Tess of Girlfriends: How To Mark Your Territory Like a Pro

Girls, let’s not even pretend. Being with a guy has it’s challenges… whether in a marriage or a relationship or just plain co-habitation. You have to learn to cope with all kinds of things, because there’s no way your partner is 100% exactly like you are. On top of all that, some external forces – in the form of other girls – who will come to put asunder both in what has and hasn’t been joined together.

Sometimes these forces come invited and other times, they just invite themselves. It appears that one effective way of dealing with these external forces might be territory marking.

I have previously argued that marking territories in a relationship is a sign of insecurity and desperation. Plus there’s really no guarantee that the girl whom these territory marking clues are intended for, will notice and be dissuaded by them from doing whatever she wants to do. However, some people have argued that territory marking has it’s advantages – aside from warding off competition and protecting your own, it’s also a way to generate “top of the mind awareness” with your man. On this note, if you choose to be a territory marker, at least learn to do it like a pro! To do this, one word to keep in mind is subtlety! The more subtle your marker, the less intentional it appears, the more effective it is.

1. Don’t underestimate the oldest trick in the book – “accidentally” forgetting something of yours at his place. However, what you’re leaving behind should be inconspicuous enough to be out of the guy’s sight, but sufficiently obvious to a visiting girl. The key is to target hiding areas where the guy is unlikely to find it but another girl most likely would – some of the best places are the side of the bed he doesn’t sleep on and the nook in the door on the passenger side of his car.Leave a few strands of hair on the side of the bed he doesn’t sleep on or strands of hair on a spare hair brush or comb in the drawer on that side of the bed – it doesn’t matter if the hair is natural hair or a weave. The point is that the hair can easily be identified not to be his.Another option is to leave one earring behind. Not a pair, just one so you can always claim you were looking for it if it’s discovered. Just slip it into the case of the pillow on the side of the bed and you’re done. On that same side of the bed, you can also leave a distinct female scent behind by lightly spraying the pillow with a bit of your perfume. Things you can leave in his car include any small item of makeup or jewelry that he won’t easily notice from the driver’s seat.

   Don’t intentionally leave things like clothes or toothbrushes or shoes behind in conspicuous places at his place. Some guys have perfected the art of doing a quick eye-sweep of their place just before you leave and promptly help you remember to take any of your belongings you were about to “forget”. Some other guys just find your forgotten items after you’re gone and hide them before they do any damage. The upside to this though is that when you find that he hid them, you can ask him why and hear what he has to say. Just prepare your ears for all sorts of explanations.

2. Forget about tagging him to your photos or tagging yourself to his own photos on Facebook, or commenting on his wall or posts, or all those other social media moves – those are for amateurs. Like the pro you are, just use his phone to take a few pictures of yourself when he’s not looking, then take a few other cute pictures of something else, so that he doesn’t quickly notice your pictures and delete them when he opens his camera (that’s if he has ulterior motives). That’s all. Any girl that tries to pree his phone pictures will have you staring them in the face. Don’t forget to include some don’t-mess-with-me looks in the selfies.
3. If you cook for him, be sure to cook enough to guarantee there’ll be leftovers and stow them away in his fridge/freezer. Any girl creeping on your man will suspect it had to be a babe that did all that cooking. To help the situation, you can label the food containers using telltale short notes – “Baby, this banga soup only has 2 pieces of meat left in it but the soup is enough for 4 servings”
4. Don’t worry about hickies, they don’t show on dark guys anyway. You’re better off investing your energy somewhere else. Add a feminine touch to his place by getting scented candles or fragrance sticks or flowery colourful hand towels and placing them in strategic locations in his house – something very unlikely for a guy to do but something he won’t mind when you do them.
5. If he has a stack of magazines, include girly ones on hair and beauty in the stack. A bookcase? Add some books on recipes, relationships, babies or flower arrangement. A hard drive full of movies? Add a few chic flicks using a folder marked with your name. Feel free to add ‘Baby” to your name. It’s your name after all… Jenny Baby, Baby Kate etc Believe me, they’ll be easily spotted by any girl. If you were the other girl, you’d spot them, wouldn’t you? Aha!

There you go… but then again, territory marking doesn’t guarantee that a man won’t be successful in getting other girls if he chooses to. In fact, the idea behind territory marking is for the other girl to notice these clues (which she may not) that will hopefully be deal-breakers for her before things get out of hand. You really should ask yourself if having to mark your territory and competing with other girls for your man’s attention is worth all the time and energy. He either wants you or he doesn’t and if he doesn’t want you, why bother?

xoxo…

Photo Credit: Dreamstime