“Any time someone enters a relationship, they are setting themselves up to be hurt.”

That was just one piece of the get-real advice that Wayne Jackson gave during “Male/Female Relationships,” a workshop presented by Valencia College on West Campus, Wednesday Nov. 2.

Jackson has been the Director of Multicultural Academic Support and Services office at UCF for almost five years now, but has served in the college system for about 24 years altogether.
Jackson covered such topics as dating, the differences between men and women, major issues in a marriage, what to look for in a mate, and the five basic needs of men and women.

Attendees were given a questionnaire to fill out about their opinions on the roles of husbands and wives, while Jackson doled out his wisdom. He said that dating is “all an act” because one person will pretend to take an interest in something to please the other person.

He referenced Kim Kardashian’s marriage to Kris Humphries as an example of poor choices and incompatible people. He advised women not to nag men about when they plan to get engaged or married. He’s strongly against couples living together, since they often don’t get end up getting married.

Kayla Hunt, a first semester student at Valencia, said, “I feel like I learned a lot that I didn’t know,” while Marcie Vachier, a forensics to psychology major, said, “He didn’t touch basis on jealousy, but everything else was pretty informative.”

“Every human being has the tendency and the capacity to want to be loved,” he said, but “men and women think differently.”

Many females give themselves freely, he said, which is why they often end up emotionally hurt in a relationship. He also thinks that a lot of people bring their old baggage from a past relationship into their new one, destroying it. “Your relationship will be determined by your past,” he said.

He added that a person must have a level of trust before moving forward in a relationship. “If you feel you don’t trust someone, then chances are you can’t be with them.”

Jackson, an advocate of marital counseling, dated his wife for five years, and has now been married for 23 years.

“Make sure you’re in a relationship for the right reason,” Jackson said. “We’ve got to get to a point where men understand women, and women understand men.”