With dizzying excitement, she talked about her date. He complimented her on her dress. He opened the car door. He brought her flowers. He showed up on time. He paid for the meal. He was funny, communicative, attentive and seemed genuinely interested in what she said. “He said that he knew I was special when he first saw me,” she gushed.
Such was the intro and the next few dates. As her girlfriends sat on the edge of their seats, she shared that he owns his own home. He has a relationship with God. He loves his mother. He is a partner at a prestigious law firm. He helps inner city youth twice a week and, most importantly, he’s looking for that special person. BINGO!
This may not be your story, but every woman has one. That man who seems like the one we’ve been waiting for, dreaming about, praying for and almost gave up on ever meeting until he showed up. He might not be as tall as we wanted. He might not have light eyes and long eyelashes. But what he does for us surpasses alllllll that other stuff. “I think I’m fallin in love with him,” we tell our closest girlfriends.
What are we actually falling in love with? Who is he…..really? Is this charming, attentive, communicator who he really is or is he just good at courting? Let me be the first to admit that I’ve been rendered brain-dead by a man. Gushing with excitement, I’ve reveled in the things he does, what he says, how he feeds into my fantasy of what a man should be. Sadly, I would have walked down the aisle with Jeffrey Dahmer if he found my sweet spot!
I believe we should greet every man with warmth and a strong dose of sobriety. If he buys you flowers, you simply put them in a vase and enjoy them. When he seeks our company, wait to see what he emphasizes. According to Steve Harvey and countless other male authors, men are hunters. A good hunter has studied his prey. He knows the habits of it, where it loves to hang out, the reason he's hunting and what he plans on doing with the prey once it's caught.
He warns us not to be impressed with this. In fact, he talks about a common complaint of women in his Strawberry Letters. Women lament that their man no longer talks to them. “We use to spend hours on the phone,” they say. To this, Steve clarifies, “they only were gathering information." Men don’t use words like women do. They don't use words to bond.
As I ponder this, I believe we fall in love with the hunter’s skill. We fall in love with how good a man courts us. We don’t know a doggone thing about him yet we deem him worthy because he pays attention, calls every night, buys us gifts, seeks out our company. Until...dumbfounded, befuddled and pretty darn confused, we lament to our friends about how he’s changed. Instead of crying however, we should be glad that the hunter has put down his bow and arrow and is now revealing himself.
It is arguable whether women should wait 90 days before getting sexually involved with a man. Women have debated this very thing around kitchen tables, while sitting in salon chairs and over the phone with their BFFs. While I am for liberation and have no qualms with how or when you decide to get intimate with someone, I would be remiss to not warn “caveat imptor,” let the consumer beware. Read the fine print. Do your due diligence to prevent your giving away more than you can afford to lose. G-o-o-o-o s-l-o-o-o-o-o-o-w. Life has taught me this. In time, his agenda will become clearer. In the meantime, take exceptional care of yourself.
