Sunday, June 19, 2011

To Be Frank

As salaam alaikum,

Okay, so I'm not so slick. In fact, if anyone ever figures me out, I'm very predictable.

The entry before, about giving up on relationships, forever? It wasn't because nothing was happening. Hah, no, quite the contrary! It was because I know I was entering into a situation where Satan would quite quickly become the third.

Say what, you say?

I was seeing this guy who was very, very sexually attracted to me and allowed myself to find myself in a compromising situation with him, and I discovered what the fruits of such attraction can be...yikes!

I wanted to run away. I wanted to cancel on him. And probably the good Muslimah in me would have canceled...but curiosity almost killed the cat...

It was ridiculous. I spent the entire day texting B, and I know exactly what I was trying to do. I was trying to get him to show some sign of still liking me, feeling sorry for me, wanting to get back with me so I'd have a way out from the hands of this ravenous beast of a man that I was seeing. I couldn't just leave on my own, because admittedly, I was intrigued...

Long story short, dude attacked me! Like, consensual attacking...like, I wasn't assaulted or anything, but once again, I vastly underestimate the sexual appetite of a man. He even picked me up at one point. It was bad, it was really bad. He was all like, sorry, I didn't meant it.

So to be frank...I tend to shrink away from relationships when I sense that a man really wants to have sex with me. Counterproductive...yes, in a way, but not entirely. If that man can't be honorable and honor my wishes to wait, religious, spiritual, whatever I call them...it's a problem.

I'd never had a hickey before. He gave me two that I tried frantically with foundation to cover with little success, so I had to wear a fleece all day. One of them is so big, I thought I should pass it off as trauma. Like, "Dude, you know what happened...a crazy patient grabbed me by the neck." Nope.

So I told him to, as they say in my novelas, "Da un tempo," give me some time, space. As flattering as it is for me as a female to be apparently wanted that much...nope, nope, nope.

No to him and no to B.

And that's how I got no to all men.

I was very frustrated that the men I get are men who just want to have sex with me, not men who have more honorable intentions.

But then I have to step back and realize...through online and other venues, I've met Muslim men looking for wives...I just don't trust the bulk of them.

And that's it...I just don't trust men! The more I get to know them and how they think, the less I trust the intentions of any of them, even the "honorable" ones. My uncle couldn't even make it married to my aunt for 25 years before he cheated and then ducked out, not even speaking to his children. And he was Muslim.

I think about it, and of the 10 children that my grandparents had, my parents are the only ones who's marriage did not involve infidelity. Of the 10 children, only 3 of them are married to their original spouse...the two oldest boys and my mother. My mother is the only one of her sisters who has been happily married and is still married. My grandparents, who have been married for 65 years in a couple of days, insha'Allah, had huge struggles, including my grandfather's infidelity, to deal with early in their marriage.

In my family, the only model of the type of man I'd want is my father. And I think right now I am in denial of how much any news of my father being unfaithful would shatter my world...

My mother regrets that my father doesn't go out and do things with her, like go to concerts, like travel, like go on small trips. They would have, probably, if it weren't always for the question of my brother. But at the same time, from the outside looking in on their relationship, I see it as an advantage that my mother has in my father such a homebody. He goes straight from work to the house, watches his news, plays on the computer, goes to sleep for an early day at work. On Sunday, he goes to church, comes back, goes to the gym with his son.

I don't know how this all works. Finding someone and then marrying them, that kind of thing. I don't know how to arrive there, short of someone miraculously showing up in my life. I've tried online, and I've gotten everything from Muslim men renaming me to two large hickeys on my neck. Bad yield. I've tried real life, and then I got B, the dud, another man who I know was looking to have sex with me, and a whole other conglomeration of losers.

They say it's when you least expect it. I hope not, because the time I'll least expect it is when I'm dead, and that's going to do no good...

But at the same time I also want to give up. I still do. I want to give up and focus instead on dedicating my life to my brother, giving my parents a break during their golden years, looking to make sure my brother has some enriching activities to do, watching him, freeing my parents to really be empty nesters in their sixties like they deserve to be.

And I think that's what I'll do.

Fighting to keep sex at bay with guys who are really just into the sex anyway and aren't ready for the type of relationship I really want...'tou fora!

2 comments:

  1. this post touches on what a good chunk of women our age are looking for... quality and not quantity... I think it might have to do with the ages of these guys as well... a man your age in general is not going to be as mature as you are... Muslim or not... although depending a Muslim one may be more eager to wed...

    It is quite disheartening the extent to which men focus on sex... but as one of my friends told me, their men... it's almost unnatural to think that they will do otherwise... and a bit unfair... I don't know sometimes I think she's right, sometimes I don't.

    your comments about infidelity are also interesting. It's the thing that the women who have gone before us are remiss to talk about, but it really is a reality for so many, that it is something that I do think about. I don't want to accept it laying down or anything, but I feel like I am keenly aware of the probability that something like that could happen, and what conditions I would be willing to stay in said marriage, and the importance of having my own stash financially... sad but eh. I know people whose fathers used to take them to see the woman on the side, (which to me is the ultimate disrepect) so in light of craziness like that going on, a woman must be aware and prepared. love and marriage doesn't mean there won't be bumps on the road.

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  2. @gazelle: That men focus on sex so much is actually not so disheartening to me...what is disheartening is that so many lack either the maturity or the values to put that sex in the correct time and place.

    People from time have had different reasons for marrying. I think my thing is going to have to be finding someone who will marry for the same reasons I will, whether there are differences in our sex philosophy or not. I'm not going to marry to have sex, and I'm not going to marry to have kids. I am marrying for lifetime companionship and having a partnership recognized by God.

    Love matters little, compatibility matters more in my universe. Love does not have an absolute right, if it has any right at all. But this could clearly be the topic of another entry, so I'll leave it...

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