Monday, July 6, 2009

Any Honour Expressing My Feelings For Him Via Text Message?


Dear Agatha,

There is this issue eating me up but don’t know how to resolve it.

There is this man who has been my friend for over a year. Over the months, he has shown signs of his desire to be more than a friend even though he hasn’t said anything to that effect.

I also started developing something deeper for him so I sent him a text message stating my feelings for him.

He called me back to inform me that we need to talk, but my fear is that I don’t know if what I did is right. I don’t want any thing that will destroy my image.

Worried Lady.


Dear Worried Lady,

You haven’t done any thing wrong or to be ashamed of. If this man decides to interpret what you have done as being cheap and indecent then he is not worthy of you.

Life generally is about risk taking. Rather than die in silence or regret your actions later down the years like most women and men do, you took the important step of securing your happiness. It is called being bold and honest. Besides, you are both friends.

However, there is the need for you before your meeting to have proper definition of what you feel. What exactly do you feel for this man? Aren’t you mistaking your feeling of friendship for him to be love? This is very important because if what you feel for him weren’t the real thing, it would destroy the foundation of friendship you have both built together.

The only mistake you did was not to have thoroughly subjected your feelings for him to proper analysis before sending him that text. Often than not those in your kind of situation unknowingly mistake the chemical of friendship for love, and putting a temporary distance between the two of you is the only way to be sure you are not mistaking one kind of feeling for the other. Granted, friendship is the prime property in a viable love relationship, but it needs the chemical of love to bond properly. This has nothing to do with mere sexual feeling, but that kind of feeling that differentiates pure sexual attraction from enduring ones that can withstand the text of time. A man and woman can be friends without having the right kind of feelings to stay together.

To be sure you know what you want, take some few days away from him to enable you think clearly. Some of the issues you should consider are: would you have found him attractive enough to fall in love with if meeting him for the first time? What are those extra qualities that are making you to consider spending the rest of your life with him? Would you feel a sense of bereavement or loss if it doesn’t work out between the two of you? If what you would feel is a sense of absoluteness, then it is worth your venture, but if temporary it might fall short of the effort.

When you both meet to talk, let him have the first go at the dialogue session. Listen attentively to what he has to say and look out for signs, especially if he accepts your proposals. Make sure it is because he feels the same way about you and not because he feels an obligation to you.

Overall, learn to be happy with whom you are and never give any person the opportunity to doubt your integrity. It is only when you give people the opportunity to call you names or question your integrity that you end up with credibility crisis.

Good luck.

My Girl Takes No Order Until I Bark


Dear Agatha,


I am 26 years old while my girlfriend is 19. Our relationship is just nine months old.

Our problem is that hardly will day passed without any quarrel due to her rudeness to me. She never listens to me until I shout at her, after which she will begin to cry.

It has become the pattern of our relationship and I am no longer comfortable with her behaviour, though I love her.

Agatha, could this be as a result of her age? Can she still be said to be a child?

Worried Guy.


Dear Worried Guy,

At 19, she still has a long way to go. At the tail end of her turbulent teenage years, she is bound to still be stubborn and an irritant to anyone close to her. She is at the age where receiving instruction or abiding by the rules is most difficult.

This is because she already sees herself as an adult and doesn’t understand why she can’t have all the freedom that go with the age.

Your job as her boyfriend is not to get irritated but to show her through your own good example that being an adult doesn’t stop one from abiding by rules.

Shouting at her will only frighten her and make her wonder at the wisdom of exchanging one form of restriction for another. Don’t forget all these while she has been under the authority of either her parents or guardians, whose rules she has to abide with to prevent problems from them.

In her mind’s eyes, she sees her relationship with you as a visa to the world of unlimited freedom one in which she can do and undo.

Right now she isn’t sure with you breathing down her neck with the very rules she is running from. You have broken the mirror of the perfect world she had all along dreamt of. Her cries are therefore signs of frustration, despair as well as disappointment.

Being eight years older than she is, give her the benefit of your experience. Help her understand through patience and understanding that there is nothing like absolute freedom. That life is about moderation and that our senses of responsibilities to the feelings of others around us demand we always strive to put their interest first before ours.

That having a sense of responsibility for others is the check nature has placed on our freedom.

When next she refuses to obey simple instruction, let her understand that a relationship without its own sets of rules cannot succeed. She has to learn to respect you as the leader of the team for you to appreciate her position in your life. That if she continues to behave like she is currently doing, the love you have for her might not be able to sustain the relationship.

Also give her the opportunity to make her mistakes because that is the only way she can learn. This is possible through patience and tolerance on your path. Desist from being too rigid and appreciate the fact that you too went through this subtle crisis in your own time.

Good luck.