William Ifeanyi Moore: Options Options Options

I never forget the confused look on my dad’s face as I wallowed in misery over my first breakup. He said to me: ‘so you only have one girlfriend, you are only eighteen. You should have like three or four. Then when you want to get married, you pick the best.’

The ease he made this pronouncement with didn’t hit home until I was out on the dating field again. I introduced him to yet another girl and after she left, he asked me if I had good ‘back ups’ as he so eloquently put it. This is when I had to explain to him that the dating game had come a long way from his day. These days, social media made the concept of dating polygamously next to impossible, and relationships have been elevated from ‘just dating’ to ‘marriage practice’ or as my friend put it ‘micro-marriages’.

Think about it…what is the difference between dating and marriage as far as rules goes?
You aren’t allowed to see/sleep with other people.
You can’t even be caught texting the wrong smiley to other people.
Heck, some girls/guys will serve you a query for liking some hot picture on Instagram.
And to top it all off, the man is expected to be financially responsible for most of the dating expenses.

From the looks of it, this is pretty much the same deal as marriage. Our parents had to deal with relationships only in real-time with physical presence. They didn’t have to go through the level of policing we see today (where are you? Who are you with? Where was this picture taken? Is that a girl’s/guy’s voice I hear? E.t.c). So the question is; who has the better system? In my opinion I think it depends a lot on who you ask, so I will tell you what I think and in the comment section you can share your opinions. We are all on a learning curve after all.

I think for men this really doesn’t make much of a difference. The unique position we have as hunters and the luxury of time till marriage is socially considered “late” allows us to afford the trappings of early monogamy as far as dating goes. Women on the other hand operate with a smaller time window and have to wait to be hunted (bar a few exceptions of proactive females). This means you can have one guy on your case for four years burning out your youth, only to leave you at the 19th hour for a girl he met three weeks ago on Instagram. Just ask your mother about how many other suitors your dad had to compete with for her hand. Today, God forbid a girl is caught talking to another guy while she has expressed interest in one already. The result is an increase in girls passing the socially sanctioned age range for marriage putting women in this awkward position where men their age are running after younger models to marry, and younger men aren’t ready to settle down and won’t generally want to marry older women. God help this woman if she is financially successful as well. We know how threatening that can be to men.

So what do you think needs to be done? A revaluation on the amount of people we can see at the same time? A change in the style of courtship to eliminate the kind of attachment that demands monogamy? Or perhaps you have other ideas? I want to know. Feel free to use the comment section.

P.S Ladies, we already know you take the initiative by having a list of toasters on your phones…but is that really enough??

Photo Credit: Dreamstime | Kiosea39