Why I hate Boys 2 Men

Why I hate boys to men.

Don't get me wrong the music is amazing but growing up in the late ’90s and early ’00s, my parents blasted this music a lot. Not because they were sad (I hope) but because this was their kind of music, the music that framed love for their generation. Great music I must concur but this music was also the result of a lot of my pain growing up. Before I could even comprehend life itself my parents had split up and later went on to get divorced after several years of what I have now come to realise was a miserable marriage filled with infidelity and immaturity that at that point in time I guess they both had not realised themselves. As a result of this failed marriage it left 2 kids without full-time parents present in their lives, albeit my mother was our sole guardian, she was also a newly single parent dealing with a broken heart and the realisation that she now had to do this parenting thing on her own (If you reading this, you did a great job). My parents never really found a rhythm to co-parenting as many parents don't and as a result, we were shuttled to and fro for many years of my childhood. My first memories of my father are of me travelling very far and finally being picked up out of some car and him hugging me. I think I was 3, that's when I met my sister for the first time and it's also when my hate for boys to men started. I don't think my parents know that this instigated many of my cry fests growing up but hey they are about to find out. Savage but necessary. As I previously mentioned Boys to Men was a favorite in my parent's life on both sides and when I was about 4/5 I had noticed a pattern that had occurred many times with the rents’. They both ha

d the original CDs and they always listen to this music, maybe my 4-year-old self saw it as a “this is how they communicate” but at the tender age of 4/5 I think I had only seen my parents inter-act once. Sad. I know. However, I think in some sad warped way I imagined that this was how they would get back together, that boys to men would bring my parents together and I would get the thing that at 5 I craved more than anything. An actual family with my mom and dad in 1 household. So during this time frame where my dreams would eventually come crashing down, I would love hearing B2M come on and I would sing along and enjoy the music because this was their music this is what would fix them. My dreams came crashing down after about a year when I was once again listening to B2M and I'm not sure what had triggered it but I began to miss my mom immensely it was as if somebody had ripped my heart out of my chest and served it up for the dogs to eat, at 5 years old, I had experienced my first heartbreak, not caused by a boy but by my unsuspecting parents who had not realised that this was happening, that their untimely love and marriage had broken my heart. It was as if a lightbulb went off in my head, that every dream I had somehow imagined up was a lie, not just a lie the biggest lie I had ever told and to myself. I always think back to them and realise that if I could I would hug myself and tell myself it was for the best, but even at the tend age of 27 I still cry when I think of the pain I felt that day, of my heart being ripped from my chest and the tears streaming down my face while I quickly wiped it away in fear that someone would see and ask what was wrong. I couldn't bear having to explain that my dream was being ripped away from me, especially not to my step-mother who would most probably have been the one to have to deal with the crying 5-year-old little girl who just wanted her mom and dad to be together. It was a wave of grieve that later led to sleepless nights. You see as soon as my parents had another fight we were shipped back to my mom and unbeknownst to them (the rents’), this was the worse part because it felt more like the 1 who had us didn't want us anymore. So when I came back home that's when the nightmares started the screeching cries the horrible dreams and well the Therapy. See because my parents never knew that I was heartbroken they didn't know how to deal with it, at this point their lives had moved on. My dad lived with his new wife and child a few provinces over in KZN and my mom had moved on with my then step-dad and had just had her first child with him. They had moved on from their divorce, I had not, yes I hadn't experienced their marriage but I felt their separation more than I have ever let on. this plague my nights and the constant tune of “End of the Road by Boys 2 Men” became the bane of my existence. In the quiet moments of my life, the song mocked me and traumatised my life. Therapy consisted of a lot of drawing from what I remember, pictures of my family and identifying pictures of butterflies, never really understood how that was meant to help but I always just did what I had to do now that I had forcefully accepted that my parents would never be together again. The nightmares eventually stopped but the continued hate for Boys 2 men never really came to an end. I endured it over and over again through the years. Listening to both my parents listen to the music, pretending that it didn't bother me and accepting that life was just a series of happenings that was out of your control. Now I know this sounds very sad to many, that a 5-year-old felt this much just because of music, however, when I look back I'm thankful for a certain degree that I had felt the way I felt and that I had experienced the grief and heartache at the expense of my parents failed marriage. You see many years after that first heartbreak I experience another at the hands of a boy this time around. A boy who would later resemble so much of my father that I would be thankful that he too broke my heart. At 15 years old Boys 2 Men re-appeared in my life to this time bring me some comfort after my first failed attempt at being in love. It was as the old people say “puppy love” and finally brought the realisation that Boys 2 Men knew what they were talking about, that coming to the end of the road was the hardest thing in the world especially with someone that, you always thought would be there forever. I finally listened to them out of my own, something I had avoided for a large part of maybe 10 years. And like a flood of memories, all I could think of was my parents, and how their untimely marriage had failed but had brought about a knowledge that would guide me in the years to follow. Don't get me wrong I still hate boys to men but its easier to listen to them now, I cry less and when I go through the throws of a failed relationship I am reminded that the pain is nothing compared to what I have felt and the road that seems like the highway to heaven ended before it became a pathway to hell.