OPINION

ELEVEN DAYS LATER - AN OVERDUE POST-MORTEM

Nine out of ten I know that your boyfriend, who worships only on February 14 is probably on steroids and has a loaded pistol just incase I outrun him, but I'm still going to tell you why I'll rather stoke the furnace for St Valentine before I go out with a sister who's got her eyes focused on my wallet.

It's painful that in this fast world very few good mannered sisters will recognise love if it hit them right at the forehead. One of my friends said that getting a woman to say "yes" depends largely on the energy source in the cosmic that you are both tapping on. If you are not tributaries of the same source, getting her to dial your number at 00:32 will be the equivalent of extracting a baby's tooth sans anaesthetic.

No wonder there is a whole battalion of single sisters in every block. Their corresponding men are either in prison, dead or unemployed. That last being the tricky one since an unemployed man is without self-esteem. He won't gather that little courage needed, even if you gave him a nip of vodka to chat a sister who drives a BMW 745.

My she-friend once said that men need to accept that current economic changes have meant that more women have better access to cash than men. That it's no longer about gold digging or gigolo but using their cash to take care of the men they love. I told her it's easier said than done since a time will come when, while at her parents' home, in her absence her father will ask me what do I do for a living, and my response that I'm a blogger will draw sharp rebuke and comments about how people don't eat blogs, how blogging won't guarantee that she stays smiling or put a roof over her head. I remember that she looked at me and sipped her coffee. I was right.

Sometimes it's not the father who'll ask. If I can travel 500 kilometres at R85 per trip to do a R1 (before tax) a word story, why should a sister take offence at using the same mode of transport while she's not even working and expect me to pay for the alternative? Why should she travel in luxury just to come and see me while I travel third class to hustle and make that money she says I should let her squander if I really love her?

Which is another factor that contributes to most men displaying apathy towards love, it's become too damn expensive. If you are bent on taxing me and making me spend money for your company as if you were some cheap whore from a shady escort agency, what do you think makes you so special that when someday the temptation to marry overwhelms me I will think of you? Why are you behaving like some silicone-self-conscious Sarah Jones copycat or someone who was probably left at the aisle while her man eloped with a hooker.

Valentine's Day needs not be about how much money I can spend on you, but how many minutes I can listen to you talk. Not that I should invite such a moment but you're welcome to propose a date with me.

Here lies the rub, because if you invite me out you're most definitely going to pay. One of my friends said that it's easy to take a sister's offer to go to a drive inn and watch a film if you know you can take her to a restaurant afterwards. He said being unable to book both film tickets or dine and wine her after the escapade would make him feel like a scrub, which of course he will be.

I told my sister in law it's time sisters went out there and asked men out because if they are still waiting for the love bus to come and pick them, by the time it gets to their stop it will either be full or they risk turning 30 still waiting for it. Instead of waiting to be invited to a party they must throw their own and invite bachelors to it.

However, how you behaved in your adolescence years will work against you later. If you were a tramp or a hard to get at 18 and 19, do you expect me to later think of you? Like I said sometimes it's not about money, but when a sister says that she can only make love in a guesthouse and not a hotel or suite while she's not going to foot the bill for such extravagance, the money factor surfaces and love dies.

It's easy to do an Onassis, Hilton or Versace in a guesthouse instead of taking such an order from some brown sugar who can't pay her own way. Luxury costs money and money drowns love.

And love should not be exclusive to Valentine's Day and the leap year. To most of the sisters who are out there lonely, club trotting and hunting for a man, I'm sorry to say you're partially responsible for your own situation. A customer will not pay for a commodity that isn't well packaged and marketed. For now print this page and boil it, drink the muti, it might work miracles for you Valentine's Day 2008.