Written by CG
On my drive home from work, I was tuned in, as always, to Inspiration FM and it was just the right time for Chaz B’s “Sharing Life’s Issues” nightly program, the topic was absolutely delish, “Why do Men Cheat and Lie?”
The existential question.
As the veteran radio talk show host invited lying, cheating men to call in and “explain” themselves, I sat back ready to crawl through Lagos traffic and listen to all ‘em “trifling” brothers spin this one.
The calls did come in, and while they didn’t really talk about the cheating bit a whole lot, they did talk about the lying bit (and really both sins are kinda intertwined). The consensus from the men folk was loud and clear: men lie because women want them to.
One anonymous caller said it best when he said, “Women want you to lie to them, if you tell them the truth they are gone!”
“Women really love liars!” the outraged caller exclaimed.
Be pissed all you want, but the men made a valid point. Sure, they are still to be held accountable for succumbing to telling lies of all shapes and sizes, but don’t we women really love the convoluted, falsified stories?
“I own National Theatre!” “I am richer than God!” “My tin is a very loooong tin!” Whatever the hell they say, that’s fine as long as it tickles our fanciful ears.
Don’t believe me? Still want to live in denial? Then get this:
Half way through the show, a female caller gets on the line and says she’s on the side on the men. She says and I quote, “I don’t want to know the truth! Keep it to yourself!”
She said a recent “truthful” conversation with her boyfriend almost caused her to have a heart attack. “I couldn’t breathe, I felt like I was going to die.”
So, female caller says, don’t tell me, keep it to yourself, and you nosy friends that want to get all up in her business and tell her just where and where you saw her man and with whom, don’t bother, she didn’t ask you!
However, shout a big Halleluyah for the good Christian brother who called in next with a different perspective, restoring my faith in MANkind.
He asked what I wondered: “Are you going to say because they don’t want to hear the truth, you are going to lie?”
“Good man” caller said the fact that some ladies want to live theirlives, booty up and head in the sand does not excuse any man’s lying, cheating behavior.
He says the men who lie and women who love the men who lie are dealing with far deeper spiritual issues.
Another caller, female this time, supported the previous caller, saying she does want to know. Whatever your baggage is, just declare it up front, so she knows what’s coming on board her relationship express.
Now where the situation might be different is that while level headed female caller number 2 is more than willing to talk about it and “pray through” with her lying, cheating man, the same may not always be the case for other women.
Some might get all Baracuda/Banshee style on you and BREAK UP ALL YO’ S#I+! Which seriously dissuades men from coming clean, so they do the wrong thing and plead the fifth, American speak for keeping your damn mouth shut and not saying a word!
By the time the third female caller got on the line and gave me the same “we are going to pray through it” bull, “just tell me the truth”, I was ready to PUKE UP my TFC chicken pie lunch/dinner! What the hell?!
Then female caller number four got on the line and kept it real for me. Joking around at first, she said “If my man try sheat and I cash am, na kill I go kill am oh!”, I perked right back up.
It was a no-brainer for her, “If the man cheats, he is out”, which Chaz said is perhaps the reason why most men lie. They don’t want to lose the lady and they certainly don’t want the lady to destroy all their valuables and key their ride, so they keep quiet.
Then female caller number four made an interesting observation that made me go “hmmmmm”. She said Nigerian men (in particular) lie to Nigerian women because we, when we find them out, roll over and take it.
The caller explained that she had lived in the States and said a black American woman, when faced with a cheating, lying man, will DEFINITELY not take THAT from them.
On that point, I didn’t quite agree with the caller. I lived in the States too, and some women there suffer this same “Lie to Me” sickness.
True, most Nigerian women are not quick to make the decision to break up or get a divorce, the stigma of spinsterhood is strong here, but I don’t believe we are any more susceptible to liars. We don’t like it any more than that American woman or women anywhere else in the world.
It comes down to this: the men who lie and the women who love them and, knowingly or unknowingly, seek them out, regardless of nationality, race or ethnicity, are insecure. You are not confident in who you are and what you have to offer, so you lie – “I have a duplex, with two Jaguars and a Benz in my four car garage.”
It is unnecessary for the man who knows his worth; and the woman who knows hers, doesn’t need to hear it. She looks past the material and seeks out the spiritual.
Woman, if your anthem is “All men are dogs, ain’t none of them out there worth a damn!” then perhaps you need to take a look at your self.
What is it about you that attracts dogs?
Yet to be fair, not all women get the men they deserve, or vice versa. However, it is what you do after you discover this man or woman in your life is a lying, cheating sack that determines if you are a woman or man that knows your worth… that knows you deserve better, can do better.
Same goes for the cheats. Yeah, good people succumb to temptation, drift away in relationships, seek that good loving’ in another’s bosom… the righteous falls.
However, what do you do afterwards? Do you a.) get back up or b.) wallow in your little dung pile? Circle one. It determines what kind of person you are.
Chaz B ended on the same sugary sweet note: everyone has got to learn to forgive, “for it is not by power, nor by might but by the spirit of the Lord” that man and woman can avoid the itch to cheat.
That’s just the philosophical analysis though. Sometimes, it may just be basic, primal. The man might just be a douche bag and the woman, a gold digger or just plain naive.
