I want to talk about love. Yes, I know the world is burning with this whole Corona thing, and Satan and his people are probably dancing with joy, according to my cousin’s vivid imagination. But I want to still talk about love, or rather trying to fall in love. Not the kind of love that you fall into when you are 23 with young blood coursing through your veins. You know, that type of love that kept you up all night with free calls. Exactly. The very kind that made you juggle three babes or two men at the same time. Mmhmm. Not that young, foolish love. Nothing of the fleeting kind.
The thing is, the love that you love at 23 is not the same one that crosses 30 with you. Take me for instance, have I told you that I am over thirty? (Jeez!! what is this old age that is befalling me?!!) Anyway, back to love. The meat of the gist is trying to find love as a single woman after 30. Or love after dark. Or love according to Nigerian mothers who want to carry their grandchildren. The ‘be-careful’ type of love. The ‘when-will-you-you-marry’ type of love. That kind of love is different. It understands tradition and it knows how to read the time. It knows that if you are speaking to a man for three months and he has not laid out his intentions, then it is maybe time to pick yourself and move.
Anyway, my thirty-plus self was thinking about this type of love and the whole modern-day thing. That was how I decided I would take matters into my hands. Like they say, ‘shoot your shot.’ My sisters, I was feeling bold o, so I slid into a man’s DM o, in the name of ‘love’ plus ‘feminism’ plus ‘the future is in our own hands.’ But not all that sounds well, ends well. Forget Netflix, finding love is complicated and brutal. Because not only was the object of my shot dodging the bullet, it turns out that they are married. And uninterested. (Yeah, I confess, there were two of them.) Basically the way I landed in the gutter ehn – It was like a movie!! Love is the actual ghetto. #Sigh
There is actually no real point to this article, lol. Maybe it is the quarantine, or online classes, or my students and their tireless demands, or maybe it is even my Ogbanje housemate who recently threatened to deal with me but these days I have been thinking about love. This adult love. This tiring love. This my-mother-needs-to-let-me-rest love. How to find it, and keep it because forget yarns, a girl needs a man!!
Who knows, maybe I will think about it long enough to shoot that shot another time.