If you’re interested in sharing your opinion on any cultural, political or personal topic, create an account here and check out our how-to post to learn more.

____

As women, we create a long list of healthy traits we want our man to have. We love going on tangents. "He has to have this and he has to have that." We never forget to include traits and characteristics like “honest,” “faithful,” ”mature” and “secure.” Oh, and we love a wholesome man who is able to maintain composure and regulate his emotions well.

Let's be honest though, ladies. Sometimes we bite off more than we can chew by wishing, hoping, asking and manifesting a man who we are not ready for ourselves. Hear me out.

We ask for a healed man when we are not healed. We long for a faithful man when we are not faithful to ourselves, to our growth and to our own personal journeys. We want emotional maturity, but we still have urges to check phones and create conflict in our relationships when we are "bored." Let's stop there. Emotional maturity.

One of my needs in a relationship is for the man I’m dating to be emotionally aware and mature. It's extremely attractive when a man is able to stay calm and regulated under pressure. But what happens when we ask for something we do not possess ourselves? Friction in our relationship occurs.

I dated a man last year who was emotionally mature and each lesson he taught me felt like an attack. I found myself being extremely attention seeking and constantly in search of a problem. Being respectful and having a healthy relationship was nice and all, but it started to get boring for me: a girl who comes from chaos. So, to stir things up, I always found a problem.

First, I made an issue out of his social media presence and how I did not agree with him engaging with other women online. I started stalking dude on social media, so I was able to see who liked what, who commented on what and who followed who. I even had a few friends on board watching his ass. Whenever something I did not like was brought to my attention, I always made a problem out of it.

Contrary to popular belief (and yes, this was a Black man I’m talking about), he handled every problem well. He maintained a cool, calm and respectable stature even when I got elevated and argumentative. He never raised his voice. He never cursed me out. He never called me out of my name even after I may have said something extremely disrespectful and uncalled for to him. Sis, his level of maturity was damaging to me. I didn't know how to handle it. Most of the time I didn't even know how to respond to it. I just know it provoked me more to test his patience. I wanted to see how far I could push him to his limit with my short temper, built up anger, frustration and toxicity. My behavior was off the wall.

Once I noticed what I was doing was not affecting him much I became angry. I realized how desperate I was for attention and an angry response from him.

Here it is, this nice man in front of me and I did not know what to do with him. As Summer Walker says, I needed somebody who could "handle me," and he was, in a healthy way. I just was not ready.

Emotional mature men can reveal a lot about our temperaments. As women, we need to start being open and honest about being the toxic one in the relationship. That argumentative nature comes alive when dealing with someone who knows how to address and handle conflict well. We need to stop submitting to the narrative that men do not care about us just because they choose not to engage with us when we are elevated.

Also, emotional mature men are not responsible for "handling" us. We are fully capable of checking ourselves. We don't need anyone putting us in our place. We're adults, and part of being an adult is working ourselves back to baseline. Period.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but stop giving him a hard time.

P.S. Men, we're sorry.