Ten Rules of Engagement with Your Jamaican Man!!!!

So we have heard this notion hundreds of times, we have read the books and watched the movies of some tell tale sign that translates whether or not your current love interest is even remotely interested in you.

1. I think a man or a woman knows when someone wants to be with them, they often avidly pursue their object of affection. If someone is not calling you, speaking to you or display any interest in your life then that person's interest is already invested elsewhere. Use yourself as a measure of your prospective partner. As a matter a fact, use the guy who likes you too much who you want nothing to do with as a yardstick for the one you are chasing and is running away from you.

2. The one whom you have to be begging to return a message or a text is definitely not that into you. When we love people we want to be around them so that we can catch pieces of their lives, share their most intimate moments of joys and offer comfort in times of despair. If the guy you like doesn't call when your mother dies or offer condolences, then he definitely does not care about you.

3. The one who only texts or calls to ask when he will be able to have sex with you. It is okay if you do not have a problem in being only an orifice for some boy's penis but if you are hoping for a relationship with a man who is clearly only interested in the physical part of your correspondence and finds your best personality boring, has never invited you on a date or outing, does not talk about taking it to the next level and often refers to your relationship followed by hashtag #Just for sex or We have a ting? This nigga is clearly not that into you.

4. After having a wonderful introduction he excuses himself to eat his dinner or whatever. Women know that we use the phone even in the shower and our list of boy toys text us even when they are driving. A dude who is really into you will not leave your next meeting up to chance. He will make an effort to see you. So if your current crush idea of your next meet goes something like " we will link up next time or me will see you a next time" with no solicitation for a number he is clearly not that into you or maybe his plate is really full now and he will find someway to get in contact with you when he runs out of options.

5. If you are afraid to text or call your love interest then your feet is already halfway through the door. Your inhibition might be faulty but it is always a manifestation of things within your sub-concious that tells you that this guy is not that into you. Something you notice in his behaviour like a knit of the brow, that odd feeling you get from being around him which is him often subtle giving you a negative vibe. If approaching your crush makes you feel uncomfortable then maybe you should relax and let him do some of the work in getting this union off the jump start.

6. If you are having sex with someone and you feel used or exploited then that is your cue to stop. Sex is a beautiful natural activity and one should feel fulfilled and relaxed after sex. If you are feeling pressured, unloved and sexual intercourse is like doing an exam you did not study for then you are having sex with someone who is not that into you. Face it, you know when you do something with a guy who loves you, how he treats you and how he responds to your needs. If he is demanding, insistent on his own pleasure, quick to leave after the act and discards you like a used football jersey then you are clearly screwing a guy who is not that into you.

7. The Guy who just broke up with his ex that he is still brooding over is the last man you want to have a relationship with. He will not only be emotionally unavailable but he will carry over his resentment for his ex into this relationship. Not that men do not rebound very fast from a break up but if your new beau is someone recently old dude then you might be sharing your life with a transient lover who is using you to dull the ache in his heart, to soothe his bruised ego and might not be entirely into you. If he leads the relationship with a " am not ready for another relationship or we can do a thing on the down low or is afraid to let the world know that you two are an item". He is clearly not that into you.

8. If you are in a relationship already and you are interested in a new person then it is best to leave the one you are with first. You will not get one hundred percent from a man who knows you already has another man. He will take whatever you offer but he will never truly respect you because he knows you are cheating on your beau. If you decide to cheat then ensure that if your partner leaves you then he/she will be willing to dedicate themselves to you. If not you would have wasted their time and yours. You exchanged your bronze for a wash over gold.

9. Classism affects relationships in that a woman has to be careful how willing she is to settle or sleep with someone who might be of a lower social, intellectual or financial status. It is not being prejudicial but the social image fall out from sleeping with someone who is not your equal can leave an indelible mark on not only your life but your reputation. It is like doctor sleeping with a scammer. You should not be having a relationship with someone with whom you are ashamed of and can never be public with. Pursuing relationships that if they are made public could spell disgrace are one of the reasons middle class women end up with fatherless children.

10. Don't give away your love for free. It doesn't mean a man should have to buy your affection it only states that if you value yourself then make him at least work for it. Do not hand it to him on a platter. If someone values your company then they will not see spending time with you as work or some kind of inconvenience. If your gut is telling you that you are in a messed up situation then maybe you need to get out.

Chapter excerpt: the country gyal journal

Copyright ©®™ Crystal Evans

I knew what I wanted for myself even before listening to the Kelly Clarkson's song that mirrored the poignance I often felt staring out the window of my grandmothers house during a late afternoon shower that left the air with an earthy perfume. 

I wanted to break away but before that I was happily content with my life. Mama would bring back patty from the factory and we would fry them over in the frying pan and eat it with Gratto Bread. I remembered my sisters and I eating out the peanut butter in the fridge or licking out the milo tin that mama hid in the cupboard. We would pull the chairs and take down Horlicks from off the fridge top and eat it like there was no tommorrow. Our favorite delicacy for lunch was bread and sugar or condensed milk washed down with water. 

When Christmas time came we had roast breadfruit and fried saltfish, I particularly enjoyed using my finger to lick the grease from my plate and if my granny was absent, I would readily obliged the usage of my tongue in the same manner. 

We had jokes and Dolly house was nice. We married each other with Bulla Cake and Water, sometimes we had money to buy dollar cooler and suck suck to quench our thirst as we played in the sweltering son. 

Sometimes when the rain came down like a torrential downpour we remained inside and played jacks and ball or watch Tv. We didn't have Dolls but managed to find some old weaves and plastic bottles to improvised. We had plastic Dolls and our nieghbour Kiesha mother sent down Dolly with clothes set from foriegn come give her. We were not jealous but vaguely aware for the first time that albeit we were never hungry, we still lacked and want. 

Our favorite past time would be carrying water from the standpipe across the cow pasture, early in the morning when the only sign of the sun was a chalky, powdery pinkish haze on the skirt tail of the horizons, when dew water wash your foot like rain and the mist of the morning smelled by leaves. When you use dew water to drop inna your yeye from it's dollop accumulation on the dasheen leaves because your granny  said it would get the gunk out of your eye after waking two mornings with it glued shut with matta.

  We would race across the grassy surface at the same time the common fowls marched across the cow pasture in lines like a soldier and we avoided sliding, falling face down in a pile a cow shit. In the days when we were not staring in awe at the length of Brother Roach Donkey penis, we would be hunting bees, using paper and bottle to trap them, then setting them free. We were oftentimes stung but never deterred, because chasing bees and butterflies were the happiest moments of our lives. 

We had games like Chinese skip when my sisters, I, Doodo Pet, Quennae and Puuchie Loo would play chinese skip until the sun went down or our parents called us home for food. We enjoyed roast goat seed, hog seed and the only thing we hated about Pigs was cleaning out the Hog Crawl. 

Boys were rude but never as violent as they are today. Boys had work to do like tying out the animals in the mornings and my cousin once lost a herd of goats in the hills, he could not sleep in the house as my grand uncle ordered him to find the goats before daylight or don't come back there. He slept in the hills that night even when my Granny cried shame on Uncle Roy for being such a heartless brute. 

I hated playing with boys because they hurtle the ball with too much speed therefore the impact was often more excruitiating that when girls played alone. We got more jokes, winced and pleaded with the boys not to crack a bone when they caught the ball in our usual bat-and-run-a-bound- games. 

These boys were not interested in playing crickets and flying kites on the open field in the searing sun like boys did when I was a child. These boys wanted console games and smartphones like the American teenagers on cable tv. They wanted to drive chromes vans and date women with chrome skin. Everything they valued had to look like silver or gold, shiny and attention  pulling like the lifestyles of those in movies. 

I remembered how my first pickney boyfriend kicked a ball and pushed the bucket of water off my head. It was unponderable the intensity of the hatred he reserved for me up until adulthood. I think he is still reeling over the comment I left him with, one I overhead my grandmother telling a man one day. " even if you gave me you hood, I wouldn't know what to do with it". I didn't understand what my grandmother meant by that but between eating the Mangoes and Guinep he brought from bush for me in a crocus bad, I told my twelve year old admirer that I was not remotely interested in him and his Dolly House business. 

Now I leave this community, glancing up at the regal spread of the mountains posed above the trees, kissing the horizon against the serene blue sky, meditating over the very purpose of my existence. 

The Country Gyal Journal

©copyright Crystal Evans 

Latest Novel 

Excerpt from The Country Gyal Journal! 

He slammed the door and I thought about all the people who slammed doors in my face ever since I was a baby. My mother who never gave me a dime in my life and had never been there for my sisters and I or my father who turned a blind eye while my stepmother verbally abuse us. 

I wanted to go back home but I could not face those bitches who would tell stories sprinkled with anything but the truth about how I left country thinking I was going to become somebody and ending up back there worst off than I was before. 

The men would have a field day and now that I was out of plastic I would not be expected to act like Ms Goody Two Shoes anymore. These bitches made me feel inferior my entire life while complaining that I acted superior to them. 

What a parody.  Me coming down Bucknor Lane with bags and belly big like a balloon, the women looking out at the spectacle, listening to the susso susso coming from the verandahs. I would be the brunt of female jokes for days and these women would relish in my failure as it would substantiate what they had suspected all along that I was never really better than them, just trying to be better like they did and failed miserably. 

I would join the ranks of the "has been", using my ass to wipe floor from sunrise until dusk, chewing on people's name like wintergreen, hoping that by bringing attention to the failure of others I would not feel as useless and inadequate as I really am. I would gain amusement from life's tragedy and spend my entire life as a gaping spectator.  I would prefer to lie beneath Andrew a million times and suffer his indignation than go back to those streets and join the ranks of the women there. 

I would prefer to fit in here than lower myself so that I can be one of them. I am never going back the way I came. I choose to be a maid and a concubines of my employer than to be another baby mother, lurking at the shop front trying to snare a man so that I can buy Lasco to feed my baby.