This was supposed to be submitted to Darren’s How To Problogger Group Writing Project but then the idea popped into my head too late a Thursday afternoon when my internet hours for the day was already over.

This isn’t to start a battle of the sexes but then what I will itemize below are “tools” I found effective not to mope around and cry my heart out because I do not have a man beside me that I could probably grow old with.

Hold your horses first before thinking that maybe I am just an undersexed egostistical woman that have better things to do than sour-grape for not finding the right man in her lifetime.

  • Have a job that can support your needs and whims.

Money is the one major thing why a man (as a life partner) is needed whether a woman admits it or not: you have someone to split the bills with. It is always better to pay half the bill than pay the whole bill.

  • Learn how to drive, de-clog your sink and fix and change a busted bulb in the house.

Otherwise call your brother (if you have one) or have money to pay your local handyman.

  • Buy only what you can carry or have enough change to pay a baggage boy of sorts.

Better yet, you can shop with your single girlfriends. (The married ones are most probably waiting for their husbands to take them!) ;-)

This is one of the reasons why a woman should drive. You have to be able to drive off at your own time and not wait for your husband to wake up from his weekend afternoon nap.

Besides, a woman’s urge to get out of the house cannot wait. She has to go when she wants to and not when her husband (or partner) wants to. Otherwise, she’ll turn the household crazy for a whole week!

  • Surround yourself with family and friends, enough to have a few close ones you can rant with even on the phone.

You must have male friends as well for a man’s perspective when it is needed. Family members (or friends residing nearby) can substitute for chores that a man should do like taking you to the hospital or accompanying you to the doctor or pick you up when you are working late or when you have a flat tire or when the car wouldn’t start and stucked in the middle of the road.

  • Stay away from anything that will remind you of sex and romance and will make you pine for it: movies, books, music, places, etc.

Every woman has an undeniable sexual need but it can be turned off until…well I guess until romance blooms once more. It was proven time and again that a woman can last longer without sex than men anyway. So this should be a controllable factor. Aside from money, sex is another thing that a man can be needed. He he. ;-)

  • Focus on your goals and be productive.

The idle mind is a devil’s workshop. Do something that stimulates your intellect and your passion –that is even much better than orgasm. Besides, the mind should control the heart, that’s why God placed it above your neck.

So maybe I do have an ego even bigger than I am or maybe I’ve turned into a cynic. It may be brutal to say but a woman needs a man for money (to eat and live) and sex (for reproduction and carnal pleasure), in the most practical way.

There goes your growing old together reduced to simplest terms.

This I can only say: I am too old to have a change of heart and pretend that I would love to exchange my independence to be at a man’s beck and call, so I can be called a dutiful little wife.

In my honest opinion, it would be hypocrisy playing damsel in distress when I can perfectly find my own way anywhere I go much like I can fix a broken electrical connection and most electrical home appliances for that matter. I have gained the habit of fixing what’s broken instead of waiting for a man to have time to fix it.

In addition, I can go to the grocery anytime I want to because I can very well carry those entire bags home…I just do not have the sympathy for a husband who makes a wife wait for his availability before she can go shopping or even his approval of a hairstyle she wants to wear.

Marriage is a blessing I can only imagine. However, it is also a curse I’d rather not have. Don’t get me wrong though, I still do believe in marriage and I have the utmost respect to those brave enough to enter it with their whole heart and soul while high on oxytocins.

After all, that would be free sex and easy money all your life. Bwe he he. ;-)

Seriously, marriage for me is an ever-after partnership of two individuals complementing each other. Equal partnership. At least that is what I think marriage is all about, one carrying the other, and one doing for the other when the other cannot.

So the husband should also cook and help her wife do the laundry. When she cooked dinner, then it is just right that he cleans up and do the dishes while she goes off to put the kids to bed.

The wife should be able to take off on a Saturday afternoon and maybe color her hair blue or window-shop with her girlfriends, if that would make her feel better and not mind if she comes home with a husband playing xbox with the kids.

In the same manner that she wouldn’t mind staying home and prepare dinner while he is on his Sunday afternoon basketball (or billiard) session with the old gang.

Give and take, Being able to tolerate each and the other’s little intricacies in life, thoughts and ideas shared, common goals and aspirations, money and sex: these keep the marriage going when the flames of love faded or when each has plainly ran out of their oxytocin supply.

Otherwise, just ask any man for his semen in time for your ripe egg and tell him to get lost if he’s not going to be there 100% for you and the baby. He is not necessarily needed after the fertilized egg is securely implanted in the uterus. Any woman can raise a child alone, a marriage or a partnership can not necessarily follow and you’ll do just fine, eventually.

Not exactly a cynic, but my eyes have just been opened to the harsh realities of marriage, of man-woman partnership behind the cloud of romance.

And that was just the plain old practical me: a woman who raised a son with just the help of family and friends, telling you all that the grapes I’m having are the sweetest and that my life is good and I LUV it.