Confessions of an Ex-Bachelor How to Sift Through All the Game Players to Find Mr. Right

1 Why Buy the Cow When You Can Get the Milk for Free? The truth is simple, but it may not sound so good. The fact of the matter is that a man doesn't have to get married to have the comforts of being married. He can have sex. He can have companionship. He can have loyalty. He can have financial sharing or support. He can have children. Truth be told, he can have anything that a married man can get without making the commitment. This is especially true if he's a highly desirable man who knows how to play a good Don Juan act. What's happening is that men are realizing they can have everything without making a commitment, and that's exactly what some of them are doing. Marriage has become mainly an issue of responsibility and accountability, or lack thereof, for the man. Limited Responsibility and Accountability I really enjoyed the film Love and Basketball, and it perfectly illustrates a point about men not learning to be accountable for their own feelings and actions in a relationship. There was a climactic scene (no, not the strippoker-style one-on-one game!) in which Monica challenged Q to a game of one-on-one for his heart. This challenge was her attempt to win Q's heart two weeks before his scheduled marriage to another woman. Excuse me? This is after he absolutely dissed her in college, selfishly put his needs above hers, and then cheated on her and flaunted this fact right in her face in an attempt to hurt her feelings. Yet Monica had enough love left in her heart for Q to challenge him to this game. In the film, the challenge worked and Monica won Q back. But in real life, it's not so simple. In real life, a man has to make some serious and significant changes after the type of rift Monica and Q had before he can be a man capable of making a real commitment and sticking to it. In reality, if this man didn't make a significant change in character and attitude, the marriage would be doomed to drama and divorce. In real life, one would have to ask, "Did he really change? How and why?" Unfortunately, men who don't learn to be accountable for their actions in relationships don't just magically get it by the next scene in time for the happy ending. Yet relationships like Monica and Q's play out daily in the real world as well. Every day women are allowing men to do things they should be held accountable for in relationships but aren't. What's most alarming is hearing some of the excuses women make for these guys in their attempt to rationalize why they are remaining in a relationship with them. For example, Melody was living with Brian, whom she was going to marry. When she discovered she was pregnant, at the same time she discovered that Brian was cheating on her. To make matters worse, she learned that he had been cheating for quite a while and that the other woman was also pregnant. Their children were born only a few months apart. All this time Brian continued living with Melody. Eventually he decided he didn't want the relationship and left her, only to return months later wanting to move back in. Now Melody's wondering if he has changed and if she should give him another chance. Melody and Brian's story is a perfect example of limited male responsibility and accountability. Melody is delusional to think Brian is in love with her. Moreover, he's not even acting responsibly toward her or their child. However, since Melody's got it fixed in her mind that he's the one for her, she's not reading the obvious facts in this terrible situation and is still asking for more. Another example is Tonya and Darrell's so-called relationship, which occurred mainly within the four walls of her bedroom during the hours of 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. She knew he was seeing another woman in a nearby city because he had told her. But he complained to Tonya that his current girlfriend was too demanding and he was going to stop seeing her. Tonya wrote to ask me if I thought he would eventuallyJuly, William, II is the author of 'Confessions of an Ex-Bachelor How to Sift Through All the Game Players to Find Mr. Right', published 2003 under ISBN 9780767911078 and ISBN 0767911075.