At the outset of the church service on Easter Sunday morning, a concerned mom reflexively approached me about her adult son. In doing so, she asked me to reach out to him in spite of the fact that I'd already done so prior (this guy's about my age & visited our church - a few times - with his fiancé last spring). Per his mother, the son had remarried (wife #2) last summer, and as a result, his ex-wife was not / had not (quite understandably) responded well (as the mother of his only child). Therefore, her son was in an emotional pickle for such a time as this and had been for some time.
Combined with that, her son recently applied for Social Security Disability as he's no longer able to work due to a chronic medical condition.
I did my darndest to be sympathetic to this mother's pain, but I made it clear that I had no intentions of pursuing her son at her bequest - no matter how much she pressed me to do so.
Why?
It would be disrespectful to him. And friendship certainly cannot grow forth from disrespect.
What I did do is give her my card, urging her to pass it along to him whilst reminding her that I'd given the same - directly to him - last spring. I continued on by reminding her that by doing so, I did look straight at him, extending a(n) (still unmoved) hand of friendship.
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I'm serving as a Silas to a GA man (he's my age and of the same race as I) that I met at the February '22 regional Samson Society retreat. He's married to wife #2 (white woman), and she has refused to decouple herself from two very close black male friendships that existed well in advance (by ten years) of her meeting my Silee. My Silee feels marginalized as such and rightly so.
These two friends engage with my Silee's wife most days, mainly via text message, and his wife justifies fostering these ongoing relations due to their pre-existence to her relations with him (4-year marriage).
Men want one primary thing from women: R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
My Silee's wife is disrespecting him by engaging with these other men on a platonic level. The three of them should have brought their friendship to a decided close on the eve of her wedding to my Silee four years ago. Instead, they continued forward, and as such, my Silee (& their marriage) has suffered.
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What is respect?
How do you give respect to a man? (Especially if you're a woman.)
Men, by definition, are capable providers. Mostly, that provision is in the form of security. Physical security firstly with emotional security being a close second (often as a result of the physical security).
This provisional man modus operandi that I'm speaking of is internally realized before it can manifest itself outwardly. Once it's established / recognized therein, women who love these men should celebrate it via their respect towards them.
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One last story:
A fellow MSU architecture student (that also graduated in '95) bumped into me yesterday at a local restaurant. This guy is a few years older than I, gregarious and - as can be expected of an architect - a bit eccentric.
The last time he and I chatted was back in 2006 when we were colleagues at the same architecture firm here in Jackson.
Today, this architect is a well-adjusted state government employee on the East Coast. (This put a smile on my face.)
Before we parted ways, I asked him to introduce me to his wife (who was seated on the opposite side of the restaurant's dining room). I vaguely remembered him getting married prior to our last juncture, but I didn't remember ever formally meeting his new bride (though I vaguely remembered what she looked like).
Now, there's something you need to know about this architect. He's keenly interested in keeping current on everyone's social standing / rank - where they're working, who they're in relations with, and so forth. And reciprocally, he's more than willing to divulge as much of his same story in kind - so long as someone's willing to listen...to all the sordid details.
Hence, he's one of those guys that typically comes across as being slightly socially awkward, yet he typically makes up for it with his generous smile and honest assessment of his own shortcomings. And I admire this.
When he lead me over to the booth his wife was seated at, I immediately extended a hand with a big smile on my face.
Now, before I go any farther, it's hopefully apparent that this guy isn't (nor has ever been) one to meet a stranger. Therefore, I've no doubt that his sweet wife has been introduced to countless former colleagues (like myself) within similar settings.
Her reaction amounted to her appearing to be infringed upon as she chomped on her lunch. Now, perhaps she was having a rough day, or maybe she'd just started an intermittent fasting program, and this was her first solid meal in quite some time.
Anything's possible.
I can tell you that my sweet wife, Angie, becomes seriously disgruntled when I choose to not introduce her to my friends / peers (within public settings like this). She says it makes her feel invisible, and she absolutely loathes that feeling.
Regarding this, I feared that my old friend might have come away as such, and that worried me. For invisibility certainly doesn't equate with respect.
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