Leave My Man Alone!

Well, Well, Well, ladies and gents, I have been threatened by a woman for… a man! My life as I know it may come to an end because of a man. Now, dear readers, before you get ahead of yourselves, let me just explain that, NO, I did not steal another woman’s man, I did not mess around with some girl’s boyfriend or anything like that.

Ok, I’ll start from the very beginning. I have not been going out for about two or three weeks now. There is just nothing new to do and I have no desire to waste a great outfit and makeup, so I have just been hanging out at home or with my girls. So, all of the excitement when it comes to boys has died down a bit or so I thought. Well, my dear, dear readers, it was exactly 12:30 am (that’s half past midnight), I was laying in front of the television watching Lindsay Lohan on Saturday Night Live when my cell phone rang. “Who is calling?” I thought. Checked the caller ID and it was a private call. “Hello,” I answered expecting it to be one of my friends on the other end. Well it was definitely not. Get ready for this. “You better back off you f_ _ _king b@*ch and leave my man alone or I will kill you!” an icy female voice said. Then there was silence as the phone went dead.

I was so stunned by this that I had no time to react and engage the caller before she hung up. Leave her man alone? What man? As far as I and all of you reading this column know, I am very much single right now and I have no interest whatsoever in anybody! So what exactly was this woman talking about? I thought about the guys I had contact with recently or had called. Humm. Only two. One guy friend had called earlier that night and I had called an acquaintance the day before to discuss a business proposal. His voicemail on his cell phone came on so I left a message with my cell phone number asking him to give me a call. Ahah maybe that was it. Did some girlfriend of his check his messages and decide to set me straight. Well if that was the case, she just cost him some good business!

So why do women behave like that when it comes to men? Why should a woman degrade herself in that way? I am sure that we have all heard about the stories, cat fights and fists drawn all because of some man. I’m sure we have all seen it on the Maury Show and Jerry Springer. Two women hating each other just because some guy (who is usually never worth it) is two timing them. My advice ladies, confront the man!! If you think that your boyfriend, husband or partner is cheating, you need to ask him about it, not the other woman. If you find out that he is really lying to you, then quarrel with him. The other woman didn’t cheat on you, he did. And sometimes your suspicion may just be wrong and you might end up calling some woman at 12:30 in the night who doesn’t even know who your boyfriend is!!!

So I say again to all of the ladies (especially the one who called me) who think that it is right to threaten another person, have some dignity and self respect and I do believe that threatening someone’s life is against the law!!! Until next week…

Photo:Rick Wayne

Friends & Lovers

I was thinking about having a party recently so I decided to make a list of people that I would invite. After writing down about 50 names I realized a certain trend. There was an unusual balance between the number of girls and guys on the list. My friends and acquaintances who were guys greatly outnumbered the girls. There were 42 guys and 8 girls on the list. Now, I started to wonder, with all of these guy friends, was one not suitable to become more than that? Do friends make the best boyfriends or girlfriends? And should a single gal dip into her friendship pool to get a mate?

Going way way back into my vault of love, I realized that the first guy that I really liked was actually a very good friend first. We realized that there was something more, so we started dating. It was really a great experience because I really knew almost everything about him and we were just extremely comfortable with each other. But then there are some guy friends who I would never consider dating because I know almost everything about them. I know about all of the girls, the player moves and the two girlfriends who know nothing about each other.

Some people believe that men and women cannot be just friends and that there is always a natural progression towards something else. (Warning: All attached women stop reading now!!) So anyway, the great comedian Chris Rock once said (well I had to edit it alot) that women and men can never be just friends. He went on to state all women’s male friends are like extras in a glass case; break in case of emergency. In other words if a women needs a man she will get just get one from the male friends that she has. OH, Ahah. So should I be going that route? I dunno.

So then, what happens if a friend likes another friend but then that love is not returned? A popular excuse to gently let someone down is: “I don’t want to ruin the friendship.” Note well, if a friend who you are in love with tells you this, then they are not interested in anything more. So let it go and move on!

Then another issue arises with this friends and lovers thing. What if the two friends actually do get together for a while and then the relationship thing does not work out. Can they then return to their original state; as close friends? Or has the love ruined the friendship for good. I guess it all depends on the reason for the breakup. If it was painful, then friendship may be a hard thing afterwards but it all depends.

Like with anything else in love, some things work for some people some of the time. So if you have a great friend who you think could become more then go for it. Anyway until next week… Where did I put that party list? I need to go through the names of the guys one more time.

The Unintentional Flirt

Last week I learnt something about myself that I had never noticed before. This thing that I suddenly realized, is somewhat troubling and really not a good thing for a single girl to be. I was told that I flirt without meaning to or without knowing that I do. Am I an unintentional flirt?

Okay, so let’s start from the beginning. Last week I was walking through Castries with my sister when I saw this guy coming towards us and staring at me intently. Only when we got really close I realized that he was an acquaintance who I had not seen in years because he was away studying. I of course got excited, hugged and kissed him (on the cheek) and spoke to him for a while. After we parted, my sister gave her observations. “Esther,” she said. “If anybody was watching that exchange with you and that guy they would probably think something was going on between you two.” “What do you mean?” I asked confused. She went on to explain that the way I looked at him, smiled at him and touched his arm while speaking may give out the wrong impression to other people and most importantly to him. OYE!!! She went on further to point out that I behaved like this frequently, and that I may be flirting without realizing it or my very open and friendly attitude would be mistaken for a love connection. OYE!!!

I tried explaining to her that I just felt comfortable talking to most people and that my looking directly into the eyes just meant that and nothing else. Furthermore if I’m happy to see someone, I smile and I sometimes touch people when I’m talking to them. No flirting going on here. Just friendly behaviour. During this week, I started to really think about what my sister had said. Was she right? Did my friendly attitude come across as flirtations? Oh my! Maybe that explains the uninvited gestures of love that I have been getting recently. Was I misleading guys and was it my fault that I had been receiving these unwanted advances?

My unintentional flirting brings up another very important issue. Guys that I am really interested in may think that I am interested in someone else. A couple of weeks ago I was at Mangos Bar and Grill in Rodney Bay Village hanging out with some friends. A guy I knew came over and we stared talking and laughing. I of course was my usual self and smiled and laughed and hit his arm when he made a joke (I was not interested in him in anyway whatsoever). Mid way through the conversation I glanced across the bar and saw this guy staring and frowning at me. Now let me explain that this other guy across the bar is someone that I do have a great interest in. This guy continued staring and frowning until the guy who was talking to me left. Looking back on that situation now, I have to wonder if the guy across the bar thought that I had some sort of interest in the one (guy) I was talking to because of my behaviour (which I now know looks like flirting). Oh boy. So if someone who I actually like thinks that I like someone else, they may just back off. Oh my, Oh my, Oh my. Then maybe, he could have just had a headache and I am analyzing the situation way too much.

Now, I did some research online and realized that I am certainly not the only person with this dilemma. It seems that many, many persons have this challenge as well. One website stated that the unintentional flirt does not know that he or she is sending out mixed signals and that they are completely unaware of the depth of their flirtations. So I just may be reading guys the wrong way as well. So if some guy who is also an unintentional flirt is just being nice, I may read that as interest in me and I may give unwanted advances. Oh my, Oh my, Oh my. Until next week…

Love & Loss

With this thing called love, we sometimes question our choices and decisions. When things do not turn out how we want or expect them, we sometimes regret that the situation happened at all. A famous saying comes to mind. “It is better to have love then lost than to have never loved at all?” So what’s the answer? Do we fall in love knowing that our heart may be broken into a million little pieces at the end or do we avoid love all together?

During the St. Lucia Jazz festival last week, international performers were not the only ones flying into the country to make our week a more exciting one. Old flames and love interests were here as well, making me question my decisions and love life. This one guy in particular who things didn’t end too well with would be on island. We hadn’t really spoken for a while and I question whether I even wanted to (speak to him). I became extremely nervous and anxious about the whole situation and questioned whether I should have started dating him in the first place. Yes, I did learn a lot about myself, about love and life but wouldn’t everyone be happier and wouldn’t things be easier if I had never dated him?

Anyway, this is of course a small island, so we bumped into each other during all of the jazz festivities in Rodney Bay. I was across the bar and felt my girlfriend elbowing me (very hard) in the ribs. “What?” I asked her. “There he is, over there, blue shirt. Do you see him?” she asked. I looked across and there he was laughing and talking with some friends. “Are you going to say hello,” my friend asked. “Well should I? I don’t know,” I answered. Last time we had seen each other, we had both been angry, so I didn’t know how he or I would react. I finally mustered up all the courage I could and walked over to him. “Hi there,” I said rather casually, pretending I had not rehearsed the conversation in my head. “Hi, how are you?” he said smiling. We spoke for a few minutes and I realized that all of the angry feelings that I had felt had somehow vanished. We had grown up, learnt a lot and moved on. Well that wasn’t so bad after all. While talking to him, I realized how much I had changed since we dated. I had learnt a lot from the situation and realized that I would have been a different person without it. The love and loss was well worth it.

Sometimes, a relationship must come to an end, not because the people want it but because it has too if someone has to move away for work, school or another important factor. Earlier this week, one of my friends was telling me about her own dilemma. Her boyfriend of three years was leaving the island in two months to go back to school. She had hoped that they would have a future together but now she was not sure at all. Could she last three years without him? Ok there might be the occasional Christmas vacation but that would be it. She began to question whether she should have ever fallen in love in the first place and started to point out all of her boyfriend’s flaws. After we spoke for a bit, she realized that she should be thankful for the time that they spent together even if it might come to a premature end.

I recently read an article, which said that we must fall in love with about ten persons before we find the one. Ten! Ouch! So we better be prepared to love and lose and love and lose again and again and again. Until next week…