[jariel]

Before I start this second edition of The Grown Man Hour, I want to thank some of you guys for the encouragement to continue to write about something that is very important in all of our lives.

The truth is, we love women. A lot of what most of us do in our lives is to not only benefit ourselves, but for the people we love in our lives. We love our parents, but we don't become educated and financially independent so that we can take care of them, we become those things so that we can have a family of our own with the woman we love, the woman we give our names to, the woman we create new human beings with, the woman who will likely bury us when we die.

I speak as a product of a two-parent home, and I come from what can be categorized as a "good family". My parents made sacrifices so that they could give each other and their children a better life, I'm eternally thankful for that and for them -- it has taken growing up to fully appreciate them.

I also speak as a man who has engaged in a number of relationships. While I've had plenty of casual relationships, I've had women whom I've actually shared my life and who I am as a man with. I have shared my body, my knowledge, and my resources with them, to show them that if you're down with me, this is how life is going to be, but I expect a certain return -- I give good, I expect good.

I have never considered marrying any of those women because I needed time to grow up and become the man I wanted to be -- I've been on the path for a while, and I'll work forever to continue to grow. Furthermore, it was easy to leave them behind because none of them proved to me what needed to be proved to show me that they could be my family -- I don't mind a family, but I will never be "legally married".

I state those things because I don't have much in common with people who come from broken homes nor guys who solely want to fuck bitches and move on.

There's nothing wrong with either path, they're just not mine, so keep that in mind as you read some of the issues that I choose to write about.

Through Thick and Thick
Recently I was talking to my father, and he shared some old stories involving him and my mother that really made me think. My parents came from nothing. Although they are from different countries, they somehow managed to run in each other on two different continents.

My father told my mother that she was even more beautiful the second time they ran into each other, and that he didn't want to have to keep running into her to witness her beauty when he could just have her for himself and see it all the time.

My mother, being a traditional Latin woman, thought it was "fate" -- for you guys who like latinas, keep that in mind, they think about shit like fate, destiny, signs, all that.

At the beginning of their relationship, they were working poor people. They used to have shitty dinners except on payday when they would splurge for something nice. In other words, they had great dinners twice a month.

Ultimately things got much better for them, and as a result, they were absolutely great for me, which is very uncommon considering my "roots".

That type of evolution within our relationships with women today is dead.

Women aren't interested in through thick and thin, they only want through thick and thick.

At this point, here's the game.

Your value as a man is at it's lowest when you are young because you have nothing to offer other than dick.

Women work during their younger years to become educated as that is the best way for them to obtain gainful employment which allows them become financially independent.

During that time, they spend their money on themselves, and since they aren't relying on any man to take care of them financially, they are not concerned with who can provide for them in that manner, it is more important that a man can make their 'ginas tingle. They take advantage of this time to only be responsible to themselves and fuck whoever they want, however they want, with no rules or structure to the game.

By the time they realize that their value is that of a falling star, and that they're tired of the work grind, they start looking for those young guys who are now old guys who have increased their values. Now those guys have something to offer: an easier life which means less work, but more money, more things, etc.

So by the time a woman locks you down, you, the man, have already gone through the "thin".

Now you live in a high-rise in a swanky part of the city with a name like "Brickell".

Now you drive a luxury whip, and they clock you hard when they see you pull up to VIP in a late-model Bimmer with a Black sapphire metallic paint job that was washed and waxed earlier in the day .

Now you dress like you're right out of GQ magazine, your suited down, with your tie bar angled unconventionally at 45 degrees, houndstooth pocket square, and a lapel pin of your zodiac sign.

She didn't want you when the best you two could do was two nice meals a month, but now there's quail eggs, wild boar, and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in your refrigerator. You go to Whole Foods whenever the fuck you want, you order exotic meats from the Broken Arrow Ranch, yeah, this is the good life, fuck our foes, of course she's down.

But if things ever go left, then she's out.

The game has evolved, and we must evolve with it, we have to recognize when we're being used and taken advantage of. I don't have the solution to this particular problem, I just recognize a hustle when I see one.


You Don't Get Props For The Basics
Last year, I ended a relationship with a tica I had been seeing for about a year and a half. She wanted an explanation, and in the course of doing so, she thought she should recall the laundry list of "things" she did for me,

After she was done with her list, I calmly reminded her the following:

1. Anything you've done, another bitch has done for me, so from where I'm standing, nothing that you've done could be classified as "special".

2. Since we were in a relationship, those are things that were expected of you to do. Again, since they were expected, they could not be classified as "special".

3. If you didn't do "all of those things", you wouldn't have been doing anything, which means that I would have been the only one investing in the relationship, and that's not how the game goes with me.

In short, you don't get props for doing the basics.

A woman can cook for you, clean for you, etc. but if she's your woman, she's just doing what she's expected to do for you. In life, doing what you're expected to do doesn't curry you any extra favor or considerations.

Your boss isn't going to promote you at work just because you show up on time, you're fucking supposed to show up on time. If you want that promotion, you have to do more, you have to be more.

For a woman to solidify a place in your life, she has to do more and be more than the other bitches that you've had, otherwise she's just like the rest, and guess what?

You dumped them too.


Stop Over-Analyzing The Game
Recently we had another discussion about flaking. It is an excellent ongoing conversation, but there's a level of over-analyzation to it.

First, let's dispel the concept of the "truth".

The truth is funny in the sense that it is at best, relative, and at worst, non-existent.

There are a lot of people walking around in our society with hate for their fathers because when they're parents got divorced their mothers took primary custody of them and used the situation to indoctrinate them with falsehoods about their father.

Their mother never told them that she just wasn't a good wife.

Their mother never told them that she cheated on him.

Their mother never told them anything that would make them look at her sideways, as far as they were concerned, it was all of their father's fault because that is what their mother manipulated them into believing.

Now if you're not directly involved in something, you can never actually know the truth.

Let's relate this reality to the situation of flaking.

You meet a girl, you communicate to her that you want to see her again, you make plans to do that, she says she's with it. When it's time for those plans to come to fruition, she backs out. Maybe her reason is legitimate, maybe her reason isn't.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter.

You had plans, now you don't have plans.

She's not going to tell you that she's dating a number of guys right now, and a guy she's more interested in than you hit her up and she decided to roll with him.

She's not going to tell you that you seemed nice and all, but she's just really not interested, and she doesn't want to waste her time.

She's not going to tell you that she's actually in a relationship right now, one that she'd like to get out of, but she's just not ready to do anything with you, or perhaps anyone else.

She's not going to tell you that you're actually her dream man, but she knows she's not good enough to keep you around, so she'll reject you to protect herself from later torment down the road.

At the end of the day, you'll never really know the truth, because you're not close enough to the situation to know it. The best way to deal with the situation is to accept it, and allow the other person to atone for their mistake. When people really want to do things, they make those things happen.

We'll save money to buy our first car, to buy our first home, to take our first trip to Colombia. Those things actually require serious time and effort, so if she really wants to go out with you, then she'll make the minor arrangements that she needs to so that it can happen.

If you're trying to reschedule, but she's still wavering, then you should take that as she's not really down.

Contrary to popular belief, women are not as busy as they make themselves out to be. We have women running around acting like they barely have time to breathe, but they're frontin' harder than Jay-Z and Pharrell.

That girl you asked out has time to watch all of her favorite shows on t.v., clip coupons, and play games on her IPhone, on a regular basis, if she doesn't have time for you, it's because she doesn't want to make time for you.

The game becomes a lot harder when we over-analyze it, you start questioning yourself and all this other shit, when that's completely unnecessary, let the game be what it is, and never stop playing.