Being single in Nigeria

Let’s talk about it ….being single in Nigeria above the age of 24 is like a social stigma

I went house hunting last week and had found this lovely 2 bedroom apartment a few house down the road i live in. I met the landlord, he seemed all okay with me renting his place until i meet his wife who coincidentally is not much older than me. First she starts asking questions about why I wanted a big flat to myself and what kind of friends I had etc etc etc. I even told her she could go get a character reference from the neighbors if that would make her happy and she had the nerve to say she wished my mum lived close by so she could ask. Summary, she refused to rent the place to me for that reason.

Next, I go for a job interview and meet the CEO of the company who amongst his first questions was to ask me why i was not married and that he had been advised by HR consultants to stay away from single girls as they were not very stable because they were not settled.

Or take the case of my aunty who told me that I may be under spiritual attack because I was fast approaching the big 30 and not married and that they were going to book special prayers on my behalf in church.

You get invites to events or people assume they can borrow you to run their own errand and when you complain about being busy, the always get the same answer about how busy can you be ,that what do you do with your free time since you were not married. There is just the general assumption that your time is not that important because you don't have that Mrs title attachd to it. Your 21 year cousin who is married is actually given more respect than you regardless of whatever acheivements you have in other areas of your life.

The time has come for people to realize that times have changed. Marriage is a good thing created by God for companionship and procreation but the truth is that with the rate of divorces in the world now, people should step back a minute and evaluate properly before they start pressurizing their friends or family members to say yes to the first man that asks or ask the first lady they meet. Current statistics prove that two in every three marriages in the world end in divorce with the unites states having the highest divorce rates in the world. Recent reports suggest that there is an increased mortality rate in fathers, mothers and children of divorces.

Marriage is supposed to be a lifetime commitment. A Friend says that people marry in the honey moon phase of their relationships. He says there are four phases every relationship must pass before it culminates in marriage. Stage one, honeymoon phase. Boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love or lust or whatever it is they falling into...sun appears to set on each other’s face blab bla bla. Stage two…Uncovering. They now start to see each other for who they truly can be or are by small manifestations and reactions to events or situations. This is the stage when they now start to realize they aint the perfect person they thought they had found. Stage three becomes the realization stage when you now know that the person is exactly as you have just seen in stage 2 .Then final stage…decision. Now this is where it can swing both ways. You either decide to live with what you have just discovered or move on swiftly. My friend. Let’s call him LD (that’s another story) believes people marry in phase one and I totally agree. Until you realize that that person Is a swine, doesn’t always shave or shower, drops their clothes on the floor and all the other things which can drive you batty but in spite of that, still brings a smile to your face, then you can’t be in love. Only and only when you have seen the worst of that person can you now make an objective decision really.

So to all those of you who would rather we are married without going through the cycle just for the chance to wear aso-ebi, spray money to show off and have another topic of gossip about who wore what or how the food was not nice….you better adjust your prayer points that the phases come and go quickly because glamazon is about to go through all of them right to the end…or would you rather have me move into your pad when it all goes kaput? Tell me!