Courtship: Sharpen your judgement skills

By The Standard | Aug. 20, 2012

Grace Mutandwa Is it very possible for a man to keep bugging a woman for more than five months, in the hope that she will eventually fall in love with him?

Grace Mutandwa

Is it very possible for a man to keep bugging a woman for more than five months, in the hope that she will eventually fall in love with him? What she might do is give in and string him along while she continues her search for the man she really wants, or she will continue to ignore him in the hope that one day he would give up. At most, she might just keep him in mind for a desperate rainy day.

I know that ages ago, men used to go for years trying to win a woman’s heart. The man, who eventually married my father’s sister, courted her for more than five years before she said “yes”.

Ridiculous was my response when I heard this. He married her and they had two children but the marriage dissolved because he bashed her. My father refused to let his sister live in a violent home, so he brought her back to the family home.

I am convinced that, every time he bashed her, he remembered the distances he used to travel and the pains he went through, just to convince her to marry him.

Unless you are seriously afflicted by emotional blindness, you can tell if someone has any real interest in you. But of course we do have some men who read a woman’s “no” as a possible future “yes”!

A young man has written to me sharing his anguish of failing to get “the girl”. He says he has over the past five months tried to woo a young woman from his church, but all in vain. He even enlisted the help of some female church members and the pastor.

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He says he tried everything in his power to charm the young woman but she has never shown any interest.

“Some of the women in church fed me with tips on how to entice her. All the young woman did was ask me for takeout pizza or other goodies she wanted, but she would never agree to go out on a date. At times she didn’t even respond to my calls and text messages,” said the young man.

Eventually he got the message and stopped calling her. It is then that the young woman started calling or sending him messages. This confused the young man who was by now no longer interested in pursuing the young woman.

She also went to female church members and asked them to talk to him when he refused to answer her calls.

Again the pastor was embroiled in this debacle. Suddenly, the young lady wanted this guy at all costs. She was willing to move heaven and earth to get a man that she had only a few months earlier avoided like a plague.

I think the young woman had her sights set on someone else and when that train failed to take off, she decided the guy she had snubbed was a perfect fallback plan. What she did not anticipate on returning was to find the door firmly closed.

Most men are not known for patience except, of course, when they are keen on someone. But when the object of their desire turns out to be an immovable block of ice, then even the most patient of men will give up.

While there is nothing wrong with hedging your bets, you must be very clear where to draw the line and how far you are willing to go to achieve your goals. We do not only look for better investment deals; we also look for the best deals in relationships, but it is the way we do it that shows the world the kind of people we are.

I know young women with “five frying pans” all going at the same time. Their argument is that it affords them the opportunity to compare and contrast. It allows them the space to study the contents of their “frying pans” and decide which cuisine they like best.

Young men do it all the time. Tradition allows them to sow wild oats — never mind that some of the oats might actually germinate in the wrong field! There is no fool proof way which can be used to help young people establish sensible relationships. Good judgement is what we all hope they will develop, as they grow older.

The reality is that today some of our values are so skewed and our young people struggle to make the right decisions. In the past young women were expected to be virgins and only give it up on the night of their wedding. Today our worry is not that both our young men and women remain virgins, but that they are HIV-negative when they tie the knot.

We all want special people to share our lives with, but you cannot browbeat someone into loving you.