WHAT JUST HAPPENED?????

I have seen a lot of ladies of (or sometimes past) ‘marriageable’ age still very single. Often times these ladies are the good ones, the ones we all expect to settle down long before the bad gals begin to join the fray. But unfortunately- or fortunately- they are still unmarried while their mates keep sending down the IVs for their weddings every other Saturday. These seemingly not-very-fortunate ladies are pretty, well behaved, domesticated and even have respectable jobs. They are the ever smiling and kind tailors, hairdressers, doctors, secretaries, nurses, tellers, lab scientists and front desk ladies we meet every day who willingly and efficiently help us fix one issue or the other.  And then I wonder: why are these ladies not yet married?

 With their rare mannerisms every sensible guy out there should be on the queue waiting to propose, and praying his proposal will be given a favourable response. And the men are- really. So why are these ladies not very keen on tying the nuptial knot just yet? Or don’t they already feel left out with almost all their girlfriends having already changed surnames in addition to the Mrs appellation added to their names? My friend recently wrote an article titled “When Good Girls Make Wrong Choices” wherein he cautioned ladies to look well before leaping into marriage to in order to avoid doing an Abigail- Nabal’s good-natured wife in the Bible who was obviously not very happy in her marriage and immediately said yes when King David’s marriage proposal came. While I agree with everything in that article, I want to go back a little further to consider what happens when these same good girls make very wrong choices in “boyfriend-ships” and engagements that eventually breed the unfortunate good-girl-but-still-not-hooked-yet consequence.

Of course no lady knowingly makes a wrong choice of boyfriend or fiancé, no one. If in fact we could look into the future of a potential relationship and see that it would end very badly with both parties even becoming enemies for life, we wouldn’t even try to venture into such. I for one wouldn’t ever want to have anything serious to do with someone that will eventually make us enemies- especially one that’s a friend already. And I would want to think that most good guys also wouldn’t want that. So all in all, we start these relationships hoping (sometimes already envisioning) that it will lead to something permanent; and with permanent I mean marriage. We do all the necessary girlfriend/fiancée duties and even more. But with most best laid plans, unforeseen circumstances occur which rudely cut our dreams short. These circumstances usually involve tiny misunderstandings which are unresolved (or insufficiently resolved) and then later sprout into big fights between partners, cheating allegations which may even be maliciously started by jealous male and female friends or the age-long conflict with would-be in-laws. And the list continues. These issues initially seem like no big deal but before you can even ask “what just happened”, turn

 two lovebirds into sworn enemies and in most cases, the conflict extends to encompass friends of both parties too.  In addition the ladies whom, whether you agree with me or not, are the worse hit are forced to shy away from relationships and will think three times at least before considering to venture into such again. I recently heard a two-time victim say that she has put all men at the back of her heart and that it doesn’t matter if he’s an angel that just arrived earth from heaven, she would never agree to be go into a relationship with any man again. I really don’t blame her. But there should be other ways around this, or don’t you think so?