Accra, Ghana. Can a young man and a young woman really just be friends? Lady Reverend Ella Duncan-Williams says the honest answer depends on which one of them you ask.
The gospel artist and minister returned to Sunny 88.7 FM's youth show, Let's Vibe With Steve, for a candid conversation on the show's latest topic: When Lust Meets Love. It wasn't her first appearance. Host Steve noted she was one of the earliest guests to support the youth ministry show when it began, and this visit doubled as a thank-you for years of constant support.
"Knowing how men are wired and how women are wired," she said, "normally when a woman does not like a guy romantically, she can easily be friends with him. But for guys, I do not think it is the same. I think there has to be some interest. That's how men are wired."
Her read on the dynamic, drawn from both personal experience and observation: "Men are friends when they have an interest, but women are friends when they don't have an interest."
Communicating Without Pursuing
Much of the conversation centered on a distinction Lady Rev. Duncan-Williams was firm about: the difference between a woman communicating interest and a woman pursuing.
"There's a difference between pursuing and communicating," she said. "A woman can communicate, okay, I'm open, I'm interested. But if she now becomes the one going after the guy, I think it makes it difficult for the guy. Men are the hunters. There's something built into men to pursue."
She was careful not to dismiss women who do take the lead outright, acknowledging it sometimes works. "I've seen many stories where it has worked, where the man has responded. Some men even say they like it when a woman is brave and approaches them like that." But she raised a longer-term concern about what that dynamic sets up. "The question is really about sustainability. If you have to always be the one initiating, from the relationship, to paying the bills, to telling the guy what to do, then the whole relationship is upside down. And it's not natural for a woman to be in that mode for long."
Her suggested alternative leaned on something simpler than strategy: presence. "There are ways you can communicate non-verbally, eye contact, body language. You let the person know you're open, and you leave it for him to do the rest." She offered a practical script for how understated that signal can be: a warm greeting, a "let's talk sometime, God bless," and then stepping back. "I'm open to talking, but not, what's your number, what time are you free, I'm calling you. No, we're not doing that."
She also had direct words for the men in the audience. "The ladies should be allowed to be the ladies, and the men should stop acting clueless, this thing where they act like they haven't seen. She's given you the non-verbal, the verbal, she's liked your post, she's checked on you. Now, honestly."
Lust Is Louder Than It Looks
Asked to unpack the show's central theme, Lady Rev. Duncan-Williams pointed to a distinction rooted in Scripture rather than dating advice. "Lust is a derivative of your own desire, it's initiated by your carnality, your humanity," she said. "The Bible says it is not in man to lead himself, that our hearts are deceitfully wicked. Until you go through certain experiences, you don't even know what is in your heart."
She described a personal moment earlier this year when she says God revealed something in her own heart mid-service that unsettled her enough that a friend checked in to ask if she was okay. "I wanted the floor to open," she said. For young people especially, she suggested, that kind of self-awareness often hasn't had the chance to develop yet. Schoolwork, ambition and growing up tend to occupy the space where deeper reflection would otherwise sit.
Music on the Way
Before the conversation turned serious, Steve played a track from one of Lady Rev. Duncan-Williams' earlier albums on air, a favorite of his, he told listeners. She revealed she's spent much of this year in Bible school and, just days before the interview, recorded seven or eight new songs in a single session. "It was a quick one, in and out," she said. "We're working on them. They'll be coming out soon."
Watch the full conversation on Sunny TV and Sunny 88.7 FM's Facebook page.