Saturday 13 March 2010

Fantasy Vs Reality

















For most women, our picture perfect future family life was born long before we wore our first sports bra or walked in our first proper pair of heels or decided to take an obsessive liking to strawberry flavoured lip balm(not gloss). It started from Barbie and Ken.

We as women were sold the fantasy of the ever prim and gorgeous woman sitting next to her equally dashing man in their red convertible(not a space bus). Then the romantic comedies (Jlo in wedding planner) only came to re-enforce our fantasy.....

But now reality has set in, and a choice has to be made between the man who is real or the man who feeds you your fantasy.
If you are still wondering what I am on about, I'll try to explain. There are two types of men you meet on the dating trail. The suave cultured man, who is well educated,well travelled, dresses the part, says all the right things, takes u on amazing dates,makes all the right moves and never has any concerns in the world. With him its always good times,this fella is often called the "Fantasy man" or F.M!

Then you find the second man,who either out of naivety or non cha lance shows you his bad eating habits, is uncultured, poorly groomed, not as knowledgeable about continental dishes talk less of romantic dates, and more often than not complains about one issue or the other. This could range from office politics to financial troubles.This fella we will call "Mr Keeping it Real".

As always I took my enquiry to town, and as expected the responses could be put into groups. We had the pro fantasy group which consisted of women under 25, who argued that just cause the man can handle his business doesn't make him any less real than the trouble criers, and that if probed deeper you would find that these men were often better man-friends cause they are people that like to take charge of situations,and that women who tolerated Mr Keep it real were merely settling. However they also agreed that those men also never wanted to listen to their own problems either.

Then we had the pro keep it real group, who attest to the fact that his honesty about his flaws is a true show of how much he holds you in regard, and wants you to know the real man, and that its preferable to date this man who is at least honest about his inadequacies from the beginning than to go in and receive a massive character shocker from Mr Fantasy. This group mostly comprised of women above 27, although you could find a mixture of both in age brackets.

This obvious age characterisation, got me thinking that our choices as women differed based on our age, that as we get older,the more responsible even our dating choices got. When we were younger,we focused more on the physicality of a man,his looks,his physique and his popularity amongst our friends. Then as we get older our priorities change and we focus more on his character formation and our tolerance to his inadequacies.

With this taught process in mind, could it be said that Mr Fantasy is only a figment of our immaturity or does he really exist?
And would you say settling..oops...accepting Mr Keep it Real is a sign of a woman's maturity in choices.
These and many more of its like, are the questions that keep me up at night.



By Miss L.C


9 comments:

  1. LOL...
    These questions keep you up at night?!

    I think I'm sitting on the fence here. Few men are a little of both sides.

    The question doesn't keep me awake though...

    ReplyDelete
  2. lol @ Mr. Keeps it Real and Mr. Fantasy. I dunno in my own case... he has always been Mr. keeps it real... in fact it scares me how much he keeps it real... however i was scared because i realized he wasn't the Mr. Fantasy i conjured him to be. I don't think it has to do with age. A lot of times, most people regardless of gender realize after marriage that they are only getting to know the 'keeps it real side' while during the courtship, they only knew the 'Fantasy side'. If we are all bare and honest, then we would all show our keeps it real side... but then again, isn't the reason why we do it so fantasy-like because we are afraid the other person won't still love us for who we truly are?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well this one's easy, and explains why I'm still blissfully single! I crave the most rare of all fantasy men: the one who is cultured and educated and properly groomed and charming and disgustingly gorgeous but who also keeps it real as much as proper etiquette allows. Just about impossible to find? Absolutely. Am I going to settle? Not on your life bay-bee!

    :)
    xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sometimes I wonder why that changes, I never got to date when older. The truth of the matter is that the older one gets, thing keep changing. A career oriented woman would also want someone educated and has it going. No one this days want to be stuck with a Mr Nothing. You get!

    Hope you have a fabulous week, been a while.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'd certainly keep it in mind during my next post...
    I totally like..
    Mr fantasy does exist but is dangerous oh..
    I most certainly will pitch my tent with the the Mr. keepin it real..
    Please visit http://helpnigeria.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. Even as little children with girls finding prince charming and living happily ever after

    ReplyDelete
  7. Girls Girls. Believe you me, Maturity can kiss a Frog into Prince Charming and it wont be settling then.....it will be the real thing!

    ReplyDelete
  8. This entry is so related to this book I'm reading that I can't believe it. The book is called Marry Him: the Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough (I borrowed a copy from the library and I highly recommend it).

    You're exactly right that for the most part that it's only when women are older that they begin to realize that the qualities that will sustain a marriage, things like shared values, commitment to working things out, shared religion and similar attitudes towards money, having children, etc are what really sustains a marriage. Questions like "Is he hot?" or "Do we have amazing physical chemistry?" just aren't as important if you are thinking longterm.

    When you date someone who you have amazing physical chemistry with, that chemistry will likely fade over time, so you need to have some other stuff to sustain the relationship. However, if you marry a nice guy who shares the important values with you, it's practically guaranteed that your love and yes, chemistry will only grow as time goes on.

    So I don't think going for Mr. Keeping It Real is settling. If it feels like you're settling (vs. compromising, since all women need to know that Prince Charming doesn't exist, we will not find that man who has every good thing we want and none of the annoying traits we don't want) then I'd say the girl is doing it wrong!

    Thanks for letting me leave an epistle in your comments and if you can get your hands on a copy of the book, I don't think you'll regret it!

    ReplyDelete
  9. For me it was not Barbie and Ken. It was Mills and Boon that did me in. Gave all these false images about some dude on a white horse with zero percent body fat that literaly sweeps you off your feet as you lips protestt but your body shivers in anticipation for what is to come next.

    Yeah. That's what I mean.

    ReplyDelete