To Single Women Out There…

Just a few weeks back there was much talk about the hundreds (or were they thousands) of single women who thronged the Kenyatta International Conference Centre seeking for divine intervention from God through the hands of a Nigerian preacher. I didn’t watch it on TV. But I am sure every woman who attended that prayer session, had it all; good looks, well paying jobs and all, except a man to come home to.
And just like all women they knew exactly what they wanted in a man. They are not alone. Almost every woman I know insists there are no good men left on the face of the earth. That may be true. And this is just to some extend, which come to think of it isn’t measurable in kilometres. Unlike what women would like us to believe, there are so many good men out there.
It is true that men have lost it. But that shouldn’t create room for a hapless man to be compared with a sloppy character picked from a movie or a TV soap opera. I think TV soap operas are the poorest yardstick by which a man should be judged. The guys in soap operas make women wish for the impossible, not knowing those guys are paid to talk, act and sound the way they do.
I think the kind of men (me included) that we have turned out to be can be blamed squarely on women. Men are all the same, it doesn’t whether they are Denzel Washington or Mike Tyson. We all need help to be better men. All of us have the potential of being better men. A woman needs to have the intuition of telling the wheat from the chaff. That is why any woman, who makes comparisons between her man and Denzel, or a character from those shady TV soap operas, has no business saying there are no good men around.
A woman should be thankful for the kind of man she has instead of comparing him to the one she thinks is the ideal one. Being in a relationship sucks anyway and we should all be happy to have that imperfect someone. I learnt this the hard way.
Candace, my ex and I, had numerous problems relating to one another. Candace and I were a total mismatch. Our relationship was one that wouldn’t have happened. I don’t know why, but it just happened, and we tolerated one another for a loooong three years. Just imagine that?
Candace had no qualms about telling me she had a crush on Denzel Washington, a man whom she knew through the movies I personally handpicked for us to watch. This used to drive me to the wall. That is how I discovered Marion Jones had a dazzling smile. When Candace compared me to Denzel I would compare her to Marion Jones.
I knew this was asking too much of each other. Much as I wanted to change things I realized my hands were tied. It was her house and she was entitled to her opinion. But this did not stop me from raging inside. I always wanted to smash her DVD player on the nearest wall every time Denzel Washington popped on the screen playing John Q. While I thought Denzel was earning his pay check, Candace believed he was showing all men the way to go.
“Just look at how Denzel is treating her,” Candace would observe.
“That is just the movies,” I said. “They are paid to do that.”
“I don’t think someone can act perfectly what they can’t do in real life,” she would insist. “Denzel is such a perfect gentleman.”
“Yeah, that much I can see,” I added giving Denzel the low down.
“Stop being sarcastic James,” she said. “That guy is good. I know you know it.”
“That maybe so,” I said one day. “But I’ll tell you what he won’t do to you.”
“Tell me about it, you jealous man.”
“You can wait for centuries for him to give you a call and believe you me, it won’t happen,” I said. “So either you be thankful….”
“Or else?” she asked taking her eyes off John Q for the first time that night.
“Or else spend the rest of your life tossing and turning on your queen-size bed surrounded by your teddy bears!”