Met Her In Fellowship, But Won’t Love Without Cash Flow

Dear Agatha, 
I’m an ardent reader of your column. Please, help me.
Although I am the eldest child in the family, over 30 years of age, I find it difficult to woo a woman. Because of this, I haven’t found a woman of my choice. People, including members of my family are taunting me especially as my immediate younger brother is already married. This has expectedly increased pressure on me. 
Recently, I met a young lady, a relation of a good friend of mine, at a ChristianFellowship. I approached her for friendship and she accepted. We are from the same town. 

But I noticed that she is in the habit of demanding for funds to travel from her school to see me. Her attitude is putting me off. Frankly, her attitude has reduced the frequency I call her drastically. I want to marry in no distant time. I’m an introvert and still schooling. I want to discontinue this friendship. I love her but I haven’t known her well enough. Don’t get me wrong; I am not stingy.                                   
Not long ago, I met her again at a fellowship; but this time she scarcely talked to me. I noticed she had an expensive handset and that her manners have changed dramatically. She treated me with disdain.  I simply concluded her attitude is not unconnected with my inability to supply her with funds. I’m no more interested in her; I want nuptial happiness. Please, your advice is needed on how to get a good woman. 

Bernete. 

 Dear Bernete, 

If you are serious about having a woman in your life, learn to be a little bit more patient and accommodating. There are no perfect situations in life, but passionate determination to succeed at the things that matter most to one. If you have the concomitant resolve to make whatever relationship work, you will grow the necessary understanding as well as tolerance to make it work.

But before you do that, you must first of all get a clear idea of what you want as well as rid yourself of some of your excesses. You must first of all appreciate that unless you are willing to change, nobody will eagerly make the same sacrifices for you. To make a relationship work for you, ask yourself why you seem not to find any woman who appeals to you? Do you think it just a case of being shy or that of not being able to tolerate having another person share your space? There is a world of difference between being naturally shy and being irritated at the idea of anybody trying to share in your thoughts and space. Bearing in mind that nobody is an island and that we at every point in our life need another person to function as an entity, you must open your heart for the concomitant changes that come with having someone else in one’s life. 

Granted, this girl may after all lack the qualities required to make a man happy, but you have to be careful not to end up prejudging people even before you get enough opportunity to know them. 

It is also important that you don’t rush into a relationship at first meeting simply on account of you being under pressure to marry. That your younger brother is married is no excuse to rush into marriage with the first woman you meet. It doesn’t work that way. Bear in mind that your younger brother has his life to live while you have yours too. So don’t allow anybody to force you into a situation you are not psychologically prepared for.

To help you get a clearer picture of what is important to you, what precisely do you want in your woman, that quality you know can keep you happy forever, sufficient to see both of you through torrents, hammering winds as well as disturbing sound of silence when the impulse is to break everything up and walk away while one’s sanity is still intact? You get the quality right to develop the kind of tolerance, understanding and care to keep such a woman by your side. There is no way you will meet a girl, date her without her making one kind of demand or the other on you. It is the way of life, something you cannot change. To be irritated at a woman’s demand means you aren’t prepared to make the essential journey that men make. While nobody is saying it is right for a woman to place all her needs on the man, the man in her life must be ready to play some roles in her life to remain relevant to her. This you must never forget.  It is the way between men and women.

When you meet a girl, give yourselves the chance to be friends first before laying the burden of love and relationship on her. She must be free to relate with you as her friend, get to know you as one and develop the concomitant trust to hand over to you her life. Until a woman learns to trust the man in her life, the man will never get the best of her even if she tells him she is in love with him.  She has to see in you a friend, father, brother, uncle to accept you as her husband and lover. 

Good luck.