Folks,

Marriage does not a committed relationship make. You can be married to a person you are not committed to. You can also be committed to a person you are not married to.

Less emphasis should be placed on marriage and more emphasis on developing a genuine, sincere, devoted friendship. People will always quit on a lover faster than they would on a friend. People would also always betray a lover sooner than they would betray a friend.

If becoming true and genuine friends takes you 3 months or 13 years, that is what you should aim for. What does being a true friend mean, that is for you to decide, for me, being a true friend is having someone that I know has my back unconditionally and vice-versa.

How does one get to this level of becoming true friends? By sharing, start slowly at first and then integrate that person into your story, your life, your goals and dreams and what not. If the person can’t handle some of it prior to having a committed relationship to your satisfaction, there is no way they would be able to once you are in a committed relationship.

Once you start the process of integration, keep on doing this, till your life is an empty canvas before this other person, if you can accept the way they paint on it, then you are good to go, if you can’t you know that there is no reason to take things to the next level.

Of course by doing this, you shall potentially expose yourself to getting your feelings hurt, but that is fine, it comes with the territory, nothing wrong with it, take it in stride and move on. Better to do your sincere best and get hurt up front, and not do your sincere best and hurt for the rest of your life, by involving yourself with the wrong person under false pretenses.

However, once a friendship is firm and a decision has been made to be in a committed relationship, ALL other options cease to exist, this is plain and simple.

What this means is if you are a guy, and you have 2000 phone numbers in your celly of potential, past and present babes, delete all of them. If you have all sorts of babes sending you mail via fb or email, politely tell them that at this point it is inappropriate to continue communicating, and delete their email addresses, of course also give your partner full and unfettered access to all your communication accounts (voice mail, email, etc).

If you are into “Boys Night Out” (specifically clubbing or partying) or whatever, except if your babe is coming along, don’t do it, you don’t need it. If your boys can’t hang in the company of your babe to do social interaction of whatever nature, it is not meant to be.

If you are a babe and all sorts of admirers are popping up with propositions, politely tell them thanks but no thanks, if you are into doing girls night out (clubbing and partying), cease and desist, except if your guy gets to come too.

Once a commitment has been made, two have become one, and just like my head and my neck always have to be in tune with one another 100% for my body to function properly, so do the people in a committed relationship.

Once you’ve been in a committed relationship and are happy to be in a committed relationship, whether you get married or not makes no difference, as marriage merely becomes a legalization before the laws of the land what you already have internally.

This one will be short and sweet.
Ladies. I understand that we (men), are usually dogs and no good. I’ll give you that. But there are a few us with good intentions.
I’m not perfect. But I am decent. Sometimes.
“Bag Lady”, by Ericka Badu is such a deep song. Listen to it. Understand it.
I’m tired of being put in the “bell hop” position. I’m not here to help handle you baggage. And I realize now that my, “What the f…”, attitude toward women is truly justified. We have all loved and lost, or have been hurt or whatever. But that’s a part of life.
When I meet woman I don’t apply all the BS that I’ve dealt with in the past to her. It’s not right. So ladies when you meet a man, with some type of potential, start as fresh as you can.
Cause any real man will turn around and leave you and your baggage on the curb…….

The title is more to catch your eye than anything…

Have you met that girl? You know the one. Her life’s dream is to get married. She talks about everyone around her behind their backs when they are engaged. She laughs and smiles in their presence.

This is a description of a young lady that I work with. For anonymity’s sake, her name will be Stacy.

Stacy was with her ex-boy friend Josh for together for many years. She learned after they bought a house together that he did not want to get married and did not want to have kids. These both being very important things to her.

She since has tried playing the field to make him jealous. She even says how much she wants him back but he has to change. Stacy now admits that she broke up with him as a “threat”.

What’s even worse is that she is dying to settle down and it looks as though this is a race to the alter.

My question is why? Stacy is only 26. But this seems to be the thought process of a lot of women. We seem to have this timeline in our heads that must be met. Ok, I admit that I ‘had’ one too…but that was back in high school! Why now? Why as adults are we willing to just settle for the next man that comes along? Or, in Stacy’s case, settle for the man that we don’t necessarily want but, he’s ‘convenient’…

Let me know what you think.