RELATIONSHIP: ARE YOU IN A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP FOR THE MONEY, SEX OR LOVE?

ARE YOU IN A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP FOR THE MONEY, SEX OR LOVE?

That night I lay quietly in the dark ruminating over and over about what happened that afternoon, I tried in my mind to forgive her and forgive myself for yelling at her, for the way I reacted. But it was too much to handle, too much to process; I feel like I swallowed something I couldn’t chew, an abstract stone that hit me in the head. It was my impulse and I acted on it, I was a fool and a jerk and if I were her I wouldn’t have forgiven me either, does anyone ever get life right? I guess not.

I forced myself out of bed that harmattan morning, it was too cold outside and the warmth from the duvet was making me too lazy to get up but I needed to get to Area 11, I wanted to be early, to clear these conflicts in my head, to be really sure I wasn’t going crazy. After that revelation, after stumbling unto the truth, it has become an unbearable burden, a thorn pricking every comfort in my body and if I don’t get rid of it fast am not sure what might happened.

I took a cold shower; I wanted my mind to be alert and my body agile for what’s ahead, the morning was quiet, the whistling of birds outside was somewhat distance, I was having this sensation to talk to someone, slowly narrate what’s bothering me to somebody, I was so overwhelmed I was tempted to call her, to be sure she was going to meet me as she earlier promised when I called last night begging her to meet me today. Even though I tried to understand the concept of this relationship she has several time described to me but part of me finds it very difficult to believe. What kind of man buys a hundref thousand naira phone for a girl that’s not his girlfriend? What kind of dude constantly pays five thousand naira into a girl’s account without some secret motives? Someone need to wake me from my slumber so that I can really understand this. Yea, I know some guys do that to a colleague or a childhood friend, I know some guys can go extra miles to comfort a girl even the ones who are not their girlfriends but buying that type of mothering expensive phone for a girl you initially asked out and she turned you down and later friendzoned you is not regular article of words. I believed her when she told me there was nothing between them, I believed her when she told me he helped her with five thousand naira of her lesson fee cause she couldn’t come up with the whole twenty thousand naira for it, I also believed her when she told me he took her out to the cinema to watch the premier of fast and furious 7 cause I was too busy at work to take her and I believed her when she told me nothing happened afterward, I believed her when she told me they were just friends and nothing more. But when she called me on Monday of last week to tell me he bought her an iPhone 6, just like that, was when all my believes turned into doubts.

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The short story above was intended to narrate a situationship between two lovers who are going through a misunderstanding in their relationship, the story is incomplete and the intention was to create suspense, to enable one’s imagination to run wild a bit. A writer once said that ‘unbroken happiness is a bore; it should have ups and downs’. I couldn’t have agreed more with this writer. A perfect relationship is not all about the beautiful, gleeful moment we experienced in it; it is also about the ugly, the sad and the temporary heartbreaks that tags along with it. An uneventful relationship will certainly crumble, will eventually snap and reality will sneak in, it’s all matter of time.

What is reality anyway? One may ask but the gigantic question mark is, what the heck is RELATIONSHIP? What is it we really seek in an intimate relationship? Is it the emotional support? Moral support? Financial support? Family support? Sex? Or simply just to fulfilled all righteousness? I am a sucker when it comes to matter of the heart, I am no expert or scientist that has figured out the mathematical formula to balance the equation but I earlier found out that I am a soggy lover. We live in a world where material resources defines or measures the length of love we give or collect, we are constantly straddled with deceptive mechanisms in order to outwit one another in a relationship. A younger lover of mine once asked me ‘Do you love me?’ and I answered yes, then she asked again ‘Will you ever leave me?’ and I was dumbfounded. That caught me off guard, shocked me to the core, maybe it’s because I have never considered the FOREVER thing in a relationship or the implications of that question. Won’t it just be easier to be wholly truthful once in a while?

What are the ingredients that sustains a quality relationship? Is it the truth? Cause to be honest, some truth hurts. Is it the lies? Because I can vouch that some lies actually comforts our soul for a while. Is it money? Is it sex or the almighty LOVE? I have be a witness in a situationship where lies sustained and kept a relationship for almost two years before truth came and blew the whole thing up. I don’t want to come off as a cynic or maybe I am a cynic but my points here are, if you are going to stay in a twenty-first century kind of relationship, then u need to package yourself because in these days and age, the truth can’t set you free no more, you need the extras. You need all the blink blink, you need all the enhanced surgeries, you need all the make-up kits, you need all the gadgets, you need all the trending clothes and most importantly you need all the lies.

But don’t you forget one thing, we are different, we are different in our compositions, we are different in our personalities, we are different in our demeanors, we are different in wisdom and a whole lot more, in fact, individuality is the best qualification. For some people, lies can set them free while for some, the simple truth can lighten their burdens, whatever works for you is absolutely fine with me but for me and my household I will go with the latter. I am a conventional soul, I was born in the eighties, grew up in the middle of the nineties, listened to a lot of old school songs even when they weren’t that old and found myself in the saga of the millennium. All of these has help sharpened my perception in the weirdest ways and have opened my eyes to surprises of homosexuality and transgender chaos of this era. I have come to embrace the simplest things in life are the most complex, I have come to believe in the smallest of miracles are the gigantic ones, e.g. the air in our lungs, the cry of a new born baby, the pleasure of sexual penetration, a simple dimple and the inexplicable love we fall for a total stranger at first sight. These are my miracles, these are the reminder that life is still worth struggling for even in the midst of these episodes and saga of our troubled world, and these are the virtues of our reality. 

Article credit -- @haderotakisblog 

Photo credit -- @originatorarts