Bad from the Beginning - Where Has all the Love Gone?

 I have just been watching a movie called What Love Is starring Cuba Gooding. The title is a bit misleading making it sound like a chic flick especially since the story is told on Valentine's Day. Also being enacted in one house makes it a bit monotonous and tiring for any action loving animal. It has a great strength in offering useful lessons and just like a porn movie, I had to watch it like an assignment - taking notes. That was a damn good question, What is love? I decided to ask an easier to answer question, Where has all the love gone? I have a friend who is in a marriage that for all intents and purpose is simply not working. But she claims to love her husband. When she finds condoms and earrings in his car while cleaning it for him she cannot bring herself to ask the difficult questions lest she hears the truth straight from his mouth. So she continues to love him not because he deserves it but because she would rather not know. She would rather belong to the devil than not belong at all. I do not get it so I wonder how she finds herself in that situation and when she does why she stays.

The expression that women love bad guys is almost an idiom. If there are nice guys who still believe the meek will inherit the earth, then I am the bearer of  bad news. The earth wrote no will.  Do you know all those men who buy flowers and ice cream, remember birthdays and anniversaries pick their women from work et cetera? Well they don’t get laid as often as the bad guys. The painful truth is, nice guys are painkillers - pun intended. When a woman has had trouble with a man who had the audacity to forget her birthday or stared at her girlfriend a tad too long or was even selfish enough to take his E before she had her O, she calls the nice guy to ease her pain. She calls him not because she is going to reward him for his understanding and always available shoulder but because he represents that woman that they want all men to turn into. The idealist gay man who is not gay. If you have been taking a woman out on dates where she brings her friends and being nice you pay for everything but five weeks down the line you still haven’t gotten laid, your IT. You’re a nice guy. One day you will finish this race - maybe - but I assure you, you will finish last.

Let me introduce you to one concept in the movie called The 11th Man Theory. It postulates that when a beautiful woman enters a room full of men she gets attention from all of them sometimes whistling but mostly just telling her how beautiful she is. The one man who economizes his attention and only nods and says hi, that’s the man that will get her attention. She's not interested in all the men drooling after her; she's interested in the idiot who pretends not to give a hoot! This is where the trouble starts. At dating. The harsh reality is that, if that man does not care to shower you with attention on day one, he probably won’t start just because you are married - let alone dating. If he was a Bad Man riding a Harley Davidson and in a leather jacket when you fell for him, why do you bitch about it when he doesn't wear ties and take you to picnics in future? He is only keeping his end of the bargain. If you liked him for the rough, free spirited, unavailable man he was then you had better believe that is still what he will be.

The beauty about the 11th Man Theory is that it works for women too. When a man has all the women in his lap, he will always want the one who pretends not to be bothered to even find out what his name is. The 11th Woman. Women are witty, cunning and conniving creatures, to say that with the utmost admiration. It is the age old game called playing hard to get that even hens have mastered. A woman could make herself available at many occasions and just get noticed to give their preyed man the opportunity to chase after them and make them believe it was their idea for the two to go out. By the time many men ask a woman to marry them, they most likely expected it and will only fake surprise they way they sometimes fake an orgasm. Stroking the ego is not a figure of speech - that’s how good they are. The downfall is that this pretense slowly chips away at any good relationship and before you know it, you are stuck with the one person that you find most unsuitable for a husband or a wife.

Women demand love and care but that is not what they look for when they get into a relationship. There are more single women dating married men that there are single men dating married women. Don’t get me wrong, married women are having their fair share of the fun, just usually with similarly married men. It makes sense. Women look for security and comfort. A man who can settle. A man who can commit. They are tired of taking the risk with men who turn out to be overgrown babies. So they go for the tried and tested. Married men. The trouble is that in so doing they ruin the few good ones that exist turning them into what they like to call, lying cheating bastards. They create the monster, then they scream when they behold their own work. Any married man who is still smiling is probably still on his honey moon or has also learnt to be a good pretender. A single woman coming into his life with the promise of his past freedom is irresistible. Not cheating with a convenient, no strings attached woman is an exam men often fail.

So is there any recourse to this unfortunate or fortunate situation of loveless relationships that keep springing around us? Well the solution is simple. Come to terms with the truth. Don’t ask where the love has gone because it wasn’t there to begin with. The reality is relationships end. Always. Whether that is death, divorce or dumping the relationship is not forever. When you give your heart, keep a string attached to it so you can always pull it back when it gets dropped. Men, that woman is not always going to be a figure eight. If you make her pregnant, she WILL add weight. If she gets older she WILL get some wrinkles. Get over it. That is the reality of the commitment to stay with her. She will nag you and she will treat you like her firstborn. That is how she is wired. Women, he WILL NOT always remember your birthday. He wont even remember his. He does not know where the laundry bag is, get his socks. If he is married, he WILL NOT leave his wife for you. The word is not love, its convenience. There is another woman yearning to experience a man who can commit without demanding a wedding.

Everybody should remember what they signed up for at the beginning. If it is excitement, then demand that. If it is love, demand that. If it is sex, by Jupiter demand it. But let us not pretend to ourselves an ending to a romantic movie when we bought tickets to a horror film. That is the perfect set up for a heart break. But more importantly, love is a one way street from your heart out. That's right. The day you learn to say I love you without expecting that it shall be said back is the day you will take control. If it is said back, count your blessings. Mange your expectations and you will not be disappointed. Stop asking where all the love went. It wasn't there to begin with. Maybe I’m a cynic, but am a realistic one.

The Tin Man.