My army

What you are about to read about is one of the greatest joys and my happiness. You will get to explore the happy side of me and through the men around me. I am writing about my everyday men and how they impact me daily and they are the most incredible thing to happen to me, clichéd as that sounds.

Originally this was going to be about my black men and then as I sat down to write this I realised that there are multifaceted and multiracial men in my life. From all walks of life and they contribute on multiple layers directly into the person that I am. It was actually inspired by the consistent 10 year friendship that I have with a friend called Andre. This friend of mine has a way of directing me into anther train of thinking. He also has a way of just making me calm down. For the longest of times my mother thought we were dating. She was most likely thinking I am going to give her coloured grandkids. However Andre has been a representation to me that not all men in my life leave or die on me. A narrative I gathered about my father that I had concluded as the norm. Andre has stuck around the longest. Through it all he has been a great friend and great person to converse with.

Now let me discuss my champions, not that Andre is not. But these guys are champions purely because they are your everyday guys. I won’t mention these four guys by name but I will mention their professions so that they know I am talking about them. These attorneys, advocate, researcher and marketer and project manager are the types of brothers who are your stable reliant brothers. Never flinching in their confidence in the fact that you are great as a person and as a friend. Never shy to tell you what’s not right and what you need not concern yourself with. One of these four guys helped me through my worst depressive state at the beginning of the year. Hourly updates and constant phone calls, I honestly asked myself one day: “am I not draining and straining this relationship”? When I asked the friend in question his reply was no and months later we planned my 30^th birthday lunch. My champions are smart men of academia and they still have time to validate not only me but the women and men around them and that says something about these men. Especially since we live in an era where men cannot be trusted at all. It’s nice to know that men my age, even though I won’t date men my age, are maturing in their thinking and mostly they can see a woman and respect her. I love these champions and really wish them well on their journey of self discovery and self improvement. You’re doing great champs! 

This next calibre of men is the type of men I classified as pastoral not just because some are my pastors but also because they guide me in a way that is fatherly and kind, never forceful and never arrogant. These men make me think, deep and long about the type of partner I should get and they also allow me to ask very hard questions about their younger selves. These are my 3 pastors. One is of Afrikaans decent but really he is more of a mesh of cultures. Well educated and broad in his thinking. If you follow me on Social Media you will know that he has sent me images and messages that encourage me to be bold. We need that in a society that is loud about nothing. Then there is two other pastors, both Indian and have a massive story to tell about their struggles and how they were raised. But there is another one I’m rather fond of. I think his opinion, although he rarely has one, is the one I value the most because he hardly says anything. He’s a happy go merry man who never had kids of his own. He calls me by name or by daughter depending on the mood and what he wants to relay, but I call him Pops. The simplest man you will ever find. Same style of dressing and not much of a mover and shaker. But he will welcome you in his home with open arms. He reminds me that some of the most treasured things do not come packaged the way you prayed they would. Also some things won’t happen as you thought they would, but just round the corner is something so much better. He makes me feel like home is in a father’s arms, so I hope my future partner has arms as warm as Pops.

So as you can see I have not mentioned how rich or well off these men are. I haven’t mentioned their own children, families or partners. I have just relayed the impact they have. I have told the story of ordinary black, white and Indian men who help sculpt my thinking and my character. I have informed you of the men you ought to try surround yourself with, because life is a daunting and tough, made tougher through societal expectation that we feel even when we try so hard to ignore them. I think we do not allow men to make their emotions known and felt because we are in a rush to see him “man up” and never allow him to breathe and take the cape off and stitch his so called wounds of trying to be a man. We keep reminding men how trashy they are without realising that just like us; they were raised by trashy dads. Just like us they can be cut some slack. I am appealing to women to extent to those men who do us right, to applaud and thank them, not because it is father’s day, since some of them are not actual fathers but because they are great men doing their best. They are doing their best even when we need more.