Right. So I may have gotten a little carried away speaking to the chap in Malaysia regularly. I now have tenosynovitis in my right wrist from typing for hours on end (we managed to exhaust our credit talking on the phone). Being my not overly romantic self we've talked about religion, raising kids and how to raise them. We have disagreed on him not wanting daughters (the fool) and called a truce on what love is and what it isn't. I almost told him about this blog when he said he didn't believe in love. And naturally I asked, 'what do you mean by that?'
I think that he, like quite a few guys I've met recently are completely over the Hollywood representation of what it is to be in love. They don't see lightning bolts electrocuting them, and they are definitely wary of not being able to think straight and becoming a different person for the sake of love. My mother always says that if you can't accept a man the way he is before you settle down, don't be surprised when you are frustrated about not being able to change him. Case in point, my father does not believe in replacing his shoes when they are dead, like falling apart dead. He will want to fix them and patch them. What she always does is she takes his credit/ debit card and buys him expensive shoes and throws out the old ones. He'll whine for a couple of weeks about the expense bla bla and he'll end up being very happy with them. If she waited for him to replace his shoes she'd end up embarrassed at church every Sunday. It's one less thing to fight about.
I'd like to ask, do the ladies/ fellas (I doubt there are guys out there reading my rants) out there have fundamental disagreements with their relative others? and if so, where do you draw the line? Let's call the Malaysian guy Mark. Cos his story is a long one.
Mark was one the the new guys in Year 7 of high school. He had odd looking hair in that it didn't grow like the usual African koko hair and was dark in complexion. He seemed a very jovial sort of person and I actually deep down thought he was quite handsome, especially when he smiled and these cute dimples showed up. Anyhoo, another new guy also arrived in Year 7 lets call him the Devil. The Devil made my life miserable in high school and not once but twice did I slap him for calling me some unsavoury names. If I thought that my experience was bad, Mark bless him had it much worse. Mark wasn't one of the popular kids and so the popular kids picked on him. He was quite clever but his grades fell the worse the bullying got and he was put on academic probation. It was so bad that once I remember seeing him with a cut lip and bleeding eyebrow after the Devil was through with him. Mark began to fight back in Year 9 or 10, but by this time the bullying had earned Mark a bad rep with the teachers and administrators at school. The Devil managed to frame Mark for every ill a teenager could possibly commit. Mark was suspended and I haven't seen him since. You can imagine that the constant negative press stressed out Mark's parents, who he now has a very difficult but understanding relationship with. He was banished to Canada where he studied and did well for himself, and ended up working in Eastern Europe and South East Asia, where he currently lives.
Pat on the back for me! that was 10 years of a man's life shortened into 1 paragraph. I digress, Mark and I were not friends in highschool cos he kinda made me miserable too, but nowhere near as bad as the Devil and his cronies. 3 years ago Mark called me in England and apoligised profusely for what he had done to me back then... apparently he also called my old bestie from high school to do the same. I took it as, hey, God is helping me to close that painful chapter properly!
Two weeks ago I get another phonecall from Mark (how the hell does he get my number... I haven't asked) and we talked about high school which he says still haunts him and how he wants to move home but his parents keep talking him out of it. I will readily admit that I like sparring with him...
for example: yesterday at 3 am his time...
me: hmm, we've been chatting a while now I should let you go to
him: maybe I'm not sleepy
me: really? ur not flying to Singapore tomorrow?
him: nope, I'm going to be working flexibly in KL now. shouldn't u be at salsa?
me: well, I skipped salsa cos someone told me they didn't want a daughter
him: heavy lunch still tying you down?
me: No mark, just enjoying what I'm doing presently
him: being
me: talking to some idiot in Malaysia
him: thought so, right, i'm off to sleep
Heaven help me. He'll be home in four weeks to decide whether staying here in Nigeria is feasible. I'm not pushing him either way. The grown up part of me is happy to see him as who he is now without the cloud of his previous labels of 'good for nothing bad boy won't amount to anything' because clearly those labels were all wrong. Another part of me (the childish part) is concerned about about what people will say (who knew us both from back then) if this became something.
We'll see, there's nothing wrong with making friends...
P.S my girlfriends from after high school know about him and I want him to meet them.... so it's not like I'm hiding him from people lol
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