During a recent episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta Kim tells her friend she wants a commitment from her man, she says “I want a ring.” Kim’s the perfect subject for this blog as her man, Big Papa is married. While this isn’t a new “phenomenon,” I’ve been noticing more and more married men not wearing wedding rings. Sometimes they’ll mention their wives, but most of the time they don’t. Lately it seems that men pick and choose when to mention their wives, like if there’s a whole bunch of unattractive women around they’ll mention their wives as if to deter the women from flirting (which isn’t always effective, some women just don’t care); or the opposite, if there are a lot of attractive women around they don’t mention their wives.
This presents a challenge for women like me who aren’t really into the whole dating married men thing. We run the risk of meeting and eventually falling for these “taken” men and then come the fights worthy of a Jerry Springer episode. If a ring is supposed to symbolize fidelity and men take it off and flirt why get married? Or, even more important, why do women place so much emphasis on the ring? Clearly the man who gives you one doesn’t always love you enough to honor what it’s supposed to stand for, so why do you need one? If you’re married and cheating why does the ring matter? How, then do we gauge commitment?
