The Three Types of Ladies I met in 2018.

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It’s funny how this year has been fast on its heels since it started. Whilst reflecting on the event of the passing year, I remember lucidly how I had spent the last yuletide in school with two of my friends. The memories of celebrating Xmas and New year away for the first time is still fresh in my head. It is an exhilarating experience to celebrate the season in my own way. Be that as it may, 2018 is the best year I have hitherto spent in Ibadan since I came pursuing an academic degree very early in 2016.
This year, I have done many things that I wouldn’t normally do. One of such is pushing myself forward to meet new people. I have forced myself to talk to some people I didn’t want to talk to in 2016 and 2017. Though I have a somewhat cold relationship with ladies since I came to Ibadan, I have met many of them in the last six months than I had in two years. In my analysis of the type of ladies I met within those months, three categories are top of my list.
I have met the Holy Ones this year than I had since I started learning the white men’s form of education. They are called the Holy Ones by me because everything about them is hinged on what God says and what he did not and “holiness”. Ladies in this category almost succeeded in making me a regular church attendant, a place where I have been distant albeit unintentionally.
You ask my lady friends in this category a question and they would quickly supported their answers with a Bible verse or two. Everything for them is done based on God’s leading even when a simple answer of “I love it and I am doing it” would have sufficed. One thing they all have in common is that they appear to be close to the Supreme Being. Whether they are actually close is not my judgement to pass. It is one thing for one to appear to be doing something and it is another thing for one to actually be doing that which one appeared to be doing.
One hot afternoon after been served a very severe impromptu test, I ran into one of them at the entrance of the faculty. She looked all dressed up in her religious way. That is not my problem. I have since learnt not to judge people by religious person when a pastor’s daughter did the unthinkable in a house close ours. After a judicious conversation about life and career choices, I asked her why she chose University of Ibadan and not University of Lagos that’s the closest to her house. I was expecting the traditional “UI is the first and the best and they have the best hands to make me become what I want to be” or that all members of her family attended the university and she couldn’t risk going somewhere else. But her answer was different from all of these. Her choice of the university was based on God’s leading, she said. About why she chose her course, she gave the same answer of God directing her to. I was bemused, though I don’t have a problem with following God’s lead. But I believe in what is called being passionate about doing something. From all I know as a man that knows God, one must have his or her own opinion about something before taking it to God for ratification. For example, I love writing. It is only sensible that it is that passion that would drive me to ask God if there is a career for me in writing of any kind. Or maybe like my friend whose desire to defend the defenceless pushed him to study Law before asking God for directions. Anyway, he said God told him he would make something out of the law profession. But before God spoke, he had the desire to defend people. That desire was only approved by God as the eat for him. My point simply is this – even though God’s leading is good for those of us that believe in him, there is a place for us to pursue what we love. Sometimes what we call the voice of God is just the voice in our heads talking to us.
That is a problem I have with some of the ladies I met who are the Holy Ones. Everything is about God. They don’t have an opinion of their own be it good or bad as the case may be. Apart from relying on God for mundane things common sense would have handled successfully, they’re brilliant people. The way they often talk about the Bible reminded me of the Sunday School days when our teachers bamboozled us with stories and morals that are sometimes devoid of both godly and human logicality, but which we have no power to object to.
Well, it’s good to be close to God but it becomes foolishness when one leaves what he has the power to do for God to handle. I believe God respects our opinions, otherwise he could have created us without brain to think.
The problem you might have if you want to date some of these ladies us that you might both ended up spending more time looking up to God for every mundane thing than you do on building your relationship. Otherwise, they are wonderful and caring ladies.
Never would I have thought of making friends with slay mamas. Normally, I wouldn’t push myself to talk to any lady I adjudged to belong to this category. But the moment I realized that apart from dressing to kill most times, they also need attention as every woman does, I picked interest in two of them around my faculty. Their only problem the way I see it is their obsession with fashion. Otherwise, they are interesting people (they didn’t give me the headache of thinking about going farther from God). Beautiful Slay mamas are materialistic. Which beautiful woman is not materialistic anyway?
My two slay mama friends often decried the number of guys disturbing them for a night to grace their bed. I told them that was expected. In this part of the world where people are judged by the way they dress, slay mamas are thought of as having no solid moral standing and are often termed women of easy virtues. But the truth is many of them are not as bad as their dressing. In fact, my interaction with the two slay mamas have showed me that some of these ladies have cleaner hands and hearts than many of the ladies that I have met who always dress “responsibly”. Responsibility for me now is no longer in the dressing but in the acts.
One thing I also found out about my two slay mama friends is that they love expressing themselves in dressing. In fact, dressing is the best way they express themselves. They only wear what they wear because they felt it’s what they need and they are comfortable in what they are wearing. They are alive to trends in fashion and have the wherewithal to maintain their wardrobe. But you should not be mistaken to misjudge slay mamas as totally irresponsible ladies. That will be a fallacy that would not be easily forgiven.
If you ever thought of dating a beautiful slay mama, you must e ready to put up with the garage of messages that often find their way into their DMs and the list of waiting men requesting for one ticket to have an “all night” together. Of course, to keep them comes with ensuring they don’t feel left out in the fashion world that they actively belong. Besides, some of them love gifts and wouldn’t take it easy when you miss celebrating their important dates such as birthday with them.
The third category of ladies I met are the “No marriage type”. These ladies are afraid of marriage the same way they are afraid of death. Long before I met them in their numbers, I used to think that the joy of every African woman is to grow up, choose a career (if possible), get married for a chance to have a family and give birth to two or three children so they could live forever in human history. I have amended that thought when my path crossed some ladies that said they were not sure if they would ever get married. According to them, marriage is a form of imprisonment. By this they meant that marriage would come with losing their cherished spinster freedom. Besides, they said, the main reason for getting married in our part of the world is procreation so as to ensure the continuous existence of the human race. More importantly, they complained about the chauvinistic nature of many African men. These male chauvinists see women as mere properties with no existence of their own other than living under the shadow of their husbands. This chauvinism, they maintained, often leads to physical and emotional abuse by men. Their conclusion of the while matter is this: since they are career women and are largely independent of men in achieving success, they could have one or two love children so it wouldn’t appear as if they don’t have anything other than a successful career. They claimed marriage would derail them from going far in their chosen field and they also don’t to be victims of physical and emotional abuse that abound in many 21st century marriages.
In the early days of our meeting, I was boxed to a corner where I had to agree with some of their points. But as our conversation about marriage and life advances, I came up with my points. It is true that marriage limits individual freedom. But I told them no man has complete freedom to do what he wants. A man’s freedom to stretch his hands ends where another person’s nose is. Also, freedom of expression does not include defaming another. Hence, human freedom is not unlimited even before marriage.
About how getting married and having a family would derail them from achieving success in their career, I argued that it’s not totally true. Cases abound of women that are successful in both their career and marriage. Refusal to enter into a commitment by marriage does not mean one would have all the time to do all what he or she wants to do, neither does getting married takes away all the time that one needs to do what one wants. There is a space for building a home and there is another to build a career. One does not take away the importance of the other.
There is no way I would advise anyone to endure an abusive relationship or marriage. Where I come from, it is only a wretched man that raises his hand on a woman. As bad as physical or emotional abuse is to the abused, it has a great psychological effect on children that watch either of their parents abuse each other. With the rampant cases of domestic violence greeting the pages of national dailies, it is not advisable for anybody to think he or she would endure an abusive relationship or marriage. I told my No Marriage type of friend to open up their hearts and prepare themselves for the joy that marriage brings. But when they find themselves in an abusive relationship, they should flee with everything they have but they should be assured that not all men are abusive. It is a matter of finding that one that would not abuse them in anyway.
If perchance you got entangled with a convert from this class of ladies that are independent and are not fan of marriage, you should be careful not to bore them by your male dominance. Many independent ladies value their career than they do their relationships. If you mess with a woman that is strong-willed and value her career, the chances of her leaving you is greater than she staying to put up with your mess.
But whichever way one may want to look at it, ladies are not as tough as they sometimes appear. A close relationship with them will open one to their soft side that is locked inside their hearts, far from the “I don’t need a man” look that they wear when they want to appear strict. Women are wonderful creatures until one stroll into the bad of their book and they unleash the power of women that makes men tremble before them. Don’t mess us with a woman or else……