I read a Facebook rant the other day lambasting single people for daring to say that they were HAPPY AND SINGLE. The poster said single people were secretly miserable and deep down wanted to get married. He opined that (wo)man was not made to live alone and therefore everyone should be manacled to someone. And if they are NOT married, well they are just lying about any sort of mental stability and/or happiness then, aren’t they?

This statement led men and women (mostly men) to come out and berate people who were living their lives. Cries of “Don’t mind them!” and “They will be deceiving people but they cry every night!” rent the air. Someone suggested that if they were truly happy, they wouldn’t have to announce it. As though happiness were now a thing that must be kept hidden. Another said that it is when people have finished making stupid decisions and mistakes with their lives that they will be shouting SINGLE AND HAPPY. I would deal with this vitriol if it weren’t so laughable. I know a few marriages that are shams; evidence of bad decisions and lack of liver, but I digress.

Nigerians are so driven by the need for conformity and sheep behaviour that we break out in a hive when someone dares to tread their own path. We cannot stand the thought that people can succeed on the road less travelled. How dare s/he be happy without having to jump through all the hoops I had to?? How dare s/he make up her own rules?? We wee not take eet!

Lol. Why so bitter, twisted and angry? You will give yourself an aneurysm trying to dictate to others how to live their life! ??

This urge to control and bully spills into every other aspect:

• A couple decides to wait a few years and enjoy wedded bliss before having children. This is not good enough for the people monitoring your ovaries and sperm.
• You have one child and the trauma is so great that you decide not to have another. How dare you! Don’t you know that child needs a sibling to be balanced?
• And heaven forbid you desire to be child free. I mean, that’s just akin to saying you use babies for sacrifice. Which they wouldn’t mind so much as long as you had the baby to even use for the sacrifice.
• You have sex. it leads to pregnancy. You have no desire to be pregnant or you have no resources to raise a child so you opt for an abortion. There is NO, ZERO, ZILCH Nigerian that cares about the well being of that child after you carry it to term. No, the umbrage is that you feel you can duck out of the consequences of indulging in sexual gratification. You MUST carry your cross! You must raise this child for 18+ years because you had 30 minutes (if you’re very bloody lucky!) of fun (again, if the gods are with you) one time like that.
• Your wife doesn’t cook. A caterer provides big containers of soup and delicacies every week. You’re happy because (i) there is always food in the house and you’re never hungry (ii) you kuku didn’t marry her for her cooking but for her intellect and that one thing she does with her tongue whereby…anyway, moving forward. Nope, world people will not let y’all be great. The other wives who slave night and day will tell your wife that that is the only route to marital success. And that if she doesn’t cook, another woman will cook for him. The men, on the other hand, will turn to psychotherapists and measure your wife’s wife-material for you. It will always be short.

  

Losing sleep over someone else’s life? Lol, na ulcer go kill all of una. And una no go even see better person bury una because they will all be busy living their best lives – married, single, with kids, child-free…just out here living rather than judging.

I wonder what the bullies and naysayers are really scared of? What would happen if people lived their own lives? What is the worst that would happen? Perhaps….just perhaps you might learn from them and find the courage needed to live your own life by your own means?

Point being: get mad if you want to. Kill yourselves if you need to. Some people will just go on living.