How To Love A Woman As A Man.

I sometimes think that I am slowly becoming incapable of falling in love, particularly because I have experienced so much pain from loving and trusting people that I feel like I struggle now. Yes, people, as I have tried multiple times, and each time I tried, I had an egg thrown in my face. The older I get, the more meaningless love is slowly becoming.

And in the society we live in, your emotions as a man mean nothing. Your emotions as a man are as important as the dust that lands on your coffee table. A woman can cheat on a man, and somehow it will be the man’s fault that she did. A woman can find herself in bed with another man, and somehow it will be the man’s fault that she did.

If you are in a relationship and your girl does you wrong, wait for the apology. If it will come, that is. Listen to it carefully. 60% of the time, the apology will not address the core issue at hand. It will address the effect of the action, not the cause. 99% of the time, the apology will always include a “but you” attached to it.

The apology means to wash away her guilt. It does not aim to address the issue at hand. Cause if you, as a guy, probe her apology to see if she means it or understands what she’s apologising for, 100% of the time she will explode and make it a “you” problem. 100% of the time, the emotional weight of guilt, shame and regret will suddenly be on your shoulders as the man.

And under no circumstance whatsoever should you, as a man, ever share your emotions with a woman. Never do that to yourself. Never. Unless maybe it is an emergency. A real heavy emotional weight, like losing a family member. These are anomalies. And granted, a good woman in such a situation would offer you a shoulder to cry on.

But be quick with it. Do not linger on the emotion. I have never met a single woman in my entire existence that bear the daily emotional grind that we men face. The pressure you feel to find success but keep missing it? Keep that emotion to yourself. Are you stressed at work, from Monday to Friday? Keep that stress to yourself. Does your girl want to go out, but you know that going out with her will strain your pocket? Go out with her, and deal with the stain alone. But under no circumstances should you ever tell a woman your emotions. Never. We learnt this lesson the hard way.

She will laugh at you. She will call you weak. She will tell you that you are not the man she thought you were. And so on and so forth. You know, there are certain experiences I have endured from women that I am not ready to share them outright. I tend to include them in my stories, hidden in fictional characters and fictitious worlds. I am one of the few men who have truly experienced just how dark women can really be.

When I got my first permanent job, the girl I was with was mad at me. She lashed out. Her complaint was that I can travel the country to a new job, yet I can never make time for her. I remember the day I went to the new location. The whole trip there, I was upset. I was sad. I could not bring it to myself to celebrate the fact that I had got a permanent job. It felt wrong because it felt wrong to her.

The same thing happened when I got a better job later. The girl I was with then simply crashed out on me. Broke up with me on the spot. Simply because I got a new job. Yes, this job was in a different province. I was trying my best to reassure her that things would work out. She never believed me.

And the really weird part about these two moments in my life is what they share in common. Not that the job part. What they share in common is that with the first girl, 3 months after I got the job, she also got a job in the very same city I was in. The second girl also got a job about 4 months later. She got the job in the same city I was in. Isn’t that something? They both made a person feel so bad for choosing a career over love, only to realise that the issue of distance would have been solved in a matter of months if they had trusted in the love we were building.

One might argue that I am an anomaly, that not every woman is like this. Yet, when you watch shows like Blue Therapy or Couples Therapy, you quickly realise that I am not. Such issues men face regarding career choices are quite common. In these shows, you will hear women say that the man is not making time for her. The reason why? The man is working all the time; “he works too much.” The same women who will then turn around and say that a man must be a provider.

When you listen to stories of men back in the day, you realise that those men lived at the workplace. My grandfather, my father, tells me that he always worked. Always. He was a taxi man, and all he did was drive his taxis, check his taxis, and drive his taxis some more. From the stories I hear, he never had time for family. But his working all day everyday ensured that his family had a roof over their heads and food on the table.

There are young career men that I know who live in the office. They wake up, bathe, go to the office, work, come back home, eat, sleep, repeat. Every day, 6 days a week. Even 7 days a week. I, too, was once such a career man. Because at the end of the day, that’s what’s expected of you as a man. To be a provider.

Dave Chappelle once made a joke that if men could date women living in a cardboard box on the street, they would. Chris Rock once joked that men are only loved on the condition that they can provide. If you, as a man, do not have the means to provide for a woman, you are pretty useless in the dating world.

Do you love your woman? You want to marry her? Who is going to pay for the wedding? If you are African like me, who is going to pay the lobola? Who is going to buy the ring? Who is going to cover all the pre-marriage expenses? Your wife to be? I don’t think so.

A woman once told me that she can’t be with me because I don’t have a house. She's not even 30 years old yet, this lady. This sounds very reasonable. This sounds like a fair point to make until you realise that most working individuals can’t afford a house.

The average age of the first-time house buyer, as of 2026, stands between 36 and 39. And mind you, this is not the beautiful, large homes that our parents bought after emancipation. These houses are probably cute, small townhouses in an estate. The type of townhouses that probably limit you to one or two children max.

And understand this, most of us men know this. We know that we need to sort our finances first. But in the same breath, we know that it will take time. Most women do not have that patience. And I would argue that perhaps that’s why most women in their twenties will bypass us in our late twenties and early thirties to date men in their late thirties and early forties. Cause those men have sorted their lives out.

And again, most of us know this. We know that the girls we like are probably attracted to the older men who have their life figured out. I once loved a girl with all that I am. At the age of 26, I had nothing but promises of success to offer her. I loved her so much that I even introduced her to my family. Only for this woman, roughly 3 months after being introduced to my family, to break up with me. Why? Because she was getting married to a 42-year-old man who owned a guesthouse and restaurant in PMB.

I also once pretended to be a rich Nigerian business mogul to see whether the woman I was with was faithful to me. From that whole exchange, I am still convinced that if I had held my character, she would have dated the fake persona. I cracked at the end when she reluctantly admitted to being in a relationship. What I regarded as a serious relationship, to her it was “mojolo nje”. I cracked, and I’m sure she picked up on the conversation getting too intense, so the fake character ended.

The same girl who, a week later, I would find on a dating site. When I asked her, she said that she lost respect for me. “I became too much.” Again, most people will read this and understand her point. The popular notion is that a girl is your woman, not your mother. The other one is that before you enter a relationship, you must work on yourself first. Funny, one of the people who used to say that was Will and Jada Smith: the benchmark of a “perfect” couple.

I thought about that. Did I become too much? If you are carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders and you share it with your partner, is that too much? If you are experiencing emotional demons ravaging your mind and the only way to quiet them is through a substance of some kind, are you doing too much? When you aim to be the best good boyfriend possible, try your level best to show a woman you love that even though life has knocked your teeth out and continues to stab you straight into the kidneys, you can still stand and fight, are you being too much? I guess you are, according to many.

It is experiences like these that make a man like me lose all faith in love. I have seen and heard many men justify their emotional suffering under the disguise of love. When the truth is that the social construct of how we understand love is created to cater to women, not men.

Even elements like romance are born in the courts of ancient European kingdoms, where Queens would ask courtesans to “entertain them.” When was the last time you, as a man, got a gift for Valentine's Day? Your birthday? How about Men’s Day? The day you got a promotion? When your graduated? Was there even an expectation of a gift? Probably not.

I have discussed how I got two new jobs, and the women I was with at the time did not celebrate with me. Instead, pinned the fact that I got these jobs as the basis for a breakup. Such is the reality of a man.

You know, I have had the privilege of dating the most innocent, sweetest church girl to the most vile gold-digging baddie who belongs to the street. One thing I can confidently say across this broad spectrum of women: you open up, they break up.

The only emotional attributes you must have as a man to have a successful relationship are:

• Have the patience to listen to her problems.

• Have the intelligence to understand that a woman is never wrong, no matter how wrong she is.

• Have the ability to apologise even when you are not at fault.

• Do not show any emotion. Do not show anger, frustration, annoyance, greed, ambition, happiness, excitement, sadness, or any other emotion. Just don’t.

Understand that she owns and controls the emotional power in the relationship; you do not.

If you can master these basics, you will have a successful relationship. How do you cope with your emotions as a man? Try the following:

• Become a functional alcoholic.

• Have some nicotine in your system. In my experience, THC and CBD make me unproductive. This is not good if you want to be a provider.

• Be a caffeine addict.

• Have a female friend you don’t find attractive. But having her in the friend zone will allow you to have someone to talk to. Someone who will listen to you. But because you don’t necessarily find her attractive, you won’t be tempted to fall in love with her. Sometimes, you really need a good friend.

• What about a fellow male friend? No. I used to think that the power of brotherhood could help a man deal with his emotional pain. What I have realised is that you fellow male peers, are probably going through the same situation. And so, it becomes a blind following the blind situation. And that’s not good.

The truth is that love, for a man, has conditions. If you cannot meet these conditions, you are redundant. As a man, try dating with an empty pocket. Impossible.

Personally, love is slowly losing all its flavour. I am slowly reaching that point when I can no longer stand it. I am slowly getting to understand Tall Ass Mo when he said that he would appreciate the beauty of women but would never pursue it again.

Love is a fairytale for women. It is a nightmare for men. As she waits for her knight in shiny armour to save her, the knight only but prays he will live to fight again. Love is losing its meaning. And I’m not sure if I’ll find it again.