On The Need to Impress

Hi guys, 

It's been a while, right? We've been on holidays, long vacation, summer break, whichever you wish to call it. I've holiday makers over at my place and it's been chaos and fun and more chaos. I love it, most times; other times I wish to have my fairly-cool house back, 😁. Anyway, it's almost over and life will go back to normal very soon, but it's been super fun having a full house for the past one month.

I was in a friend's house some days ago watching her bake and decorate a client's birthday cake, she wrote on the cake 'happy birthday my love', and I went 'awww... how sweet, someone's presenting his boo with a cake'. She replied no, that it was the celebrant that paid for the cake and asked her to make the inscription like that on it so it would seem her boo gave her the cake! HUH!! Say what?!! My mouth was agape for some seconds before I got over the initial shock. The optimist in me tried to explain it away that probably the boo gave her money to pay for the cake and told her to write it, but my friend didn't agree with me.

How sad!

I couldn't for the life of me figure out why someone would do that. I've heard of women who buy things for themselves and claim their boyfriends or husbands did, but the cake incident was a new low for me to deal with. I just became sad on her behalf, as I tried to imagine why she felt the need to inform people that she had a boyfriend who would send her a birthday cake and call her 'my love', when in reality she most likely doesn't have anyone.

I always wonder, and have asked a friend of mine who bought a phone for herself and told someone her husband bought the phone for her, why they did stuff like that.Who really are you trying to impress? Are you trying to cover up for the man or lack of a man, as the case maybe? Do you really think we care about mundane things like that? It just reeks of sadness and desperation when we try so hard to show we have it all when in reality we do not have squat! 

When a woman who does stuff for herself and claims her husband does them turns around to complain that the man does not do anything for her, I always remind her that she already gave the man credit for what he didn't do, why should he then bother to do stuff for her since he'd still get the credit for them anyway. Does that not enable laziness and irresponsibility? 

The people you want to impress do not care, and when they find out you did those things for yourself, you end up looking sad, desperate and very foolish. As my friend went to deliver the birthday cake, I could imagine the celebrant and her friends 'oohhing and aahhing' over the cake and her non-existent thoughtful boo who sent the cake. Isn't that just sad? 

At the end of the day, we live with our choices and the decisions we make, don't end up looking pathetic because you want to impress us. We really do not care.