My name is fx0ne and this is my story,

I have recently been subjected to constant barrage from none other than my (sweet) mum. Her gripe? The M word, yep "Marriage" in its entirety. I find it quite amazing that my mum who, until a few years ago, never engaged me on that subject now hounds me (in a good way). Her bellyache stems from the fact that I am just too laid back. I seem a lot more interested in other aspects of life like business and work than in "settling down". She says that as if to suggest I am not settled in any way, shape or form. Mummy, I dey Kampe.

A few months ago, she barged in on me, spitting fire and brimstone. Her last words before leaving my crib amid electrically charged atmosphere were "I want a grand child?" like there's a market stall for children. Mothers, demands and everything in between. This was no threat either. Her claim was that she hadn't as much as seen any woman with me in the last two years which presupposes that marriage was further down on my scale of preference. She also alluded to my not socializing enough since I tend to spend most of my weekends working and watching football at home. To all intents and purposes, that time, according to her, could be better utilized in increasing my odds of meeting "Miss Right Now". I have to admit, she has a point. After all its a game of numbers coupled with the law of averages.

Don't get me wrong, I want to get married. In all honesty, I know I need to get married but it has to be done right and well. I think one of the major challenges I have with women boils down to TRUST. Anyhow, I am hard at work on it. After examining and taking a cursory look at the current situation (after all, she's been my elixir of life), I decided to heed mum's advice. I decided to actively explore the dating scene again.

Before starting though, I made a mental list of minimum requirement for a supposed wife material. Nothing fancy, no fluff, just a baseline. I came up with the following

She should be:

between the ages of 25 - 29
gainfully employed or running a business (no slouches)
Smart and Presentable
based in Lagos (no cross country, please)
must have a sense of humor (healthy dose)

I haven't exactly dated anyone since 2006. Thats all of four years. I approached the scene with a tinge of guarded optimism. These are the highlights of my adventure,


First Date
Name: Tola
Occupation: Stock broker
Duration: 90 Minutes

In order to set the ball rolling, I called up my friend who never seem to disappoint me when it comes to issues like this. He initially introduced me to this lady sometime back but i never followed up. I asked him for her number again and called her up. We agreed to meet up the following evening for drinks on the island (sorry, I don't do mainland). I wasn't exactly expecting a quick fire start but well, this date lasted all of 90 minutes. Damn.

You know you’re in for a rough ride when the first thing out of your date's mouth is “This place is cool, <ex-boyfriend> never brought me anywhere remotely close to this place.”  Your night is pretty much wrecked even before it has started. Just because I was still very open to detecting the expected and discovering the unexpected, I gave her the benefit of doubt. I was wrong. I started getting a little worried because she seemed to peruse the menu a tad too long - sort of like doing menu analysis. Then again, she's a portfolio manager. A lot of our conversation - lets just say, did not leave me in stitches. It was a non starter. It was all about her ex and her friends. In no time she had given me a detailed "verbal dossier" of her last relationship. The beginning, the middle and the end. For all my tolerance, I found her behavioral attributes to be just a little too agricultural for the occasion. She drank excessively. She didn't even ask why I was only taking a bottle of water. As soon as there was nothing more for her to say, I had to cut in to tell her it was time to go (it was getting late too). I had to because I knew that as soon as we ordered another round (forth), she was going to cock-up. She would most probably be calling him (ex bf) within minutes after I must have dropped her off.  At once, I sent a BBM to my friend "THIS A'INT WERKING FOR ME!!!" I put her in a cab a few minutes later never to call again. This particular date was ill conceived. This was indeed a false dawn.


Second Date
Name: Sola
Occupation: Entrepreneur
Duration: 9 Weeks

I met Sola at The Palms on her way out of the gym and fitness centre. Her BB had dropped and almost reflexively, I had picked it up for her. It was worth the price of admission alone. This chic was hot (in every sense of the word), not with the geometry that her symmetry inspired. She was indeed funny, spontaneous and her shape - prose in motion. In mathematics they call this "Curvilinear". She's the kind of chic that when you walk into a room with, everyone of your friends will give you two thumbs up. She can make you feel like "U the MAN!!". My former boss used to tell us back then that you need to engage your clients. My boss would have been proud of me because I re-defined that word maximally. We got talking, exchanged BB pins and digits and hit it off. We had our first date a few days later. We  went for boat cruise and drove to Epe and back roof-down style. It was cool. One of my friends later described her succinctly as "a celebration of evolution".

Less than a week later, i received a BBM from her "I'm at the gate". I had my friends over at mine at the time, expending copious amounts of raw human energy on a game of soccer on PS3. I was literarily exhilarated because now I looked like the man. The REAL DEAL. She came in cladded in a pair of blue jeans (gripping stuff) and a female polo top. It was a pleasure introducing her to my buddies - except of course, my mum. It looked like we were going to dove-tail beautifully. Temperature was reaching close to boiling point. Over the following weekend, she showed up again saying that she was in the vicinity and dropped by to check me up. I didn't initially take a dim view of it - then it happened again on her way back from her business three days later. Er… when things started to feel a bit awkward, I questioned her over the issue of just showing up unannounced even after chatting and speaking on phone on the day. She immediately flipped the coin, making suggestive remarks and insinuating that if I didn't have anything to hide i wouldn't be too bothered.

I think it has been mentioned in certain quarters that the hotter a woman, the more insecure she is. This babe had started off sweet and nice, visiting, calling and messaging but I quickly realized that these ten to twenty calls a day were actually to consistently play big brother. "Where are you?" and "Who's voice is that?" became a recurring theme in our conversations. She wasn't just out to "hear my voice", she was indeed tracking my movements and whereabouts. She completely redefined RFID and GPS. There were cracks already and I wasn't ready to paper over them. When she was not tracking me, she was spending hours caking on her makeup prior to going anywhere (including the mall). She was very long on appearance and packaging but desperately short on personality. You can't use outward appearance or good looks to compensate for other deficiencies. She eventually became a bit too needy and clingy subsequently becoming downright creepy. The final straw was a few days before I made up my mind. As I was trying to drive out of my street, i saw her driving in. Yes she lives in Ikoyi, but… she tried to explain that she was just coming to check up on me, but I knew she was being very economical with the truth. She wanted to check if my car was outside. She wanted to know if I was at home. It was little more than a flimsy fig leaf and the whole thing had started to irk me. I realized that this relationship will only lead to her waiting on my porch each day I was out. My friends really like her and whilst I trust the marriage institution, it does not imply a faith borne of blind devotion. We severed ties amicably,


Third Date
Name: Remi
Occupation: Architect
Duration: 8 Weeks

Hmm…Remi is a sight for sore eyes. Like the saying

"Words can never convey the beauty of a tree; to understand it, you must see it with your own eyes".

Remi is pretty much like that. Effortlessly beautiful with more of a sedate personality. In addition, she is also well read (with dual Masters including an MBA), an accomplished architect and a bit of an intellectual. Very methodical in her ways but with a penchant for getting her knickers in a twist.  We initially went through a lot of pet-peeves and common misunderstandings but quickly resolved them. From then on she displayed a distinct brand of conspicuous commitment. Things were ok (almost perfect) for a month but i started noticing certain forceful traits thereafter. It started with her letting me know that she would prefer specific outfits on me. Within a short while, she was ordering my meals and telling me what to eat and what not eat. She attempted to control every aspect of my life and, by and large, succeeded. She determined what I ate, wore, drove, watched and everything else about my life. She even made an attempt at fanning embers of discord between my friends and I. I had become a kid completely eclipsed by my so called girlfriend. To make matters worse, anytime I tried as much as defend myself, she cried foul and schemed her way until I gave in to her demands. She never apologized when she was wrong and even when she managed to, it was laden with sarcasm. Well babe, beauty and brains do not equip you with a certificate of exemption from all other functional aspects. Oh, she was a bit of a drama queen too. I was effectively disconnected and had lost my identity. Finally, I regained control. I was not about to delegate the direction of my life to someone else. She had become a massive contrast between promise and delivery. What began with ambition all but ended in attrition.


Fourth Date:
Name: Zainab
Occupation: Sales Rep
Duration: 3 Weeks

I met Zainab at Swe Bar. They say club girls are a no-no. I beg to differ. The number of the so called "correct"  and upwardly mobile ladies and guys for that matter happen to also hang out at clubs. I try not to make sweeping generalizations. She looked very attractive…but who wouldn't in a club (i wasn't under any influence BTW). Walked up to her and introduced myself and chatted a bit. Apparently she worked in Dangote. I eventually dropped her off at home (Surulere) that night. I didn't call her until the following week when i invited her out for pizza in VI. 

Let me start by stating this: Ladies we understand. Trust us. You tell your friend to SMS, BBM or call you during the first ten minutes of the date.  If you are not feeling us or we are boring you to near death, you’ll give your friend a hint and moments later you’ll be telling us how you have to leave because she just intimated you of some unfinished business.  I don’t think any guy has a problem with that first sms or phone call, to us it has become standard operating procedure.  We do however, get flustered if your face is fixed to your blackberry all through. This was my first prejudice. I discovered later that she had over 200 contacts on her BBM. We managed to pull through the first date albeit with more questions than answers. Two days later she sent me a couple of BBMs making a series of demands, one of which was funding her BIS account for that month. I passed on it. We went to the movies over the following weekend and she wanted to buy everything in sight. Perfumes, watches, bags, etc. Again, I ignored. What baffles me is that she seemed to have this extensive delusions of grandeur. Everyone she ever introduced to me knew every other person she introduced to me. She talked a lot about her "level" and how a lot of people knew who she was. I regarded her as an artisan who talked herself up as an artist. Add to that her strings of intermittent disappearing acts. She knew everyone from the security guards to the floor manager. She greeted and hugged people with reckless abandon - sometimes completely forgetting that she was with someone. To be honest, I was slightly embarrassed for myself. Eventually, she was brutally exposed to be a quintessential social climber and gold digger - a deadly combo (WMD). These types of girls are obnoxious because they hold their status in the overall social hierarchy above any relationship and are always looking to sort of "trade up". Social climbers are not trivial to figure out as almost all girls are in a way social climbers. You can tell social climbers by the name dropping game they play, as well as their obsession with the "Latest" and the "Exclusive." A social climber also has a lot of orbiters. This one had badly distorted reality to fit her mental picture of her life. She expects someone else to finance her extravagant lifestyle from buying gifts, clothing items and jewelry to trips and misguided ideas even funding an inordinate business proposition. All these and not even a slight show of implicit gratitude typified her. An argument can be advanced that remorse is not high on her list of moral imperatives - I was dropped right back into ice cold realism.


Fifth Date
Name: Ore
Occupation: Banker
Duration: 7 Weeks

Ore was initially very focused. In fact the statement "start with the end in mind" has never been more apt. She was very direct. I was a wee bit pedantic initially, but nonetheless vindicated. At the end of the first date, she had professed her love. By the second date, well, I knew how many kids we were going to have, where we were going to live and where and when I will be meeting my supposed "in-laws". On the other hand I was still struggling to come to terms with her and her plans. For Ore, it was all about her biological clock which was ticking that little bit louder in her ears. I am sure that if anyone had moved near her they would have been able to hear the clock tick. She never once failed to pass the message that she was the last of her friends to get married and she thought she would have been married 5 years ago. Whilst she often spoke about marriage, I could feel the desperation in her voice and see the hopelessness in her eyes. At a point she started looking at me like I was her last and only surviving hope. This was a serious case of mis-calibration of delusion. I made up my mind not to fall for the trap. She could care less at this point, she was hell bent on doing whatever it took to drag me to down there. She was literarily just circling like a carrion bird, waiting to confirm her kill. I'm sorry Ore, but those fault lines run much deeper than that.


So after five dates and seven months of (mis)adventure, I'm back to square one - or am I. There is indeed a sixth date, will keep you posted


*** Pls note for the ladies: No single guy will ever take you out to a nice dinner and just want to be friends.  Don’t act dumb or feign ignorance when he starts dropping hints. In between I had two dates that pretty much ended way before they even began because of this. ***