Tall,
Melanin popping,
Handsome,
Well-muscled,
Yoruba,
Beard gang (CU didn’t allow me flourish in this department though),
Do I go on?
This isn’t buildaman.com my dear. Those specifications above were on my ‘what I want in a guy list’ while in the university, and before you snigger or even laugh out loud, I actually did meet people who met these exact specifications, but mehn, my misplaced priorities always turned round to bite me in the back.
Those who stand for nothing will fall for anything. - Alexander Hamilton Click To Tweet
If you are a regular Twitter user, you have definitely come across the constant Twitter war between normal human beings and actual living and breathing people who believe women should not have standards.
Of course you have.
Well, I am here to tell you that it is absolutely right (and even advised) to have realistic standards.
Note the word ‘realistic’!. We’ll get back to this later.
Imagine this picture.
It’s the end of the month, and you’ve gotten your salary credit alert. Awesome, right!.
Well, you decide to go thrift shopping for clothes with your friends, and while everyone has a list of stuff they need to get, yours’ truly just refuses to write a list, because she knows what she wants when she sees it.
My dear, I don’t need to tell you that you’re practically going to spend impulsively and regret the purchases you made once you get home.
So also it is with having standards. If you think you can just select and make spur-of-the-moment decisions about the qualities you want your partner to have, my sister/brother in the the Lord, you are seriously jonzing.
Even in the Bible, we see so many places where standards are set. In 1 Corinthians 13:1-8, we see the standard set for how love should be. 1 Timothy 3:1-7 clearly shows the standards set for the selection for pastors, and these instructions must be met.
So, if the word of the Almighty, Heavenly, Holy Father has standards in place for different things, how much more should we, have standards when it comes to selecting partners?
Since we’ve established the fact that standards are necessary, I think I’d like to go back to when I said your standards should be realistic.
We all know those unrealistic things we have on our list of things we’d like our partners to have. Now when I look back at that my list above, I’m like “Biko, what is melanin popping? What was I thinking? Is my own melanin popping?”.
NB: Lol, sorry to disappoint you all, but I have amazing skin, and melanin and all of that good stuff *inserts tongue out emoji*
You guys understand what iI’mdriving at though. Have sensible standards that will stand the test of time. Things like melanin popping, brows on fleek, and a host of other unrealistic things have to go. What happens if you guys move to a place where the sunshine is brutal, and your partner gets a whole lot darker? Will you still love him for his melanin that would stop popping?.
Of course, we know that as Christians, they’re some things that our partners must have, and those things cannot be substituted for anything at all! So be very careful as well.
I know there’s a lot to process in this post, and I am not saying you should drop your preference for tall guys and port to not-so-tall guys, but let the things you want your partner to have be things that you won’t look back and regret basing your choice of a partner on.
Left to me, I would stick to my preference for Yoruba guys, but I would never let my choice of a lifelong partner be based mainly on that preference.
So dear sister/brother, I’d urge you to review your list. Refine it, airbrush it, add a few filters here and there, and remember that there are some things that you just must never exclude from your list!
If you have anything further to add to this conversation, please do feel free to include them in the comment section. I would love to learn from you.
Also related;
Choosing a Life Partner: Dealing with Lofty Expectations and Factual Differences