A wise man once told me that the best way to know a man's truth worth - is to watch how he spends his money.
Truer words were never spoken.
As a young woman, I questioned his wisdom.
As an older woman, I know the value of his words.
When I was young, I believed in love.
I believed that money could not buy happiness.
I believed that I could live on love.
I thought love would sustain me.
Love helps, but money is better.
Money buys independence.
Money buys freedom.
Money guarantees me a place to live, food to eat and clothes to wear.
Money provides the necessities of life and the luxuries to enjoy it.
As a female, it is easy to watch how a man spends his money.
Men use money to earn respect from other men and to obtain women.
Their attitude towards money displays their attitude towards everything.
Most men value money more than they value anything else.
They may say differently, but until you actually see how they spend their money, you will never know the truth.
Through the years, I have had opportunity to watch how men spend their money.
Some of them brag about it, others hide it, but most of them just flaunt it.
They usually flaunt it around women.
They drive fancy cars, wear faddy clothes or adorn themselves with expensive watches.
When I was young, if a man offered to take me to dinner, he often prefaced the invitation with questions about my preferred menu choices or told me his spending limitations.
When asked where I wanted to eat, I frequently suggested Mexican restaurants because I knew they tended to be less expensive than the Continental restaurants where steak and lobster might be available.
I also suggested Mexican food because I did not want the man to think I was only going out with him based on how much he was planning to spend.
I made my decision to accept his invitation based on who I thought he was - not how much money I thought he was planning to spend.
This was when I was young.
Now that I am older and have learned the importance men attach to their money, I analyze their invitations differently.
My reaction to dinner invitations has changed after watching men spend extravagant amounts of cash on my girlfriends and, if rejected, offer me second best.
I have learned to see the difference between me and my girlfriends.
It's the clothes.
My girlfriends wore French bras, bikini underwear, tight shorts, mini-skirts, and heavy eye shadow.
I, on the other hand, dressed like a nun in comparison.
I liked turtle neck sweaters and bell-bottom pants.
I only wore a mini-skirt to the disco club, but would never wear one to the office.
I considered my bra size to be a private matter and, therefore, not to be announced as though it defined my femininity.
I did not consider "getting a man" to be my highest priority in life.
I thought "getting a job" was.
I thought getting a job was more important because I wanted to support myself, leaving me free to make my own decisions without control or interference from others.
I wanted a husband, not just a cheap date that wore too much cologne.
I had already been on too many dates that were not worth the time I spent eating the meal.
If I were a psychologist, most of them would have had to pay me before the night was over just for having listened to them brag about themselves for so long.
I got tired of being asked questions only to be ignored.
I sat through too many evenings with one-sided conversations where only they spoke and, then, would finish their soliloquy with a sarcastic joke about how women talk too much.
The irony is that the men who most complain about women talking too much are usually the same men who only talk about themselves.
If they don't have a captive audience to listen to their stories, their self-esteem flattens.
Men became a subject of interest.
They were not a subject of interest because I was in desperate need of "one-time only opportunities" to have quickie sex for the cost of a Big Mac and French fries.
They became a subject of interest when I became the wall-flower at the local disco and had nothing better to do than watch men chase women.
Many years later, the scenario changed.
Now, I watch women chase men.
Men still use money as their primary controlling factor.
Men "sell" their money, while women "sell" sex.
I still do not understand the value of the trade.
I still do not understand why someone would want someone they had to buy.
Men and their money became a subject of interest after years of listening to them talk about it.
They talk about how they earn it, what they spend it on, how many material possessions they own and what they plan to spend it on in the future.
They will talk about themselves and their money for hours, but never reveal their income level or their current salary.
The men who interest me most, however, are the ones who tell me how much they love their wife and, after their second breath, tell me how much money they "allow" her to spend.
Even the man who has a wife who makes more money than he does, will still demand control of the "family" money.
They control the money and control the wife.
They do not seem to see the contradiction in their logic.
One man, for example, whom I dated many years ago, has a similar attitude towards money and women.
He spent the better part of his 24-year-long marriage virtually embezzling his wife's earned income.
He would have her deposit her paycheck in the joint-checking account, which he controlled.
Through the years, he maintained his investment property, inherited money from his parents, he bought a 35-inch projection television, a two-ton truck with a 5th wheel recreational vehicle, a laptop computer, a DVD player, a leather couch, a racing car that sits rusted in the back yard and, then during the 24th year, bought the big house in the "right" neighborhood.
Yet,he didn't even put his wife's name on the deed.
I cannot call this "true love.
" I call it criminal.
When I last saw him, following his wife's death, he still didn't understand why she wanted a divorce.
One tear slowly slid down his cheek while he told me how much he "dearly" loved her.
His love wasn't very deep, trust me.
The only personal property his wife owned were a couple stacks of clothes she had purchased at Wal-Mart.
She didn't even have an expensive wardrobe.
Everything of any real value or that could be considered real property, was in his name only.
Shortly after leaving her husband, the wife died.
She met a new man and hopped on the back of his motorcycle.
After a night of drinking, they both died after crashing into a light pole during a rain storm.
The husband will never forgive his wife for leaving him.
I will never forgive the husband.
If you want to know a man's true worth, watch how he spends his money.
If you want to know how much a man loves his woman, watch how much money he spends on her.
Truer words were never spoken.
As a young woman, I questioned his wisdom.
As an older woman, I know the value of his words.
When I was young, I believed in love.
I believed that money could not buy happiness.
I believed that I could live on love.
I thought love would sustain me.
Love helps, but money is better.
Money buys independence.
Money buys freedom.
Money guarantees me a place to live, food to eat and clothes to wear.
Money provides the necessities of life and the luxuries to enjoy it.
As a female, it is easy to watch how a man spends his money.
Men use money to earn respect from other men and to obtain women.
Their attitude towards money displays their attitude towards everything.
Most men value money more than they value anything else.
They may say differently, but until you actually see how they spend their money, you will never know the truth.
Through the years, I have had opportunity to watch how men spend their money.
Some of them brag about it, others hide it, but most of them just flaunt it.
They usually flaunt it around women.
They drive fancy cars, wear faddy clothes or adorn themselves with expensive watches.
When I was young, if a man offered to take me to dinner, he often prefaced the invitation with questions about my preferred menu choices or told me his spending limitations.
When asked where I wanted to eat, I frequently suggested Mexican restaurants because I knew they tended to be less expensive than the Continental restaurants where steak and lobster might be available.
I also suggested Mexican food because I did not want the man to think I was only going out with him based on how much he was planning to spend.
I made my decision to accept his invitation based on who I thought he was - not how much money I thought he was planning to spend.
This was when I was young.
Now that I am older and have learned the importance men attach to their money, I analyze their invitations differently.
My reaction to dinner invitations has changed after watching men spend extravagant amounts of cash on my girlfriends and, if rejected, offer me second best.
I have learned to see the difference between me and my girlfriends.
It's the clothes.
My girlfriends wore French bras, bikini underwear, tight shorts, mini-skirts, and heavy eye shadow.
I, on the other hand, dressed like a nun in comparison.
I liked turtle neck sweaters and bell-bottom pants.
I only wore a mini-skirt to the disco club, but would never wear one to the office.
I considered my bra size to be a private matter and, therefore, not to be announced as though it defined my femininity.
I did not consider "getting a man" to be my highest priority in life.
I thought "getting a job" was.
I thought getting a job was more important because I wanted to support myself, leaving me free to make my own decisions without control or interference from others.
I wanted a husband, not just a cheap date that wore too much cologne.
I had already been on too many dates that were not worth the time I spent eating the meal.
If I were a psychologist, most of them would have had to pay me before the night was over just for having listened to them brag about themselves for so long.
I got tired of being asked questions only to be ignored.
I sat through too many evenings with one-sided conversations where only they spoke and, then, would finish their soliloquy with a sarcastic joke about how women talk too much.
The irony is that the men who most complain about women talking too much are usually the same men who only talk about themselves.
If they don't have a captive audience to listen to their stories, their self-esteem flattens.
Men became a subject of interest.
They were not a subject of interest because I was in desperate need of "one-time only opportunities" to have quickie sex for the cost of a Big Mac and French fries.
They became a subject of interest when I became the wall-flower at the local disco and had nothing better to do than watch men chase women.
Many years later, the scenario changed.
Now, I watch women chase men.
Men still use money as their primary controlling factor.
Men "sell" their money, while women "sell" sex.
I still do not understand the value of the trade.
I still do not understand why someone would want someone they had to buy.
Men and their money became a subject of interest after years of listening to them talk about it.
They talk about how they earn it, what they spend it on, how many material possessions they own and what they plan to spend it on in the future.
They will talk about themselves and their money for hours, but never reveal their income level or their current salary.
The men who interest me most, however, are the ones who tell me how much they love their wife and, after their second breath, tell me how much money they "allow" her to spend.
Even the man who has a wife who makes more money than he does, will still demand control of the "family" money.
They control the money and control the wife.
They do not seem to see the contradiction in their logic.
One man, for example, whom I dated many years ago, has a similar attitude towards money and women.
He spent the better part of his 24-year-long marriage virtually embezzling his wife's earned income.
He would have her deposit her paycheck in the joint-checking account, which he controlled.
Through the years, he maintained his investment property, inherited money from his parents, he bought a 35-inch projection television, a two-ton truck with a 5th wheel recreational vehicle, a laptop computer, a DVD player, a leather couch, a racing car that sits rusted in the back yard and, then during the 24th year, bought the big house in the "right" neighborhood.
Yet,he didn't even put his wife's name on the deed.
I cannot call this "true love.
" I call it criminal.
When I last saw him, following his wife's death, he still didn't understand why she wanted a divorce.
One tear slowly slid down his cheek while he told me how much he "dearly" loved her.
His love wasn't very deep, trust me.
The only personal property his wife owned were a couple stacks of clothes she had purchased at Wal-Mart.
She didn't even have an expensive wardrobe.
Everything of any real value or that could be considered real property, was in his name only.
Shortly after leaving her husband, the wife died.
She met a new man and hopped on the back of his motorcycle.
After a night of drinking, they both died after crashing into a light pole during a rain storm.
The husband will never forgive his wife for leaving him.
I will never forgive the husband.
If you want to know a man's true worth, watch how he spends his money.
If you want to know how much a man loves his woman, watch how much money he spends on her.
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