Image: 123rf
Everyone knows, if a woman suspects her man of doing the dirty she can start investigations that rival the CIA. This is standard for every female on the planet. Notch her up to a highly intelligent woman and you’ve got no hope of escaping unscathed.
She can find out exactly what you did last Friday at 11pm even though you were too drunk to even remember yourself. Whilst she sat and listened to you try talk your way round and explain you passed out at a mate’s house, be warned, she already knows you ended up in a strip club. She’s just testing to see if you’ll actually own up. That quiet smile as she listens to your alibi? Don’t trust it mate. Run.
Social media hasn’t helped this particular situation, oh no. Back in the good ol’ days people could tell a few white lies and no-one would question it…if he text on his Nokia 5110 and said he was home, then that was that. Couples thus could go to bed happy and life was easier with less rows. Now, all it takes is a badly timed retweet or a Facebook post comment from your drunk mate and shizzle will hit the fan big time…
“You said you were in bed by 10pm? Then how comes you were tagged at 1am in a status that was located at that Irish bar I know you like…”
You get the picture. But my issue with all this is not the CIA inspired social media stalking – it’s the reason this happens in the first place. The shadiness. The lurky, dirty, shady behaviour that forces people to conduct their own private investigation on their loved one. My massive problem is just this:
Why be fifty shades of shady in the first place?
Image: 123rf
If I am in a relationship, this does not stop me from going out and letting my hair down with the girls until 3am. Being with someone does not stop me going on girly weekends away or going for ‘one drink’ after work and ending up in an underground jazz bar with no phone battery left. This happens to the best of us, single or taken. It’s called alcohol and, erm…life.
But what I won’t do is lie about it the next day. If he asks me why he couldn’t get through to me – I explain. I got drunk and ended up at my mate’s house singing with her dog (well, mainly I did all the singing) and trying to eat a cold pizza by the pool. I certainly wouldn’t have a go at him for asking because, being somewhat of an intelligent human being with at least one brain cell, I can figure out it doesn’t look great. If I were him, I’d ask too. So I deliver the truth and, get this, because it IS the truth everything on my social media corresponds to my story, so he doesn’t then feel like he needs to call MI5 and get back up.
The issues and the rows begin when the person in question acts all shady and comes out with a mismatch story that doesn’t quite make much sense. Basically, they lie to cover up something they do not wish to admit they did. Believe it or not, dearest men, we have this thing called ‘gut instinct’ and it kicks in when you act like this. We then begin the stalking, find out information we didn’t want to see or know, then its ‘hello argument’ or worse still, ‘hello break-up’.
Typical routine unravels as per below:
Female: Questions man because she thinks he’s lying.
Male: Cannot believe she’d question him or bother going through his stuff.
Female: Explains she shouldn’t have to comb through Facebook to find out the truth.
Male: Demands more privacy in the relationship and calls her crazy.
Female: Starts crying because she feels lied to and made out to be the bad one here.
Male: Tell her she suffocates him and he shouldn’t have to lie to go out.
Female: States she isn’t bothered about him going out it’s the lies she can’t stand.
Male: Claims he lies only because he knows he’ll get grief off her if he tells the truth anyway.
Image: 123rf
And so the vicious fifty shades of shady circle begins. Who is to fault here? Is she not letting him do what he wants and forcing him to lie, or, is he making her paranoid and insecure because he lies to her in the first place? Tricky tricky tricky. It feels very similar to the ol’ chicken and egg scenario we’ve all got going on. What o what came first?
Want my nugget of wisdom to help stop this from happening? BOTH people in the relationship need to drop the shady shades and be honest in all situations. If she has a go at you for going out, regardless of whatever you did or didn’t do on the night, then maybe you need to re-evaluate the relationship anyway. But if she has a go at you for being shady and lying to her then she has valid cause for concern. This is how it works:
- Men usually lie not because they did anything wrong but because they just want to avoid an argument at all costs.
- Women don’t care how many shots and beers you had, they care that you lied to their face about it all.
It’s that simple! We don’t like LIES so stop telling them! Even if you’re completely innocent, by lying to us you make yourself look guilty. The lies make everything 10x worse than what it really is. The fact is, we’re all humans too and we have been there…one drink turned into one bottle and suddenly we’ve spent hundreds of dollars and ended up at Club 55. Guys, we DO understand. We’re not quite the monsters you paint us to be. If you came out with the truth at the beginning we’d probably laugh at you, ask why the flat now smells like mouldy takeaway then crack on with the day. Isn’t that the outcome everyone wants?
And guess what…yep…once you start telling small lies she’ll stop believing you when you’re telling the truth and the CIA investigations will continue and you’ll feel stalked and there will be more arguments and you’ll both end up hating each other. It’s exhausting just writing it. If you want to be with her and you love her then don’t lie. How else do I put that? Just don’t lie.
Or, consider this. Imagine how it would feel if she started acting shady, telling you one thing but Twitter says quite another, or her WhatsApp is turned off all weekend or she claimed to be in bed by 10pm but girls wrote comments on her Facebook page which disputed that.
Could you still trust her? Would you be annoyed she lied? Wouldn’t you want to find out why?
Exactly.
Drop the shady and we’ll drop the social stalking. Deal? Cool.