My Dear Bros,
I am tired of you whining about your
girlfriend. What is it that you want? What are your expectations? She
grew up in a city where “chop my money” by P-square is the soundtrack of
our existence. She has Eldee singing, “ki lo fe, shey moto ni?” (what
do you want, is it a car?); where Skuki is telling her to stop
complaining that the sex is sore after obtaining a Prada purse; and
Olamide is demanding that she “go down low” before she can get whatever
expensive bric-a-brac she wants.
She is on the internet watching
flamboyant proposals on YouTube - one guy pays for the whole seats in a
movie theatre just so he can propose to his girlfriend over a Sex and
the City footage. Another pays for advertisement space at a basketball
game just so his popcorn-loving babe can see herself on big screen as he
pops the question: “Will you marry me?”
She has friends in school who drive around in Kia Optima bought by boyfriends working in Abuja.
That
is her reality. You met her that way - a broke student with expensive
dreams, living with a retired father and five siblings waiting every
month, with gluttony for a cape, ready to dive into the old man’s pocket
to gobble their own share of his pension. Sometimes they wait for
months, and months turn to years, while sons become petty thieves and
daughters convert to part-time prostitutes...
You met her that
way - with an expensive ipad and no job. You didn’t question the
Louboutin she wore on your first date; you didn’t raise an eyebrow when
you saw her rocking a N75,000 swatch; you admired her head full of
weaves and nodded approvingly. That weave costs N230,000. Don’t you
know? Have you been living under a rock? So what are you complaining
about?
After six months, the excitement of what she must have
felt when her eyes settled on your good looks have worn off
considerably; her true needy nature is in full bloom, and you start to
rant, turn to a preacher yelling: “Money is not everything. Why are
women so desperate and greedy? Money cannot buy happiness…”
Is
love going to pay her fees and keep her greed for the good things of
life at bay? So dad’s pension has been delayed for the fifth month. The
last time he almost died on the queue waiting for hours, now he has
announced to all his children- all shacked up in one sorry Nigerian
University or the other- to go fend for themselves. Their only source of
support is as good as dead.
Your babe is in her second year
studying business administration. She has bills to pay and no clue how
to get it sorted. She has a mop on her head (been sitting there for over
nine weeks) that she needs to get rid of (to affix another more
glorified one); her knickknacks are running out…and there you stand,
with your portmanteau and a badly beaten golf car, talking about love
and beautifully written letters.
Why do we like to buy trouble in the open market like this?How
do you expect a struggling student of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
with zero parent/government support, and siblings who are just as
deprived, to worry about love and constant pings, or care about plastic
red flowers you buy once a year on Valentine’s Day?
Think!
Leave
the student to focus on her life and the ugly challenges threatening to
consume her. Stay away, your love is the last thing she needs. Unless
that love comes with pocket money and a Hyundai saloon car, just forget
it. You are complicating her life even more with your N70,000 job.
Dear lover boys, why don’t you find a woman…you know?A
woman with a job, who would shriek with joy when you ping her? One you
can spend hours with talking about love and sweet nothings and she
wouldn’t ask for recharge cards.
Aren’t you tired of being an
ATM? It’s not like you have anything really. Your salary can barely
sustain you. You’ve neglected your mother just so you can take Miss
Under-graduate to the cinema every weekend to make up for the Blackberry
Q300 you couldn’t buy for her.
Hian! Wake up, man! If you were
my brother I’ll slap you out of this thick delirium. Be wise. Love with
wisdom. With a N70,000 pay slip every month, the last thing you need is
her love.
Soon you’ll start planning a wedding and children in
your state of lack - the two of you walking into the arms of penury;
claiming to have been captured by love. You see why you deserve a
material lover? Because your brain is on permanent retreat.
Written by Joy Bewaji
