what’s the big idea turning your world upside down? Fact is that whether you want it to or not your old friends would fizzle out as your life changes so why force them out and create potential enemies when it’s not necessary? There are a couple of reasons why this happens.

The man. Some men think that the best way to control a wife they don’t trust is by changing her entire clique of friends. Using emotional blackmail they make these women change their contact details. Phone number, email, the get off facebook and twitter. It’s amazing. What I wanna know is, how does this assure that this woman will suddenly metamorphose into a good wife? How does changing her number certify that she won’t cheat? The answer is it doesn’t. Altering a woman’s life to ensure that you are the centre of her existence shows signs of a weak man. A man should be confident enough to know that without any form of bullying, he has his woman’s heart and she won’t dare mess with him. Why would you want to marry a woman you can’t trust? If you feel her past is too gory for you then free her. Let a man who doesn’t care about stuff like that marry her rather than changing her entire life to suit YOU, because like it or not, her eyes will open one day and she will resent you.

The woman. Some women think that finding a husband translates to being born-again. Usually I don’t have the time or the patience to even address those ladies but it’s getting annoying. You hang with your single sisters, misbehaving and fornicating round town, maybe you even won some souls for the dark side while you were at it. Then you get up one day, and rather than try to carry them along on your new-found spiritual journey, you tag yourself as better than them and you cut them off. I’m the spokesperson for an individual’s right to change at any point, and I understand that you might need to change the way you relate with some people, but when you change your entire life and cut people off entirely, trust me it tells a lot about you even to the so-called husband you are doing it for.  It tells me that you don’t quite understand what being a Christian is and you were never really my friend to begin with and I don’t need such people in my life.

I know that after reading this most girls will still not learn and they will go ahead and make the same mistakes. Just remember one thing especially if you are my friend; when you fool yourself and come back, there won’t be space for you.

As I was in the shower this morning it hit me that part of the reasons I have not had the best relationships in the past is because I didn’t know my worth or what I deserved. Over time I have come to realise that a lot of women are being mistreated because they don’t know that they deserve better.

Years of bad treatment makes you start to expect less from men. The less you expect the less you get because men by nature will take advantage your insecurities and capitalise on them. Even the ones that come across as trying to help boost your self-confidence do it at times because this would tie you to them without realising it you feel indebted to them thus landing you right where you started from. So this morning, in the shower, I checked myself out and I said “you are a spec oh, it’s time to raise your expectations. When I say expectations I don’t mean material expectations. A woman is precious and fragile and should be treated as such. The moment you begin to see yourself as precious you will carry yourself as precious and then anyone who isn’t ready to treat you as precious will be too scared to come near. Even when they do come near, they either adjust or get lost because you’d know better.

Before you ladies go running away with your heads I’m not saying you should toss humility out of the window and walk around demanding that doors be opened for you and your bills are paid o!!! That’s not it. A man can give you more material things than you will ever need in life and still be unable to make you happy and another man, a relatively financially handicapped man, can love you so well that excessive financial security ceases to be the top on your list. You start to look for ways to bring him up because you can confidently say that he will never let you down. Personally I think relationships built on emotional security are better that those built on financial security. I’m not saying a governor’s daughter should go after a welder or an auto mechanic. Frankly I don’t know what you guys would be talking about since in most cases these people might not be half as educated as you. I don’t mean to discriminate but life is not a Nollywood movie. You don’t go around defying your entire family only to run after your auto mechanic. This is Nigeria. Blue collar workers can barely feed most times and they can barely speak fluent English.

Before I begin to digress let me get back to the topic; it’s very vital for a lady, to know that she deserves to be loved and pampered as much as, if not more than, the next girl. So ladies be smart. If that man doesn’t care enough to want to know how you are doing every day, take a walk. If he feels very comfortable “chopping” your money when he doesn’t bring anything to the table, take a walk. If he slaps you, raises his voice at you unnecessarily, treats you like a maid, disregards your dreams and puts his first every single time, take a long walk. The most painful part of all this is that when you catch this dude with a girl he really adores you will realise he knew the right way to behave all along. So don’t settle for less than you are worth and even if you feel you’re not worth much don’t let it show, over time your sense of self-worth will increase as long as you surround yourself with people who appreciate you. Don’t condone cheating or ill-treatment because you feel men are hard to come by. Men are everywhere and maybe you’ve just caught one of the multitudes. Toss him back out if you can’t correct his bad habits and cast your net again.

Do you have any idea how many men will kill to get a good woman at their side? Stop settling for less today and you’ll find out. Like I always say; “I’d rather be with no one than with the wrong one”

Happy Easter everyone. A few days ago I was having a conversation with my sister and she said “I think your problem is that you don’t do enough shakara”. This has had me thinking for days now oh! What basically constitutes shakara? From what I gather, it’s not the regular withholding of sex that we’ve all learnt and mastered, it’s the holding back of our affections. Apparently there is also a limit because too much shakara is bad and not enough shakara is bad too. I come across as mean to most people, but the people who know me well enough know that I’m affectionate, to a fault. When you meet a guy, even if he is an established toaster, you have to create clear lines in your mind from day one. If you want it to lead to something serious then you switch to shakara mode. What is shakara mode?

He calls you in the morning, while you’re at the office, you are watching one tv show or the other online because it’s a slow day, but you pick the phone briefly and say “hey Booboo can I call you back? I’m in the middle of something”. Little would he know that that something is Gossip Girl. He asks you to spend the weekend at his and you give a long list of stuff you have to do that weekend, throwing in a few supposed favours for church and for family…lol…. Meanwhile you dey roast for house. He thinks it’s a good idea for you guys to go and visit his mother but you object giving him the excuse that you think it’s too soon just so he doesn’t realise how desperate you are to meet his family. They say a girl shouldn’t be too available or easily accessible in a relationship. I say all this game playing gives me a headache.

It’s a known fact that human beings thrive when they are scared and uncertain. They begin to pull out all the stops to try to keep you in their life; but there is one major thing you need to consider before you commence playing games. Is he really into you? If a guy doesn’t feel you as much as you tell yourself he does, then you will look like a complete fool trying to play hard to get because the brother isn’t trying to get you in the first place. But trust me, the hard to get thing, while being extremely difficult to pull off, especially if you really like the dude, works like a charm. As much as it’s not one of my strongest traits, I have done it before and I can confidently tell you that any guy I don’t show love from the beginning doesn’t let go. They spend so much time and energy trying to break your proverbial barriers that they fall in love with you. They are constantly looking for ways to put a smile on your face that they end up finding out all the tiny cute details about you. They’d work so hard to get you that when they finally do they can’t imagine losing you. If played well, this could give you a permanent leg up in the relationship/marriage. I’m not saying it’s easy, it’s tough as hell; but he that is down really fears no fall. You’ve tried it all and you are still single. As long as you are still getting toasters you are still in the game so why not pull out all the stops? I know that I’m about to resume the meanness because being nice and happy all the time hasn’t done much for my love life. Men love torture so why not give it to them?

Always remember that it’s important to;

Quit while you’re ahead

Don’t make the man think you’re a slut

Don’t make him think you don’t have any feelings

Don’t let him feel he is your only toaster

Be constructively busy (don’t give stupid excuses)

When eventually you are certain he is yours, don’t let go of the shakara, keep him on his toes.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN.

I got a few stories and I promise I will publish them ASAP, but in the mean time I decided to share this.

Last night, as I was watching a particularly sad episode of Desperate Housewives something hit me. It really doesn’t end at finding that perfect someone, there are so many things that may happen somewhere along the line that make me wonder if it’s worth the stress people tend to put themselves through. You work so hard at improving yourself to land the man of your dreams. You become an entirely different person because you hear through the grapevine that that’s what he likes. You change your mode of dressing, get a haircut, down play your life style, pick up a new religion and all these for what? Yeah, for a percentage of people it actually works out, they transform into better versions of themselves and live happily ever after. But what about those few that don’t have it so good? The ones who find out that all that glitters is not gold. The ones who never get along with their new in-laws and live in constant misery and horror. The ones who find out that the man is not who they thought he was after all. They get beaten and treated like 4th class citizens in what should have been their paradise. The ones who can’t have kids; Sometimes it’s their fault, but most times it isn’t. How do you really find a way to be happy through all of this? How do you wake up with purpose every morning when you discover 5years down the line that you should have married the one you said “No” to? When you discover that your husband is madly in love with another woman and is setting little traps for you so he can kick you out and replace you?…How are you supposed to deal with that? The one that just kills me is the death of a spouse. I have GREAT respect for young men and women that have lost the love of their life and still find a way to smile every day. If an ordinary break-up makes you feel like your world has stopped can you just imagine how horrible death would be? Imagine being in your early 40s with kids in secondary school and then you partner dies. People go around saying “it’s gonna be ok” but really it isn’t. What made me think of this? Most people don’t consider all these possibilities before they get married. Maybe if they realised that there are other ways a marriage could end apart from old age, people, girls especially, would be less inclined to rush into it just to wear a ring and answer a different name. It’s seriously SCARY stuff…I’ve taken a few steps back by just typing this article.
So marry someone who you are certain is worth it. When u cry if he or she dies, make sure that every time you remember your lives together it is with a huge smile. Make sure that the memories you make will help you endure the mourning period if it ever comes and that you are not filled with regret.

I want a husband and a house full of active kids. I want to know if my daughter will look like me or like a random family member we barely know; but in all this, I want to be able to sit down and remember my family in the middle of the day and smile. I don’t want to ever feel undue pain for even a second. God forbid we end up childless, but if I do, I’d want my husband and I to be so in love with each other that we’ll figure out a way to deal with it without hating each other. Every time I’d think of whatever pain life might have thrown at me, I’d like to be able to think of my husband and smile because I know that I am blessed.

Marriage should be fun, a merging of lives and sharing of souls there can be ups and downs but some things should not just happen. So marry the right person so that when all these random things happen you have something to fall back on.

Hi my beloved heart of men readers. I have decided to give this blog an entirely new twist. I have decided to publish 1 personal bad relationship story a week. It could be your present relationship or it could be one from the past. I’m sure by now you realise that i don’t favour any gender so i will be accepting stories and questions from both genders. Please make it as anonymous as possible and i promise to not only reply you asap, I’ll also give our readers the chance to give their opinions on how you can make your love life better. The first story will go up on Monday (2nd April) and I can barely contain my excitement. Enjoy the rest of your week.

Someone sent me this article and i think we should use this to replace this week’s write-up. A lot of women endure a lot in their homes and i fail to see why. Like this article says, if this helps at least 1 girl that it would have done its job. Please click on “My Story” and read.

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