Finding the right fit: Bad timing, Good African men, and staying open to love

“So what kind of man are you looking for?” A question I get asked often as if a man were a dress  in a store and I only had to select one. That would be nice though, walk in, try on a couple men, and then say oh this one will do.

Unfortunately it don’t work like that. They are living beings and so it’s not just a question of you trying them on, they are also trying you on. Sometimes the fit just isn’t right, other times you fit in the beginning then later your style changes, or he gains some weight, while you lose some.

It has been a truly revealing 6 months. In December I concluded that 2017 was really the worst year for me with men.

Naturally,I have spent the first half of 2018 in observation of the scene. I have not been dating. Just wasn’t ready. 

Every single man I ended things with in 2017 resurfaced in 2018. Individuals I never thought I would speak to again, I’ve even gone on to share laughs with, and embrace. I have no residual feelings of anger, nor even betrayal. I just feel calm, and accepting.

Once I acknowledged that I had not been so lucky in love, that itself was healing. It’s almost as though writing that piece back in December freed me from future bitterness.

For a second there, I thought I would turn my back on men and enter a convent but I didn’t and haven’t. I love, love. I love connecting with a man who is open to sharing himself and I remain open to that, to love and all its possibilities

A huge part of keeping myself open has actually been because the three men who I had felt let me down in 2017 all came back in ways that showed me that even though things had gone south, I had made strong bonds. The connections had been as real as I had felt them and that was reaffirming.

And while time had passed, these men still held me in some kind of regard and I for my part realized that I didn’t hate any of them regardless of how ill they had behaved.

I got apologies, compassion, and acts of extreme kindness in the last 6 months that have revived my faith in myself. Perhaps they were atoning for their sins against me.

In the end I hadn’t chosen poorly, these were solid men. It was primarily bad timing and a bit of greed. They wanted with me what was not possible at the time if they had been honest with themselves but alas the heart wanted what it wanted.  What I had seen in them was real.

These my men though poor communicators and crappy partners were not bad people.

Now that I’ve had plenty of time to think about who I actually want and it came to me quite easily.

I want a man of vision. Not just a well educated man, that looks great on paper or standing next to me but a man who can inspire me.

I wanna look at my partner in awe of the human being they are because of all the acts of service they make to the community.

Most days my heart is in a sunken place both with regards to news from Sierra Leone and the US. The politics of things depresses me. In these times and for always I want to be with someone who is not only building for them self but the world.

While my heart still isn’t ready to go back out there, I just wanted to say it is as open and loving as always.

So what I thought was a man problem I have actually solved. How? I raised the bar even higher. If a man is not a visionary uplifting others I need not go there, be there, we can be friends. This will cancel out such a high number of men that I am absolutely certain, it will be at least another decade before I have the  kind of year I had in 2017.

My heart is fine.