We are definitely in the chill of winter and I am glad I am not in Johannesburg but Phalaborwa where I can still afford to walk around in my summer dress. My friend Thembi and I chat quite a bit about this weather and I never miss the opportunity to stick to her face and remind her she is stuck in the freezing cold up north.

We had our usual chats last night and in the middle of it she gave me the challenge to do a write-up about why women manage to get laid but struggle to keep or attract a long-lasting, committed relationship. I wasn’t sure why she was asking me because well I haven’t been single for about 3 years, in fact I am months away from marriage. Before this relationship I had about 2 years of play time after I came out of a 4 year relationship that started when I was 15.

So I thought I don’t really know why women can manage to get laid but never be in a lasting relationship. Even the guys during my 2 year play time were pretty good almost relationship, that would have been proper happy relationships had I given it the time.

But when I thought about I did realise that although I am blessed with a relationship that is heading towards lifetime commitment, I am still no different from every other woman in the world. The woman who sometimes doesn’t know what the hell she is doing so wrong in today’s reality of love and relationships with the opposite sex.

In my opinion women are taught from a young age how to find her future life partner. The difference in what each one grasps from these teachings though is the stage her mother or any other female figure is close to her at the time of growing up. Is she a disgruntled woman whose man left her broke and alone? Does she even know your father? Unhappy marriage perhaps? Or does she come from a loving marriage or commitment that allows her to be the best woman she can be.

This makes a difference because it instills in you the lessons to finding your partner. I told Thembi that based on this my opinion is that women manage to get laid but not in a long-lasting relationship because they do not know how to find or wait for the person that will be most compatible with her.

We all wish we could end up with Mr Charming, who looks right, smells right, has the right money and comes from the right family.

But this is not how life works because sometimes that Mr Charming is so wrong for you. He may not like seeing a woman lying around the lounge in her pyjamas on a Sunday morning eating a tub of ice cream, he may hate a girlfriend you have had since High School simply because she wears really short skirts sometimes, he may even despise the fact that sometimes you love your work more than anything in the world. Sure you will get some lovely Mandingo from him for a while maybe years even, but you will feel it in your soul that he is not right for you.

I think women have become so obsessed with numbers that claim that the number of men in the world is shrinking and finding a good man will be almost impossible. I disagree with that because if there are still men to be friend zoned then there are definitely good men out there. Instead we run after what is pop culture and we create a list that has nothing to do with the core person to meet this pop culture’s conditions. We say to ourselves the man I end up with must earn so much a year, must drive this car, live in this neighbourhood and have this qualification. But what does any of this have to do with his core self, and how does his core self match with what your core self deserves in a life partner?

The guys that we filter through according to our list have also smartened up to the fact that women have this list in the first place. They understand why they managed to get in the cookie jar and will act accordingly, leaving you as the women with very little power. This is when you agree to be friends with benefits when you are really looking for a husband, you agree to be girl on the side because he bought you a nice car (probably in his name though).

We have willingly given away our God-given power of control, of insight and having the bone of making the right decisions. We believe in movies that tell us to act like a woman and think like a man (impossible) and we now model ourselves after women on tv who got their hired men because of looks. And most women will remain in an empty relationship or even bed for as long as she does not accept that she holds the power of finding or meeting the man most compatible and perfect for her…