“I like cat and mouse games, but I have to be interested in you first.”

I know I have both men and women who come here because of the private messages I get from many of you, but more recently I have received so many messages from women sharing their dating stories and other experiences with men. So I do not know if this is a newer generation thing, but a few of you are telling me to talk to all the men who are interested in me and only get close to the one who stands out the most.

Okay, okay, those of you who are new here, you may have not picked up on this, but for the rest of you…You know I have strong morals, I may do certain things that are up for moral debate and I may say certain things in theory, but in practice I’m not out there like that.

I’m someone who believes that sticking to your morals and values is what grants you the most blessings, but I’m not going to sit up here and say I've never done anything that was frowned upon. I’ve been in a situation where I didn't know certain pieces of information about someone and in lieu of it, I did things against my morals. But, since then I’ve prayed on it and I’ve forgiven myself and I do not regret anything that has transpired because I did have a lot of great times and through that experience and the experiences surrounding it, my views have changed about men…everything happens for a reason. And with that, I can’t let disappointments taint me or my abilities to be at peace and be happy. That’s a testament of my growth. People will be who they want to be, you decide how you want to be around them.

I say all of that to say that we can go through things that shape us to thinking and behaving in a way that we never thought we would. Although, I still cannot see myself having interest in more than one man. Don’t get me wrong, there are men I speak to who have interest in me, but the feelings are not mutual, so I keep a respectable distance with what I do and say to around them.

But hey, if this is what women are doing these days, don’t let me stop you from being great! I just cannot see myself going through my phone and having multiple conversations of “So what are you doing this weekend?” just to try to decide who I want to spend more time with. It seems like some of you ladies are ruthless. One of you went on 3 different dates with 3 different men in one week! Ma’am, I salute you, live your best life! So I’m just going to go through what some of you women have shared with me:

• Talk to all the men, they’re doing the same thing with us!

  • That may be true, but it would not make me feel good to do that. Sometimes I get irritated when my phone goes off too much, so it would be too much tedious time wasted to share my interest to multiple people.

• I met up with a man on Saturday and a different one on Sunday and I cannot decide who I like more so I am going to keep hanging out with both of them.

  • Oooo..see I can’t do that, I would feel guilty because then I am not really investing my attention on one person. That sounds fun. My conscience won’t let me do it.

• I’m 26 and I go on as many dates as guys want to take me on. I tell them that I’m not looking for a relationship and they all seem to like that and some of the guys try harder to date me.

  • A few things here…YES, you are young, so be as free as you want to be. I think I recently saw a meme or caption that said, “Women in their 20s should be toxic.”…I do not know what all that means, but I was married during the bulk of my 20’s, I didn’t really start living for myself until my late 20s, early 30s. And I cannot say how I would have been if I was not married, because it was a different generation then. We did not have all these social outlets that’s available to us now. It was almost taboo to talk to strangers online and the term “Thirst Trap” relatively new where people show different types of pictures of themselves for likes. You have so many ways to meet people and it’s a normal concept. I used to meet people at house parties and we would write our phone numbers on napkins, but again, this was all before I was married and had children. Although, I was doing things in my high school years that people were doing on their college years…things worked a little faster in the northeast. If you know, you know.

• I dated a lot of guys at one time, but I didn’t have sex with any of them. I wanted to see who I connected with better and now I am in a committed relationship with one of the guys.

  • Okay, I could see how this is viable. If you’re single and want something serious then you’ll go through the process of meeting different men to figure out who is the best of the bunch. But would that be the same way for me since I’m not looking to have a traditional relationship? I want to talk, spend time, hang out, go places, but I don’t want to merge everything about our lives. It told you, it’s Partner vs. Companion and I don’t want the paperwork. You can have me, but I’m not signing anything.

• Just start dealing with someone you already dealt with before.

  • I feel like this thought is coming up more often these days amongst different groups of people. The things is, anyone who I have been with before, my views are different now and I don’t think any of them would understand or may take advantage of the whole companionship thing and mishandle it completely.

There were a lot more comments and suggestions, but this was the just of it. I get it ladies, I’m single, I have my standards, and I don’t want to play any games. I also don’t want to waste time.

I can't remember who said it to me, but one of my friends said, “Raya, don’t let any of these dudes out here try to tell you that you need to change anything about yourself especially if he’s not putting food on your table, paying any of your bills, and not calling you his woman. You can treat a man special, but don’t let him treat you like you're not.” My people aways big me up. Get you some people like this.

My dating life, I wouldn't even call it that. I meet people, if I like them, I meet them again, if I don't, I don’t. I’m not kissing anyone or sleeping with anyone. Listen, I may be too confident but I rather be that then not at all, but my Hello Kitty is too good to be touched by anyone.

Also, I’ve also developed a few turn offs recently:

• E-cigarette or those smoke pens are not really attractive to me. It’s starting to resemble people who smoke cigarettes, like they can't go a day without one and they have to carry it everywhere with them.

• People who like to talk about how good they used to have it when they made so much money doing things that were not legal. Like, okay sir, but did you developed any useful career skills from that?

• Men who are too eager to get into relationships within the first few hours or days of knowing you. Why are you rushing?

• Men who have newborns…there are so many concerns and unnecessary headaches with this one, so I just rather not entertain a man like this.

• I don’t prefer men who take pride in receiving attention from just anyone. Have some self value.

• And lose interest when men try hard to convince me they are "the catch", sir, if you are, you don’t have to tell me, let me learn that gradually. If our first few conversations are all about what type of man you are, then I don't need to know anymore about you.

Be safe everyone. 🙏🏽