by Demola Rewaju
I follow great people on twitter (at least 85% of those I follow qualify) and invariably most times one person or the other would tweet a great link and I invariably click on the link. One of those great folks I follow is TImi Ogunde (@tmeogunde). I know because he tweets my blog regularly and yesterday he tweeted this great link by Sola Adio and I followed it to this website where I listened to the man talk about this issue of real men.
I was only going to listen for a while but the passion with which he spoke drew me in and I listened to the very end – fourteen minutes of it and then listened to another recording of his. His post reminded me of Subomi Plumptre’s No More Bullsh*t book which I read many years back and a chapter where she mentioned something about searching for Alpha Men (for herself or the society, I don’t really remember).
Every woman’s definition of a real man is different and so there is no prototype of what a real man should be. We can however agree on one very basic point: a real man shouldn’t hit his woman (or any woman for that matter). From there on, the consensus on who a real man is is entirely up to you and how well you are able to communicate your definition of reality.
We all are a product of our environment, our experiences and the things we are exposed to. every great man you see today was made by all those things and more importantly one particular woman (that’s why I told Gilda Amata to build her own Obama in this article and explained how Michelle made Obama the man he is today). There are ladies who manage to bring out the worst in the very best of men and there are those who manage to bring out the best in the worst of men. I have had experience with both types and I guess that’s why I usually write this segment of the blog to say to ladies that you have a role to play in how your man reacts and the kind of person he is when he is with you.
Constantly reinforcing your man’s ideals about himself will help him to elevate his definition of manhood. Cleopatra would keep Mark Antony up late and tell him stories of the old Pharaohs of Egypt and before long, Antony was become more of a man than he had ever been. Some ladies however overdo it and talk down to the man or enter his life with their mouth first as I explained in this article.
A man wants an ally, a confidante, a best friend and a comforter. He doesn’t need you to criticise him in any way. This is why most men are drawn to women who are less intelligent than they are. The wise woman is the one who drops great ideas in his head and when he finally does them and celebrates, she smiles inwardly knowing she was the one who dropped the idea in his mind in the first place. Your role is not to criticise him to success – we get enough of that outside. Your role is to support him when the world turns its back on him. To let him know that he always has a place to come to which is in your heart.
Chubby Cheeks (my wife) reminded me when we got married that the very first time I ever met her, I arrogantly declared that I was the best writer in the world and proceeded to write her a poem. (I was a show-off eight years ago). She never fails to remind me of that dream and has become my biggest encouragement as per the things I write.
The most important building block in making your real man is your revelation of him, without this, you will fail. There was this young upstart who had run from his king and went about the villages with a ragtag band of earth-forsaken men. This woman, wife of a rich man saw him and recognised that he would one day be king so she treated him well despite her husband’s rough gestures towards the man. When her husband died, the upstart invited her to marry him and she became his queen. She recognised the real man in him even when he was nothing but a runaway slave and that is how Abigail became David’s queen.
Real mean are not born, they are made.
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Demola Rewaju blogs at www.demolarewajudaily.com
Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.