The Influence Of Friends

"Jeannine Carswell

Yesterday

**REAL TALK TIME** Many men these days (by no means All) rely on the leadership of their SINGLE male friends when it comes to how to handle their woman once in a relationship. As a male friend of mine confessed to me, "The peer pressure never stops with men" to do silly shit for Egocentric Purposes. And you should check yourself on this, fellas.

Why is the approval of a bunch of miserable single guys important to you? How is the dismissal of your woman's feelings (by you or by your friends) acceptable? And let me BE CLEAR here: SINGLE PEOPLE can be great and can be wise and offer you on-point advice as long as they are MATURE...and as long as they are CHOOSING to be single rather than being single because they have nothing to offer that any DECENT WOMAN would ever want. You should be the captain of your OWN SHIP, not your buddies. It's ALL GOOD to have Guys Night Out...to laugh, converse, tell dirty jokes, yadda yadda yadda. Your true friends should ALWAYS be part of your life! But the 'special lady' in your life should ALWAYS be #1 to you and that should NEVER be up for debate. Surround yourself with men who know this as Common Sense, rather than seeing it as a Death Sentence! Got it? *pats your back*

Why is it considered "weak" by some men to want to please a woman and make her happy? Women will naturally TAKE CARE of you (once you've won us over) because that's just in our nature to do so. If you take that for granted though, or you fail to reciprocate...that's WHEN her nagging, discontent and moodiness starts! Fellas, stop letting your ego, and the immaturity of your male friends GET IN THE WAY of a tighter bond between you and the woman you claim to love!!!

Part of a man's job is to LEAD; and if you cannot even lead yourself away from the silly innuendo of your inexperienced guy friends...how can a woman truly trust you to lead HER then? You know how to tune a WOMAN out easily while she tells you what she needs; yet you aren't capable of tuning out the bitter babble coming from ANOTHER MAN? That is twisted. Truly"

To expect a man to dump his friends is asinine just because some women want to hog all their man's time. I'm all for making my woman #1 in my life if she shows herself worthy, but if she doesn't have a pot to piss in, she may only get half of my goodness. It takes a strong man to be able to boast of his woman to his friends. If they clown him for it, that's their problem because he can easily say: Where's your woman? I rest my case. Have fun with those dirty heffers at the shake joint. It's not that it's considered weak if a man makes his woman happy, it's that sometimes we need a break from you ladies to be with our friends. Most men won't admit this but even when they're with the fellas, you're on their mind. A REAL MAN knows that there comes a time in his life where they will need a woman on their left in order to get things right. We are all human, but a woman's instincts are different than a man's. So my point is that a real man will only have 2 friends and that includes their spouse. Another real man would respect the relationship and know not to butt in his personal life. Peer pressure is something voluntary little boys choose to do. If a man tells his woman he'll be home at midnight and his boys want to stay out until 5am Saturday morning, they start calling him a punk and saying "No woman is gonna give me a curfew; I run this!" Before you know it, he cowers under the pressure from his friends because he doesn't want to seem like a punk. He comes home late and his wife gets upset because he didn't come home when he said he would (rightfully so). How much hanging out can a man do? For me, I'll stay out until midnight at the latest and then I'm checking out. Knowing I have a good woman at home waiting on me will probably give me more incentive to get home a little earlier because she could have something planned for us and I wouldn't want to disappoint. If they're my boys, they'll understand. If not, then that's their problem.