Talking Point: The Ideal Man Crisis

So I was thinking this morning, “What can I post this Monday?”

Weird enough, I sat down and while browsing through my movie folders, I stumbled upon some movie which I previewed to see if it’ll interest me. It is some kind-of black people soap opera. Some overdone romantic tale. It’s called Black Coffee.

It got me thinking about a blog I had started writing in October last year - this blog. I looked it up in my notes, and I was like, “Yeees! After this movie, I think I just got a good angle of approaching and finishing up on that post.”

So here is that post. And, yes, go watch that emotional movie with your girl. I know you are asking, “So Morris is watching soaps now?” And I’m reiterating, “Yes, for my bae’s sake.” (Alright, you can still find some not so good quality version here on YouTube and I guess, that’ll keep you occupied.)

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Photo of a black man. Source: Pinterest

The question I am tempted to bypass but I just can’t do for the sake of this post is this:

“Ladies, what is your ideal man? What is that kind of man you dream of having or “making”? Do you have a picture of him in your mind? Do you see him when you pray to the Lord for a man? What. is. you. ideal. man?”

The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (8^th Edition) defines “ideal” as “something perfect or something most suitable”; which then translates to us saying (for the sake of this post) that there is a most suitable man for every lady in this world.

This post seeks to openly talk about how ladies figure out who is and who is not the ideal man for them and the influence of society on this choice. It derives from the primary truth that every single lady on this earth has a picture of who can be or cannot be her ideal man. It is funny that every lady has a man in mind that is very different from every other lady and this is allowed. Personal preferences are alright, but as we’ll come to see it, there are fundamentals to this type of idealism.

To begin with, here are some pointers on how I think a lady should construct the ideal man idea in her mind. She should first ask herself the following important questions:

1. What do I really admire about or in a man?

What is that thing about such a man that keeps me glued to wanting to know more about him or to want him for myself? What is that mystery in him that brings out the best in him?

2. What does God want me to really admire about (and/or in) His ideal man for me?
3. What do the people I respect really admire in an ideal man?

Note: If you don’t admire something about a man, your interest and support for him is likely to disappear really fast.

After figuring out the answers to the above questions, a lady should then figure out for themselves what the answers to the following set of questions are;

1. What do I admire in a man that brings out the best in him?

Is it his strength? Passion? Commitment? Leadership potential? Protectiveness? Power? Wealth? A free spirit? Self-drive? Confidence? Is it him being responsible and committed? Reliable? His artistry? His intelligence? His vision and ambitions?

2. What do I admire in a man that brings out the God in him?

Is it his Godliness? His prayer life? His knowledge of Scripture? His devotion and dedication to God? His surrender to God? His service to God? His service to other people?

3. What do I admire in a man that brings out the best in me?

Is it care? Tenderness? Support? Security? Godliness? Manliness? Affection? A forgiving spirit? Generosity? Patience? Do you admire the fact that he makes you want to care about him? His wisdom and guidance? His emotional presence? His love?

4. What do I admire in a man that brings out the best in others?

Is it friendliness? Responsiveness? His caring spirit? A forgiving spirit? Gentleness/kindness? His leadership skills? Is he inspirational? Does he always see the best in others? Is he social? Easy to be with?

An ideal man is assessed by how he relates with himself, how he relates with God, how he relates with you as the lady, and how he relates with others. You see, I haven’t talked about whether he is black or white or tall or short or employed or unemployed or famous or not or handicapped or whatever… because such attributes only influence one party in the full equation of his influence: these tiny attributes only influence you. They don’t influence other people or God or himself. Not much.

The questions above answer things about a man’s spiritual life, his character, his social life and his ability to love and care for others. This is what constitutes a man. And these attributes are infused in boys before they grow into men. A man is a product of his boyhood. (Yes, my dad indirectly taught me that.)

Quote: A man is a product of his boyhood.

After looking at the above pointers, it may be true that there truly is an ideal man crisis, but it is not final that there is an ideal man crisis. It may be that the lack thereof of ideal men is just a generational trend created by selfish ladies who want too much from men, and especially things that these men cannot offer; or it may be that the men in this generation are really lacking in things to be admired for. It is a funny equation that can only be balanced correctly in a man’s boyhood.

I have had lady friends who stick in relationships because their “ideal man” meets their most basic need: affection. The man is stupid, his is violent, he is a spendthrift, he is ungodly but the lady says as long as he is affectionate, she ain’t going nowhere. That makes me wonder: why would a lady tolerate a disrespectful, uncaring, violent, ungodly and unfaithful man? Is this her ideal man, is he the only man in the world, or has she altogether given up on the idea of ideal men?

Or it may also be true that men have changed and this has caused this level of unbearable tolerance in women. We are no longer what our fathers used to be. It is like our fathers were born ideal; but for most of us in this generation, we need to be made ideal. Who is failing? Whose responsibility is it to create ideal men? We cannot be our fathers. There should be no competition, ladies. You should understand this as a fact. But this also is not an excuse for irresponsible and uncaring behavior from our side. No. We need to unlearn these bad habits and step up into true manhood.

Alright, but women have changed too. Our ladies aren’t exactly what our mothers used to be. Let’s stop looking only at one side of the coin. As far much as ladies would want to complain about there being no ideal/good men left, there are also so few ideal women.

Just to try and answer the question of, exactly whose responsibility is it to create ideal men, this is how I see it:

Right through boyhood, fathers shape what kind of men grow up today, and mothers shape what kind of ladies we have in our society right from the days when they are still girls. Fathers shape how their daughters will look at love and affection in the men they meet in the future (how they’ll choose their ideal men); while mothers shape how their boys will treat other ladies in the future (how they’ll choose their ideal woman.).

The society also plays a role in determining how both men and women will be treated whether at infancy, in their childhood or in adulthood: when the girl child is empowered and the boy child is left out, the society will always end up upside down, men will be seen as an excuse and not a necessity and the girl-child will want to call all men stupid, disfigured and visionless. On the other hand, when the boy child is empowered and the girl child is neglected, the society will always grow into an arena for slavery where men think women are objects of service and pleasure.

See?

It is not only the responsibility of young men to become men, but it also weighs in on society and how it sees the boy child. It is not only the responsibility of the girl-child to become confident in herself, but society also has a place in determining exactly how our ladies turn out. We (young people) are responsible for our own actions once we know the difference between right and wrong. Let’s just say that this argument goes back and forth. Everyone is responsible for everyone, and everyone is responsible for everything. Our society and our parents are responsible for how we come out, but we are equally responsible for how we choose to take over the world and how we treat and trust the people we meet.

Who is to strike the balance then so that we can find as many ideal men as there are ideal women in our society? All of us are responsible: parents, our communities/the society, ladies and young men. All of us are responsible if we can ever achieve as many ideal men as there are women and to clear out any kind of ideal-ness crisis.

Bonface Morris.

The Boy Child Dilemma

I am tempted to say nothing in this post. I am tempted because once in a while, a writer columns himself or herself in a place of self-interference or what I choose to call self-spamming where he or she decides to say what they really wanted to say or decides to just play around with words and end up giving out “sub-standard” information – something close to the goal of an article but very far from the actual intended point.

So, even if I am tempted to say nothing while writing, I should still say something. And though nothing and something share a “thing”, both don’t add up to the same thing – to any thing. Pause. Long pause. Very long pause... Am I really saying anything… err… something!?

Okay. Let me spare you the writers’ guild’s tantrums…

I have been forced, no, I have forced myself (several times and in different occasions) to say that “there are no role-model-kind-of men to imitate today… and if they DO exist, they are very few…” It is always my assertion that whenever I go overboard to declare that in the open social media, and in such a demeaning way, I (in one way or another) help in killing the ego(s) of any ma(e)n who may hear it. In short, ni uchokozi.

And while at that, I am also pitched to see (maybe rather rightfully so) how I am not even good enough to be imitated as a man, yet I dare raise my arm (or mind and pen or mind and  keyboard – whichever works for you) to judge others’ worthiness on the same...

But I want you to follow through what I am going to say in this post. Aim? I want to clear the “bad image” we the male species have gotten from all around our society…

Human beings’ male species is an endangered species. In any way you may think, we are endangered. Some people may even insist that male people are useless and a “waste of time”. You have heard ladies blame us men for the endless discrepancies and sagas we create, for the irresponsibility and passiveness we chorale, for the “lack of manners”, for the “unpolished behavior” we tend to display ALL the time, for the lack of respect towards women, for endless things…We are blamed for things we are not even responsible for just because we are men…but maybe, we should look beyond the surface… The question is: Do boys have enough male mentors and people that are good enough to be their role models while growing up, and do the female species even care that they (the boys who are growing up) are undergoing a crisis?

Photo courtesy of www.dreamstime.com

I am a man - a boy child - and I really want to pour out my heart into this post so that [somehow] ladies will start praying for us and guiding us in the right direction instead of blaming us and ranting ceaselessly against us. I am anticipating encouragement instead of the calling of names.

Most of us grow (or have grown) up with our sisters. I loved growing up with my sisters. We are almost treated the same in the first years of our development. Right then, not much is expected from us – maybe just a little sneering at us like the overrated “you should not cry because you are a man” thing. Life is normally cool right then and without hustles. But as time moves by, expectations start emerging from within our families (or society) on whatever they look forward to us becoming or being. No one steps up (and if they do, it is in a rather too formal way) to teach us what a man should look like or behave like. No one comes out to tell us “Morris, a man should have known how to do this and that in this or that way by the time he is at the age of this or that…” No one shows us that. No one cares to show us any of that.

What is this about men anyway? Are we supposed to be supermen or something? Are we supposed to be gods? Really? Supermen? Do supermen even exist in real life? Really?

We are expected to behave maturely without being taught how just because we are men. Our age never matters – we are simply expected to grow up and become men. Quite a lot is expected from us just because our African culture (and even the world at large) depicts that the boy child should be a stand-alone-all-knowing-beast and an omnipotent-fearless-and-courage-spawning-kind-of-a-person. This (I think) makes it obvious when the boy child is held between making his own uninformed decisions (based on the advice given to him by his peers) and making decisions based on what the world around him expects of him. We are imagined to be gods of some kind, yet they (people around us) never consider that we lack REAL MEN to teach us about REAL THINGS IN REAL LIFE.

We lack prototypes that will show us (and not just tell us) how to take responsibility so that we may not end up unreliable and unpredictable. We need men who will love our sisters and mothers and cherish them so much that we will admire them and start desiring to start families… We need men who will practically show us how to pray for our families; men with emotion - who cry and weep because it is normal. Men who share their fears with their daughters and wives. Men who say, “God is in control my boy! Don’t be afraid, He will stand up for us.” We need men who don’t fear failure. We want active men, not passive men who command us around while doing nothing. We need men who are courageous and fearless to face the challenges they meet in life. We want to learn as we watch them. We want to feel their chests beam with expectation and anticipation. This is the kind of men we want. These are the men we need.

Some female species also contribute to our weird behavior. They want to kill our ego(s) by domineering us, or by us seeing them literally rule over our fathers or the male figures in our lives. What do you expect from a boy whose father is being treated like a child in his own home, huh? Why should women expect us to be “men of courage” while all they’ve been doing to us is call us names and treat us as worthless as there can be worthlessness? Sometimes dogs even deserve better…

Quote: We cannot become what we have not known! Side note: I thank God for my biological father. He is the best prototype I’ve ever had; but at the same time I am worried about more and more boys that are growing up without fathers - boys with missing fathers.

Therefore don’t blame us (at least out of respect for our background) when we end up developing a rebellious spirit in us even though that is not an excuse enough. This is the only way through which we manage to escape the reality of being indefinite and out of place. Most of the elder men in our lives are either missing or inappropriate, cowards or passive. Day by day, we fail to find a place in our lives (even the smallest enjoyable chance) where we can point out and say, “I wanna be like that man!” Ladies, do you have such a woman in your lives? That ONE woman you can confidently say, “I wanna be like that woman?” That is our dilemma ladies. That is our dilemma.

Don’t blame us when we want to wash away such a reality through burying ourselves in movies or friends, or through being rugged and “unpolished”, or through video and computer games, or a quest for power and wealth, drugs or football, or leisure, or too much education...

The boy child has grown up knowing that he is not fit to become anything in the face of society today. And tomboys have made it even worse…Let us go out there and change that outlook that he has adapted to…

Enough said, I pray that you treat a boy or male being around you with care, showing him direction when he wrongs, because we are never perfect enough; and because you may just be preparing the best man, a man of a kind,  for a lady that will come into his life in the future and for that boy child that will call him dad…

Side note: Watch Hardflip (a movie) to get a lil bit of what I'm talking about.



Bonface Morris