Welcome to another weekend everybody. Okay, the top 5 things a woman does, and we are all guilty sometimes even if it is unintentional, that tortures a man. I think all of these can be tied to pride and selfishness and all of these are exhibited in the original Pride & Prejudice a very clever book.
1. Thinking We Are Always Rght. . .Peasants
Sees everything they do as supreme law, sees others faults and being loud about it, forcing people to change their bad habits quickly, always trying to fix the problems and nuances...this is normal for a relationship, but when the guy or children and people in your lives can't return the favor by telling a woman her faults and mistakes, then it's not only insanity, it's narcissism. I have seen it and only a very good man can keep compromising to keep the peace in the family.
2. Knowing What He Likes and Withholding
Besides the obvious subject, there are things and kinds of affections when a woman is mad or wants to even the score for how a man made her feel that she will take away from a guy. It is like putting him in a time out.
Well, this puts the woman in a time out as well. Not going out when he wants, ignoring him, holding back your niceness and going completely cold until he gets the point he did something wrong. Pride is an evil sandwich best left uneaten, Ladies. I'm finding out men do this, too, but I never seen any books written about it. There are times in a relationship you are the mother figure and discipline may apply, but what eventually does a young boy do with his mother/son relationship? He leaves her for a roundabout woman.
3. Hanging Out With the Boys
Some girls are just natural around guys. I always had male friends even during a relationship. I never knew how much it bothered guys until one boyfriend told me my guy friend who we both worked with wanted to be with me. I was so clueless, I thought no way. I seriously thought I was safe being around him because I was far from his type of girl. So, I continued to hang out. Well, he was right, my guy friend started getting jealous of my boyfriend sort of saying how he disliked "pretty boys" and I was like, "You would be a pretty boy, too you don't play toward that" and his reaction toward that compliment made me see that my guy was right.
The thing about it is, I seriously had my focus on my boyfriend no matter how much I hung out alone with my friend. If I was to turn the tables around I see I was unfair. He actually handled the situation by telling me and not accusing anyone and I backed off hanging out as much.
4. Emotional Over Everything He Says
Reading fictional stories and imagining grand worlds and ideas is okay if you are a writer in your spare time, but not when it is about your guy telling you he is going to get milk and your mind sees him meeting up with his ex at the grocery store. Then when he comes back all happy to share the milk for the cereal, you are screaming at him for cheating on him.
Eventually he will make this woman cry through the course of the day because of what he DIDN'T say more than what he said. It makes coming home like living in a real life Minesweeper game jumping in the small amounts of safe space to keep the bomb from igniting from an unstable brain. Uncontollabe emotions are scary to guys. Find a way to find balance or be alone.
5. Going Commando on a Brother
Hilary Clinton is the woman who came the closest to being in the White House. It won't be long before a woman is Commander in Chief of America. "I pity the fool, who is under her," says Mr. T. I think everyone knows a woman who wears the pants in the family or sees the man in the grocery store pushing the cart and holding the babies as the woman tells him their schedule for the week and scolds him for his attitude for not appreciating the talk. Oh, and he didn't grab the peas fast enough. Somehow, the wife playing the mother 24 hours works for some men, but look at the man and he looks miserable like a captive ape.
You might wonder why I brought up this topic. Two reasons, I live with a narcissist who is very close blood relation and secondly, if you are familiar with the original Pride and Prejudice it is full of narcissists. The biggest one is Elizabeth's mother. JaneAusten wrote P&P as a comedy and the effects are so spot on, people still demand her book 200 years later!! Exactly 200 years in fact as I just found out her book's 200 year anniversary is next week.
Elizabeth's, Lizzy's, Neurotic Mother
When I look at reviews all over the Internet, I see that not one person likes the mother figure, and some say she is the most annoying character in all the tens of Pride adaptions. One thing she is good for is comedy. Her hysterics to have all of the attention all of the time, to have her way, crying for attention needing to drink or take her pills is funny on paper, excruciating in real life. Like a five year old whose supply runs on her childrens' energy.
Rewriting this character as a black woman with a strong man as a Mayor, I had to step off a little from the stupidity of the original mother because she would have to understand how to be a Mayor's wife and control her emotions, not just some countrywoman who only goes out to small functions or gossips about the neighbors, she would have to function in society.
Still no matter what, LOL, the spirit of this character was just 'me, me, me'. I deal with it everyday. The person that talks only about two things, themselves or they talk ABOUT someone in a negative light. Yes, great environment.
I went full blast on the mother character and how it affected the father. This is torture for a man. I understand and I vow and promise that when I get married, my husband will be able to say what he feels negative about me in a respectable manner and I will reason with him.
What I found ladies is that no matter how painful feedback is, at least 1% of it is truth. Somewhere in what a person says about you that needs to change you can see that it is true. This was how I started my transition from being a slight narcissist myself. A narcissist can have a whole book written just on them, no pun intended,but one factor is they center their whole life on their point of view and in this way, they are always right because as their actions change, they justify everything and everybody is wrong.
If we just take one step of humility back away from the Pride and the Prejudice that men are always wrong and see somewhere how we could be contributing to certain minor behaviors, you will see the men of your dreams be brought forth. I only write and advise about what I experience.
This is what my Giselle character had to learn. This is the major difference in my version is that instead of Mr. Darcy, my Mr. Washington, coming to the character and getting rid of his pride to ask her again to be together, my character must do this and not just once, but multiple times go to Mr. Washington and find different ways to apologize for her behavior and win him back.
I believe that if Jane Austen had been seasoned in relationships or a little older when she wrote this, she might have shown that Elizabeth, My Giselle character, needed to show her humility toward Mr. Darcy as well and that he was not the only one wrong when she refused his hand. I mean, she was screaming at him.
How Was My Writing Week?
I started Black Pride in October after a dream, please see my 'about' page for details. Ever since, I just started rewriting following the plot of the original Pride and Prejudice. Then I went and added scenes to fill in the gaps in my characters' universe. That has been filling up my rewriting process until a week ago. I finally found the voice of my characters. Now this week's writing was going back and actually LIVING my character's experience as I saw them in my head instead of just plot points.
For instance, instead of just starting the scene with the important conversation and very little introduction, now that I know the voice of those characters, small little things that seem unnecessary but you see in all movies I started to add to my scenes.
Things for instance to lead into the conversation a mundane act as the mother going to the front door and opening it to the newspaper wearing her bathrobe and seeing the neighbors and being embarrassed, is small and I never added such details mainly because I was only writing on the surface for 30 years.
I hope that by filling in this last level of gaps such as these I will be ready by the beginning of February to begin working on just relaxing with what's missing int he story and just reread Black Pride as a fresh reader and fine tuning.
Unfortunately, I feel there is so much gaps which is a necessary glue to make this universe pop out from all other books.
Jane Austen had such rich characters, each different and funny in their personalities and I was honored to have those same characters translate just as well and funnier in the black community. I will not be satisfied until I think these characters have their quirks and crazy ways placed out on paper just as much as they are running around in my head. Right now, they are flat on the page and flying rampantly in my mind.
It was fun, as always thanks for the reads. Smooches!
Enjoy the weekend,
Denise Rochelle
