on car wash dates…

This one is for you Tara 🙂

As you grow older, As I grow older I’ve realised that I don’t have the capacity to take crap from guys anymore. Probably explains why I’m still single when my friends are all getting married. I’ve been told I’m stubborn, I’m hard-headed, I’m too honest, I need to stroke his ego, I need to tone down the strong woman act but hold up it’s not an act! This is who I am so what is the use of toning it down because that means said gentleman will fall for a half version of me and what happens when he discovers the real me, the fighter, no nonsense chic who speaks her mind? Isn’t that a recipe for disaster?

Anyway, I digress, the point of this post is to talk about me refusing to take nonsense. This post was brought about by a whatsapp conversation that I had recently with a certain gentleman. I had a few errands to run at the mall when he hit me up on whatsapp (that’s a story for another blog post). He wanted me to accompany him to the car wash. The exact words were “Its a nice one I can’t go alone Pane car wash laundry sadza ne saloon Tongo tsvaga ma drinks coz havatengese ipapo”

On that particular day it was blazing hot and I was not in the mood to be assaulted by soap sud smells with a hint of boiled muriwo and a tinge of burnt hair while sitting on a crate sipping on a Savannah Angry Lemon trying to look cool in my Jacqui O inspired sunglasses while swatting nunzi away with my open palm. Granted the car wash is probably very different from my little scenario but I was just not in the mood for car wash vibes. So I chose the air conditioned movie house at the mall over the car wash and that’s when the statements began and said gentleman guy insinuated that I was a gold digger.

To be honest, I’m not a car wash type of girl. I prefer my sushi and cocktails. And I don’t expect anything from anyone that I can’t do for myself. But that doesn’t mean I don’t go to “sadza” places. I do go and I have been before sometimes with even just the girls and no men. I’m that girl who has even gone to Hillbrow because Aleck Macheso was playing at one spot *no judging, this is my blog 🙂 *

But because on this particular day I chose to go to the mall over hanging out at the car wash I earned myself a label. My response to him was along the lines of you can go ahead and put me in whatever box you feel like, I’m not even going to fight it. See the thing is I’m 27 years old, turning 28 in a few weeks. I’m past the stage of trying to explain myself and lower my assertiveness because I might scare a guy away. I just don’t have the energy anymore plus it’s hard to always try to remember not to be myself so I’ve embraced who I am.

Another phrase that got thrown at me last year was that I should be grateful this other guy was even calling as if he was doing me a favour – I sure do know how to pick them lol. I let it be known that I didn’t need favours and our interactions are very different and very minimal ever since that phrase.

Why am I writing about this today? Because I realise it’s ok NOT to accept bad behaviour from someone. And I’ve learnt that people treat you how you let them treat you. So if you roll over and let people speak to you like they are doing you favours by even having your number in their phone book, that’s on you but I’m saying that’s NOT ok. Disagreements do happen but there is a difference between disagreeing and being disrespected. So it’s ok to cut communication with people that you feel don’t respect you or your time. Life is too short to keep people around that subtract the joy from your days. It’s new year and when you start seeing your worth, you will find it harder to stay around people who don’t!