Makeover Madness

Last weekend I spent a few days with my girlfriends and another friend who I had not seen in three years. We of course had to exchange three years worth of stories, dramas and juicy gossip. As it usually happens, the topic of conversation centered on our love lives and the men involved. All of my friends were all discussing their boyfriends and love interests, well that is until it was my turn.

“So Esther, you haven’t told me. Who is the hot boyfriend now?” my friend asked, waiting to hear the soaps. “Well I don’t have one now,” I muttered under my breath. “What, you have no man, why?” she asked confused. I then proceeded to explain, to my bewildered friend, that I really was not interested in anyone right now and there really was none of my type of guy around (that I could see). “What do you mean, your type of guy?” she asked. “Well none that are perfect for me, none that I really want’” I answered. She then went on to set me straight, and explained that I would never ever have a boyfriend, if I was planning on waiting around for my type or someone that was perfect for me.

“What you have to do is find a man who has the basic set of morals and values that you want, then you fix or makeover the other stuff that you don’t like. So if he is a nice guy but he really does not know how to dress or something like that, then you simply give him a makeover and dress him how you want to,” she said. Wow, does that mean that men can be our personal Ken dolls. Do we go around shopping for the basic look that we want and then ‘dress him up’ the way we like? Should we accept someone who is just partly what we want then make him over to be our perfect man? Can we really ever change a man? Now dear male readers, I was not the one who said it, so please send your hate mail somewhere else!

My girlfriend then went on to share several stories of her other friends and their boyfriends. She explained that you have to be subtle about making these changes in your boyfriend so that they do not even realize what is happening. One of her friends detested a pair of shoes that her man wore, so one day when he was not around, she threw them out. When the man asked if she had seen his shoes, she of course said that she had no idea where they were. Her problem was solved. She went out shopping with him and helped pick out a pair that she liked. Another friend of hers thought that her boyfriend was a little too big around the belly, so she gave him a gym membership as a gift. Oye! So is that how it works? She also assured me that all men needed was a good woman to steer them in the right direction and that I should start looking around for the man that I could fix to be perfect for me.

I have been thinking of this issue for a few days now. Maybe that’s my answer to getting a man. I have been turning down some dates and a marriage proposal because the guys did not fit into my bracket. Should I accept an offer, and then go to work on creating my perfect man by changing what I do not like about that person. I really don’t know if I could. From all reports it has worked for a lot of women but could I manipulate someone into changing? Some have said that this process never works because a woman cannot change a man if he does not want to be changed. Some also say that these ‘makeovers’ last for only a while then the man gets tired and returns to his old ways. A woman once told me that she gave a man an extreme makeover, he dated her for a while then left her for another woman. It seems that a lot of other women appreciated the changes as well and threw themselves at him constantly. I think I will avoid that route for now! Until next week…