Let’s talk about love

Today is Christmas and there’s absolutely no reason for me to be talking about romantic love on this day, when it’s not like I’m Saint Valentine. Truth is, I didn’t even write this in December. Wrote this probably two months ago. One of those days when you wake up, and you realise you could really use some love from someone who’ll look at you like you’re the last loaf of Agege bread in Lagos.

I wake up, and I’m thinking, I really just want to love. You know, with all my heart, be all vulnerable and still at least 80% confident that the guy won’t crap all over me for loving him that much, which is typical of humans. You show them you love them and they suddenly start feeling like they invented the abacus(don’t ask me how that relates, but you catch my drift). So I wake up on these days, and I’m calculating my twenty-something years on earth, and I can’t boast of having the kind of love I truly crave and desire (it’s mostly cheesy stuff I see in movies, and even though that love isn’t necessarily what happens in reality, it doesn’t mean I don’t want something close all the same). Then I go on to analyse how it’s either me jumping into a relationship for the wrong reasons or not getting into one for the wrong reasons. And whether or not those reasons are wrong, they always felt right at the moment.

Photo credit: Meeeee!

I met a guy earlier this year. I’d say he was perfect, but just not for me. He was from the North, he was tall enough, and we had pretty much the same taste in things such as; music, movies and art. It was even cheesy enough, we were completing each other’s sentences. He was warm, nice, caring, he could sing, and he seemed to have my kind of adventurous spirit. He was a romantic; I was in Kaduna, he was in Lagos, and he had planned our valentines date almost a month ahead. I guess he thought we’d date (I honestly thought so too). He was one of those guys that called every day, and from this whole description, you’re probably thinking, he sounds too good to be true, and asking, so why didn’t you date him? Here’s the short answer, I didn’t think he was “the one”.

But the long answer is, first of all, I probably chickened out. Remember how, a few posts ago, I mentioned commitment phobia? Well, that’s probably an actual thing. Whatever was going on looked like it’ll bear fruits, so I probably got scared and found every tiny excuse to sabotage it. Secondly, the influence friends have over you is like second-hand smoking. You think you won’t get affected, but before long, you’re high too. Basically, a friend of mine didn’t see him as “the one” for me. For some reason, even though at first, I didn’t agree, my feelings gradually changed and tilted towards her reasoning. And thirdly, I don’t think I like phone calls that much. Dear future boyfriend, if you’re reading this, I may tell you I want to talk on the phone all the time, don’t buy it. I want to talk, for long hours too, but not every day and definitely not twice a day. So that’s that. It was an almost perfect love that never happened.

I may talk about my commitment phobia all the time, but deep down, I know that if I find my “one”, I’ll feel it so strongly, not even my friends or my fears will be able to convince me otherwise, because it’ll be perfect. I’ll drop my hard girl act and be utterly at peace with being a mushball. People will roll their eyes at whatever cute nicknames we’ll give ourselves, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll do the cheesiest things couples do, like wear matching outfits (just kidding, don’t even think about it). We’ll do all the things lovers do like listen to music from the same pair of earphones, be inseparable (except we’ll have lives and jobs, so that’s not exactly possible). We’ll love each other without games or tactics, and most importantly, we’ll trust each other beyond the thick layers of trust issues society has instilled in us. It’ll just be us loving each other till the end, whatever timeline it’ll be, whether a year or 20 years or 40. All that’ll matter will be the quality of our love, not a stupid timeline.

Someone said, these days, we make being vulnerable a bad thing. So many more people are trying to be “hard guys”, more people are bottling up their feelings. Because being open about your emotions make you weak. I’m lowkey one of those people who think writing a blog post about love is stupid when I can be writing about other deep social issues. But the truth is, love is a social issue, and if we’re all loved how we want to be, and we love without holding back, the world might just be a tad better. The words “La vie en rose” keep playing in my head. Imagine if Osama bin Laden, Sadam Hussein, and Gaddafi saw everything through pink and colourful lenses, because their hearts were bursting with love and good cheer. They’d have been handing out hugs and not terror.

Love is an essential drug…(there are so many ways this sentence can end. I’d like to see you complete it in the comments).

Merry Christmas! 🎄