As an overly enthusiastic 14-year-old born-again, I once spent a full week fasting and praying to God to make me a quiet and laidback person. All the Christian girls at my school that I admired and wanted to be hardly spoke, hardly laughed, hardly breathed. And I was like Maria in the movie "Sound of Music;” unhinged.

So I prayed and prayed and God heard me. By the time the week ended, I was quiet. Quiet because I was hungry and therefore miserable. So of course once I was fed, I had enough strength in my stomach muscles to laugh like a hysterical hyena. Since then, every time I tried to make a major change in my personality, it lasted only lasted a few days. A few miserable days.

Now that I am older and I know better, I know that people don’t change. And when we say that someone has changed, what we really mean is that their habits have changed or they are merely displaying mannerisms that suit the situation or people around them.

And it is with newfound knowledge that I scoff at people who date people whose personalities they don’t fully accept, with the hope or rather arrogance that they will change them.

A woman will meet a man and then start the process of manipulating him into becoming something that suits her. Initially, this will work because he wants her in his life. But once in a while, his true personality will come out and at this point, she will cry and nag him back into the line.

Inevitably, sooner rather than later, it becomes exhausting for him to pretend.

Now no amount of nagging will make him spontaneous enough to plan for a surprise trip on her birthday just like her friend’s husband did. No amount of sulking will give him a good grip on the romantic words that she wants to hear. And no, he still doesn’t have his life meticulously planned out because he is not a perfectionist.

So she cries foul and demonises all male species. Because she tried to change a man and he had the audacity to stay the same. She will say that she tried to be patient and give him a chance to be better for her. She will expect him to realise his mistake and chase after her.

And he will feel emotionally and physically drained by the changes he’s had to make for her. So that when she finally decides to leave him, he will feel as though he is coming up for air after being held under water for a long time.

Did I saying that people can’t get better or worse? No. People can become kinder, more accommodating, more empathetic. These are character traits and they can be changed by our experiences.

But the very core of who we truly are, the thing that determines whether we are naturally charismatic enough to be excellent marketers or aggressive enough to start a revolution, that doesn’t change. People are who they are. How we react to that is up to us.