Mr Correct.

Every man reaches a point where they get tired of being the understanding boyfriend. When we start dating, we try our best to be the ideal boyfriend: considerate, respectful, loving, affectionate, understanding and so forth. But it gets to a point where we learn that those ideal values that a man should have in a relationship are, in fact, false.

I believe, like many things in life, Hollywood sold these ideals to society. The same way women feel about flowers, these ideals were romanticised through Hollywood love movies and Disney fairy tales. Like a billionaire who will claim that they made their money through nothing but hard work, we know this is not true. We learn that they already had connections or a rich family member or friend who planted a massive financial seed in their beginnings. The same can be said about these values.

I (like many men) do not have pleasurable experiences when we live up to these ideals. We often get treated unfairly. We are often belittled and berated. Being the understanding boyfriend, in that understanding, most women take advantage of it and introduce disrespect.

For instance, she goes out all night with her friends. She returns early the next day. For the rest of that day, she remains quiet without saying a word.

You say how that makes you feel upset. Suddenly, she will tell you that you are insecure and that you are a problem. You are the one blowing things out of proportion. You are the source of conflict.

An understanding boyfriend will seek to find understanding. They will reason with himself that at least she is safe. At least she is enjoying life. At least this, at least that. The understanding boyfriend will find a way to find peace even when disrespected.

Yet the fact remains, she disrespected you. I am not old school. But I lived long enough to understand why certain behaviours are not acceptable when you are in a relationship.

Within the same example of her going out, the club is a mating house. At the club, that’s where we see the mating dance of humans. Women wear clothes that are tight and revealing. Men flex their financial muscles.

In this environment, the goal is to have fun. Seduction is part of that fun. Every man that I have met, directly or indirectly, never goes to the club to have “innocent fun”. They are there to hunt. They are there to get lucky. They are there to partake in the homo sapiens’ seduction rituals.

The common defence in this argument will be a question of trust. Don’t you trust your girlfriend or woman that she won’t fall for the seduction rituals? This question, essentially, tries to divert attention from the disrespectful behaviour.

No woman will ever stand a man who disappears on Friday and reappears on Sunday. No woman will ever tolerate a man who disappears Saturday afternoon and returns Sunday evening.

In fact, they will call him out for it. Some even take to social media. And in the comment section, a sea of ladies will side with the woman. They will confirm that such a man is not a man to be respected. Such a man is still wet behind the ears. Such a man is still enjoying the streets. A woman who is not in the streets will not entertain such a man.

Yet, when a man says it, well, he is immature. He is insecure. He is controlling. How dare he try to dictate what his woman should do? He is a dirtbag, a scum who does not deserve her. “You can do better, Queen”, they say.

And herein lies how men learn that those ideals of the right boyfriend are a fallacy. Within this example, we learn how then men ceases being the ideal boyfriend. And weirdly enough, when a man ceases being this Mr Right, he begins experiencing fewer problems from women.

Some men take the financial route. They work on earning money and use that money on women. After all, in the words of Nicki Minaj, “you can’t be broke and handsome”. I will die on this hill, but indeed, there is no handsome man who is broke.

Even for women who do not value money in a relationship or aim to make a man her wallet, brokenness is unattractive. Because without money, you can never be respected as a man. You see it with your family, you see it with your friends, and you see it with your partner. The only person who can be broke and still be respected is a woman. Not a man.

Other men will take the self-build route. Usually, they have money that’s enough for themselves only. And so, they become selfish about themselves. They take the gym seriously. They take their careers seriously. They entertain women only to satisfy their wild passions. Besides that, women serve no other function in their lives. And the wild thing about these men, they never struggle in relationships.

I speak from experience, as I was once that guy. When I was a dirtbag, focused entirely on myself, I rarely experienced any problems in relationships. I was worse than being nonchalant. I was indifferent. I really couldn't care less about a woman’s emotions. Her no was the only thing I respected. But other than that, I couldn’t care less about how my actions affected her.

And weirdly enough, in that state of mind, I never experienced relationship problems. Yes, most of my relationships did not last. Understandably so. But because I did not care about the woman, I knew that I would always replace her. And replace her, I always did.

This freedom and confidence in one’s seductive abilities reinforced the rejection of the ideal values of being the right guy. When being Mr Wrong, there was never a time I experienced disrespect from a woman. Never.

Being Mr Wrong, the woman would respect me. They would make time for me. They would consider me. They would do all they can for me to feel their love. The problem with being Mr Wrong is that you sometimes cannot feel that love. And therefore, evidently, when the love isn’t returned, most women choose to leave.

Nice guys finish last cause the bad ones finish first. What society would deem the scum of the Earth usually ends up with the most beautiful women. Didn’t women find Cat Matlala attractive at one point? How many girls, when we were in high school, dated the rugby captain who we knew had three or four other girlfriends? How many girls in university did we know were dating the tender guy or that one rich prick who we all knew parked his different cars every other week by the girls' residences? Weren't women throwing their underwear at Cassper Nyovest when he performed?

There is no love for being Mr Nice in the world of today. In the world of yesterday, society had placed men at very high positions of power. And with this power, he had an upper hand over women in all aspects of society.

And so, to advance in the echelons of society, women would find themselves a man who was doing well enough to partner with. Hence the sayings, “find yourself a rich man”, “a man is a man because of his cows” (basically saying that a man is a man if he has money). And the sayings continue.

But none of these sayings speaks about a man being nice. That is the fallacy from fiction. That is a fallacy created when the world began to change. The scales of power are slowly evening out in the world of today. We see this with modern cartoons like Bluey, where the father is the stay-at-home parent and not the mom. Yes, we are not where the scales are balanced. But compared to a couple of decades ago, these scales are closer than ever before.

And so, men without this power, the propaganda machine changed the narrative from a man being the strong, silent type bringing in the bacon to the soft, loving kind that washes the dishes while the wife is out. Unfortunately, this new narrative lives and survives only in the stories in which it is portrayed. Not in the real world.

There is no place for Mr Right in the modern dating world. There never has been. The description of a “man” is still rooted in the strong, no-emotion, hard-nosed, tough guy. He is still the man who is able to fight lions and wrestle bears. This is the man that women still desire.

Women might say I am lying. They might say my observation is extremely incorrect. I understand why they would say that. But from lived and observed experiences, Mr Nice Guy is the worst guy any girl ever dates.

And we see this in how they treat this Mr Nice Guy. The example of going out is one of the many disrespectful behaviours he endures in relationships. He will silently endure these pains. He will silently tolerate the emotional lacerations of his woman’s disrespect. Because he knows that if he speaks his true emotions, he will be labelled insecure, immature, and impotent in a relationship. So he rather chooses being the understanding boyfriend to allow room for the disrespect.

There is no joy in being the “right” boyfriend. There is no glory. There is no honour. Trying to love within the confines of these ideals as a man only leads to heartbreak.

And so, I would suggest never trying to fulfil those ideals. Instead, try to understand yourself better as a man. Yes, you will go through the phase of being Mr Wrong. You will have fun. The last stress you’ll ever experience will be women stress.

But the cost is that these relationships won’t last. Because at the end of the day, the woman won’t tolerate disrespect either. Unlike you, a man, best believe she has a man on standby ready to take your place. He is always there, ready on speed dial. Always. Don’t be naïve and think you are the only one she’s talking to. That’s foolish thinking.

The trick is to find the middle ground. That sweet spot is being Mr Nice just enough for her to feel loved and respected, but also being Mr Wrong just enough not to tolerate her disrespect. I have been Mr Nice. I have been Mr Wrong. Finding the balance is not easy.

Sometimes the scales lose their calibration. When things are going good, you will tend to find yourself leaning towards being Mr Nice a bit too much. When things are going bad, you will tend to find yourself leaning towards being Mr Bad a bit too much as well.

In my experience, I did not take the financial route. I am not a rich man; I do not come from a rich family, nor do I have rich friends. I took the self-improvement routine. I worked hard at the gym; I engaged, religiously, in introspective exercises, and I tried my best (and continue to try) to improve my emotional intelligence.

But the biggest tool I discovered is being deathly honest with yourself. Honesty is the key tool in calibrating the scales of these two male personas. We often mistake this for being hard on yourself, saying negative things, and always looking at our blind spots. I have come to appreciate the fact that this approach is misconstrued. It only highlights the negatives, which serves no function.

The ideal approach is being honest in the moment. Here’s a simple exercise. Where you are, sit for a minute. A minute at least. Take an honest look at yourself. Analyse how you are feeling in that moment.

At first, your mind will give what it thinks you are feeling. These emotions are smoke screens. Sit with yourself; explore how you are feeling. Because emotions are languages of the heart, the moment you find the right word or description of the emotion, you will feel it in your heart.

When you feel it, you’ll feel a change of “frequency” in your body. Once you feel it, write it down. On your phone, journal or whatever. The more you engage in this exercise, the more you’ll learn to be brutally honest with yourself without beating yourself down.

We are in a social revolution. In this revolution, dating is also affected. We are not the generation that experienced it beforehand. We are not the generation that will experience it after the hand has been dealt. We are the generation right in the middle of it.

Just as I, a man, am learning how the modern dating scene is unfolding, I believe the same is happening for women. In the world of today, women are not as captured as before. Marriage is no longer their only meal ticket.

They, if we're being honest with ourselves, really don’t need a man to survive. Not saying all women, but a great deal of them. A woman can have a career, earn good money, buy herself a car, a house and live comfortably. Something that their mothers and grandmothers only achieved through a man.  

And because of this, the way they treat a man has changed. Interestingly, the common crime that led women to jail in the 50s and 60s was mariticide: the killing of one’s husbands. Because the system, for a long time, saw women, especially in marriage, as a man’s property. So, to the system, a man could do whatever he wanted with his “property”. Reports at the time state that if the police never saw the abuse, they couldn’t charge the man. Hence, most women of that time ended up taking the law into their own hands.

Times have changed, and it is important we embrace that change. The Hollywood machine provided a very false idea of the ideal man of today. The Hollywood machine of then portrayed the wrong idea of the ideal man as well as that man was the epitome of toxic masculinity, like in the early James Bond films. The trick is finding a balance between the two ideals.

Somewhere in the middle lies Mr Correct. Mr Correct, unlike Mr Right, will not be disrespected. Mr Correct, unlike Mr Wrong, will not disrespect his woman. Mr Correct, instead, will find the love that eludes many.

He will understand how it is that God is Love. The God who so loved the world and gave it His only begotten Son. But also the God who burnt down Sodom and Gomorrah and drowned the whole world for 40 days and 40 nights.

This is the true nature of love. Mr Wrong will never see it. Neither will Mr Right. The one who will ever see it is the man who strikes the right balance between the two. The one who understands, like nature, that love can be beautiful and serene. But if you are not careful, you might find yourself on the ground after a snake bites your ankles.

It will take time. It will hurt. But at the end of the day, it will be worth it.