BY SHIRLEY GENGA

The other day I was browsing the Internet and I bumped into an interesting blog where some guy had outlined requirements of his “dream girl”.

Going through his 39-character traits list, I could not help feeling sorry for the poor chap. His list read more like a Christmas list for Santa Claus. It never read like actual traits of a human being on planet earth.

It included everything from her exact weight requirements (130 pounds), lingerie he prefers her to wear, style of her hair, style of dress. And to add salt to the wound, he dared mention that he would not date a lady who wore glasses and “kindly” noted that he would, however, consider one who wore contacts.

Nail polish

Silly me, I thought we live in the 21st century, clearly we don’t.

Today’s heterosexual man really believes that it is his job to dictate to a woman how she should dress, make her hair and what nail polish colour she should put on.

And it is not just the list of outrageous requirements. Today’s men have some so-called dream girl, some take it a notch high and think it is their duty to turn the woman they currently date into their illusive ‘dream girls’. They think it is okay to dictate to their woman how she should look.

I had a very strange conversation with a friend recently, which went something like this: “ I love all this new bright an luminous nail polish, but my boyfriend won’t let me put bright nail polish. He finds it childish and unattractive, and instead prefers colourless nail polish on a French manicure.”I thought I was hearing my own things, but then she continued:

“My boyfriend would kill me if I put luminous green nail polish.”

Another confided in me how her husband kept telling her she needed to lose some weight, and look like Zoe Saldana. Apparently, to her husband, Zoe Saldana — who looks malnourished half of the time — is the epitome of a beautiful woman.

Fantasies

We seem to have raised a generation of men who believe that it is totally acceptable for a man to dictate how a woman should look. Some even go as far as dictating how the hair in a woman’s secret places should look—shaved or left eh, natural..

 I do not care what people think constitutes love these days, because no man will dictate to me what colour of nail polish I should apply on my nails, or how I should look.

So what if you are a man, and you think heels are the sexiest thing ever, why don’t you try and wear them for a day. Instead of insisting to your woman that you prefer a woman in heals and that you can’t stand women if flats, which are very comfortable and sensible if I may interject.

Blame it on rap videos or on television girls who are picked to fit certain male fantasies, but what I do know is there’s something called crossing into a personal space.

Just try and tell a man that you do not like his potbelly, and that you prefer a man who has abs like singer Usher Raymond and see the fire you will not receive!

Yes I do believe men are visual, but there are some lines which no woman should let a man cross.