If You Didn’t Provide it For Yourself, It’s Not SELF Esteem!

Don’t get me wrong though! Having a really great guy in your life that tries hard to be a better man can bring a woman a lot of joy.  A great man can create in his woman a desire for his touch, his voice, his energy, his passion and bring her immense fulfillment when she gets those things from him.  But he cannot MAKE her happy… she has to be that herself.

It is no one’s responsibility to MAKE us happy but our own.  I believe that and I live it.  And because I believe it and live it, I am not a miserable, lonely single woman, desperately bending myself into a pretzel to gain any man’s approval.

There is no room in my life for a man that doesn’t congratulate and appreciate but instead tries to negate and deprecate.  Sadly, it seems that isn’t the case with most women.  They will instead allow themselves to get sucked into the game and do all they can to discount their achievements and successes so that some non-performing chump can feel better about himself… more of a “man!”  

The author, Deborrah Cooper

Less confident men can’t stand me, and do and say things to try to bring me down a peg or two and damage my self-esteem to gain the upper hand.  It doesn’t work! Never has, never will.  Let me give you a couple of specific examples of recent attempts.

Some years ago I was interviewed for Black Enterprise magazine about my web development work. They printed a four page spread on myself and 2 other web entrepreneurs regarding our websites.

A guy I was going out with saw the article or heard about it. Not sure how because I didn’t tell him.  But he came over for dinner and right in the middle of it said “you think you are alla that cause you in Black Enterprise!“

Now I was pouring wine at the time and missed the facial expressions that went along with that utterance, so I didn’t know if he was joking or not – until I looked up. I needed to see his face to put the words and body language together to fully understand his intended message.  That’s when I saw the curled lip snarl and anger in his eyes.

So I calmly told him “no, I don’t think I’m alla that, but obviously YOU do!”  Dinner was full of strained silences.  I broke things off after that.

In another instance I’d enrolled in a weight loss and body fat competition at my gym.  I was excited because there were huge cash prizes and opportunities to win in 5 different categories.  I figured I had a good chance to get SOMETHING out of the deal!

Not long before I’d met a guy that was a prize winning body builder in Puerto Rico. We went out 2 or 3 times… can’t remember exactly.  He was FIONE too. On our last date I was talking about the contest and excitedly sharing how badly I wanted to win. It would have been nice to have him step up to the plate to support me, perhaps sharing some of his experience and tips for success.  I figured if he was really about ME, he would have been encouraging and smiling.

Instead he told me how I had to prepare myself because I was not going to win! Did you get that?  Instead of supporting me and telling me how he could share tips from his prize-winning body building career, or how he could work out with me a few times to provide an extra push towards successful achievement of my goal, he condemned me to failure.  He got NEXTED as well.

Love coulda come, but dummies kill it

When he didn’t study for his exams in college and got a “D”, but somehow it was the professor’s fault for giving him a bad grade.  If he waited until the last minute to produce a research or term paper, and threw together some hodge podge hot mess to turn in and got less than an “A”, somehow it was everyone else’s fault. 

Then, when he got fired from his job for showing up late one time too many, it was his bosses fault for not being understanding and being a tight ass.

Then the finger of blame was pointed at me.

One night he shouted “you MAKE ME feel bad about myself because you do everything perfectly and always get what you want!”  I told him that it wasn’t my fault that he was not focused on getting what he wanted out of life, nor that he refused to take responsibility for his lack of positive action.

Sigh.  That budding relationship ended as well.

Ladies, tolerating such behavior from men is a quick path to low self esteem and the very last thing you should EVER do.

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