The other day at the gym I was having an enlightening chat with my workout-buddies, when Nina breathed her most recent dating story.
She knew a guy through work colleagues, a very successful handsome divorcee. With an instant spark they hit it off and twice they met each other, before he flew back to Europe where he worked. Then, after months of messages, voice notes, selfies, likes and comments, he announced his reappearance. Nina was ecstatic – her heart danced inside and she spent days trying outfits and hairdos. Disappointedly, Nina saw very little of him when he did land. And the reason was classic: spending time with his kids.
And because everything happens for a very good reason, Nina bumped into a friend of hers, they were casually eyeing pictures, when Nina’s heart sunk. She snatched her friend’s mobile, pointed to a guy holding a woman, and asked who he was. A lot of words were uttered, but Nina only heard the word ‘husband’. Her friend explained that the couple had a bizarre long-distance relationship – then again who didn’t. After this point, Nina adopted the “block… block… block” technique. She refused to reproach him because he didn’t deserve that kind of energy.
Now, let me clarify that this article isn’t about Nina, it’s about our other buddy – Tina. While Nina was expressing her sadness and I was sharing some dating wisdom, Tina threw a perplexing look while asking how old were we? In the beginning, we didn’t understand, so Tina continued to slap us on the face with her perspective.
“All men lie” she declared, “haven’t you heard of the age-old issue of men being different from women (aka Mars Vs. Venus)?” Also, “if you don’t accept this fact, you will wind up alone” she warned. I exerted an effort to speak, but couldn’t – the standards that some women set forth for men, drive me literally speechless.
But wait, doesn’t everybody lie these days? Dating profiles lie, we lie about being sick to take the day off and we lie to our friends claiming we are too busy to come out, when all we want is to stay home. Yet, there’s a wide spectrum of lying, from a feel-good fib, to your kids about Santa, to this man lying about being married. This man’s behaviour is utter deceit, still some women continue to fancy Pinocchio and insist to give lies an unnecessary facelift.
“He must be separated and didn’t know what to say”, “he likes you so much, he is afraid to lose you if he comes clean”; or some other lame excuse that we keep telling each other. The ugly truth is, some of us are simply treating dishonesty as part of the package. I mean, on the one hand, we are alarmed that women are being mistreated by men, while on the other hand, society is pushing women to tolerate inappropriate behaviour.
This casual chat left me wondering, where are we – men and women – heading to with such twisted standards?