Somewhere during the past week or so, I can’t
really remember where I saw it, but it has
stuck to me for a while now. I’m most probably
paraphrasing it here, it goes thus You can meet someone in a month who
will have more goodwill towards you
than someone you have known for 10
years. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about marrying a stranger, my thoughts on this were clear because your best friend knows you well
enough and you guys probably have survived
fights and arguments and are still friends.
There was a discovery sometime ago that
says if you’ve been friends with someone for
over 5 years, there is a high possibility that the friendship will last forever, doesn’t that sound
like marriage? From what we all know, you need to be friends
with someone consistently for more than 5
years before they can become your best
friend, but that’s not why we are here. (My
rule!) These days, we have heard stories of a lady
or guy getting dumped after they dated
someone for significant time (3 years +). Not
only getting dumped, after the dump, the other
person settles down with new person in record
time, sometimes 3 months or shorter. While I was in school, this happened to a
friend, distant friend. She had a bobo that she
used to yap about a lot, then we heard she
was getting married. Quite naturally, we
thought it was the guy, only for us to find out it
was someone else, someone she met like 4 months ago and guess what, she wasn’t
pregnant. If she was pregnant, it would have been
another case but she wasn’t, so she more or
less married the guy “clear-eyed”. To an
extent, knocking someone up these days
might mean marrying the person especially if
both of them are up to age. Another one that happened more recently was
about 2 years ago, a male friend who we knew
was dating a lady since they were both in
school, cut it off. That relationship was at least
5-6 years old, they were together through
school, NYSC and job hunt, what we were all expecting was their wedding bells. The
wedding bells did ring but it only rang for
another lady the guy had just met, it took them
all of 3 months to decide to spend the rest of
their lives together. I think one key ingredient in all of us might be
chemistry/soulmate angle. The chemistry here
might be diverse, some people are cooler than
others, no doubt. Are you aware that some
ladies do not nag? I have found some as well. I’m not saying there
isn’t any reason for the ladies to nag, not like
the guys aren’t totally undeserving of the nag
but finding someone who doesn’t nag you to do
things, someone that finds a creative way of
telling you to do what you need to do is priceless and I think that’s why the guy tries
his absolute best to tie down such babe. I was talking to an elderly friend, and we were
talking about women, he narrated how his wife
stylishly made him dress better. He is a
creative guy and you know some creative
guys like to get with their T-shirts, he said he
would wear crazy shirts like “I’m with stupid”, “The man (with an arrow pointing to his face),
The legend (with an arrow pointing to his
crotch)” and several others like that. He said he didn’t even realize that he had
stopped wearing those shirts, and he began
wearing button down shirts with proper pant
trousers tucked in, and at times with a jacket,
something he could never be caught wearing
at any point in time due to his “personal brand” which involves been crazy about outfits. The lesson I learnt from this is how she used
patience and nice words to suggest to him. At
first, the laundry guy would hold up these
shirts then after a while she would buy him
corporate shirts in the colors he liked then she
would tease “How about wearing these nice shirt, you know today is Monday, you can go
ahead with the crazy tees on Tuesday.” Being a gentleman, he would oblige then she
would take pictures and tease, call him
awesome names, told him how cool he looked
in corporate, and stylishly over a long period of
time, he stopped wearing the crazy tees all
together. I know there is a saying that you can never
change a man, but you can try to a large
extent with patience and the wonderful power
of suggestion. You don’t have to demand,
suggestions can be powerful too. I have a boss who instead of telling you what
to do would suggest it, say for instance,
instead of saying “Call the vendors to be here
by 2pm” which sounds like an order, he would
instead say “Would you mind calling the
vendors to meet us, lets see if we can have them meet us by 2pm if their schedule isn’t
occupied”. In doing so, you feel like its entirely
your decision or your call to make, and we
both know it isn’t. Back to where we started from, someone new
can have better intentions for you than
someone you’ve known for a long time
because different people have their purposes
in our lives, some people have shorter lifespan
than others. Some of these people are exceptions to the
rule, they’re called soul mates. You meet them
and it feels like you’ve known them all your life,
it feel heart warming even when they call your
name, and you can still tolerate them after sex,
also having countless of it. Sadly, the downside to all of this is that you
have wasted someone’s time, how do you deal
with that if you’re a decent human being, how
do you break up with someone you’ve been
dating for over 3 years so you can marry
someone you met 3 months ago. It can never be easy to deal with, you’ve found your own
joy while someone else has lost theirs, and
that’s life. The Yorubas have a saying that,
someone else’s mischief is another person’s
chance to succeed. I cannot underestimate how difficult it will be
for the people been jilted, I only hope that they
as well find joy in their lives soon. There is a
popular saying by John Lennon “Life is what
happens to you while you’re busy making other
plans”. The wasted years of their life can never be gotten back, if this has happened to
you, you need to get closure, closure helps
you move on. Life is what happens in between you and trying
to achieve your goals and objectives, and
someone’s life has been within your
crosshairs. If you’re in this situation right now,
you’ve met someone who actually completes
you more than the person you’ve been dating, the Lord is your strength as you try to resolve
this. If you have experiences of this, feel free to
share so that others can learn from you and all
better our lives.
