The Nation Newspaper

Category: Pillow Talk

  • Switching from rags to riches

    “ANYONE can do anything with a million dollars. But it takes more than money to make something out of nothing”. This quote naturally tells us that we can do so much and execute lots of ideas when we have money. Dreams and ideas naturally translate to reality when we have money and resources to carry them out.

    Money, companionship, opportunities are usually possible when the mega bucks abound. Without this, then we are talking about a life being compared to that of the rag; poor, ragged, empty and worthless condition. But in the midst of physical and emotional poverty you can metamorphose to another state.

    From experience, many would tell you that nothing good comes easy. You really need to put great effort into the love nest to make it work. This brings to mind the rags-to-riches phrase and it takes you from obscurity and emptiness to your heart’s desire.

    Yes, we all agree that money is indeed a mean to certain ends but there are so many other factors that must blend together to achieve a successful outcome. If this is not done, then the resources that should matter would obviously go down the drain.

    The crux of the matter here is that money on its own cannot move mountains whether for physical, emotional and other ends.

    In Dolly Parton’s song, ‘Coat of many colours’, the lyrics talks about a box of rags in the season of her youth. A box of rags naturally suggests a collection of something useless, old, garbage, something awful and obviously something many would love to dissociate with.

    Instead of looking at the odds, the young girl and her mother decided to make the best out of nothing. Parton’s mother put the rags of many colours to use. Even though every piece was small, her mother sewed the rags together with passion and love. There was no money and her little girl needed something to keep her warm. This naturally would be a time when issues of love and romance would be at the peak.

    This led to the creation of a coat of many colours. Of course, a coat is for comfort, protection and warmth .These, basically, are the things required in a relationship, which can make or mar the relationship.

    Even though the material used was weak and worthless, the maker of the coat reproduced something worthwhile with love. To support this show of motherly love, her mother related this to the biblical Joseph’s coat of many colours. Her dream was for the coat to bring her daughter good luck and happiness and she blessed it with a kiss. On her part, little Dolly just couldn’t wait to wear it.

    Even though her friends laughed at her rags, she wore it with great pride.

    “Although we had no money I was rich as I could be In my coat of many colours.

    So with patches on my britches, holes in both my shoes, in my coat of many colours I hurried off to school.

    Just to find the others laughing, I couldn’t understand it.

    For I felt I was rich. And I told them of the love my momma sewed in every stitch.

    But they didn’t understand it And I tried to make them see that one is only poor only if they choose to be.”

    Interestingly, this applies to our emotions too. Most times, what we are left with are emotional rags. Things that make us cry each time we look back from where we are coming from and where we finally find ourselves. Instead of having our emotions lined with rich fabrics like lace, silk, cotton, velvet or linen that is sweet to behold, you are overwhelmed with rags that are no longer attractive. Interestingly, the most important thing you need to forge ahead is not the rags or the lace of emotions. The crucial thing that is going to see you through the affectionate lane is your attitude. You have to develop the right attitude all the time; it would be the only tonic required to make it a successful emotional journey.

    There are different steps to take in order to make your relationship wax stronger, no matter the odd that comes your way. First, you have to be sure that the feeling you are experiencing is love and that these feelings are mutual. Once this is ascertained, then you can move on to the next stage which entails showing love to each other.

    This will help to maintain and increase the loving feelings that you have for each other. Unfortunately, it is not everyone who knows how to express such feelings properly. Sometimes, what you think is going to help project your love may just turn out to be a turn off for the person that you are desperately trying to impress.

    Conversely, not expressing love can also hurt the bond you share with your partner in a terrible way. So, if you are trying to work out a successful relationship, then you must be committed to your partner’s emotional well-being, even when it isn’t easy. This means sharing affection with your partner, through good times and bad, when it’s most needed and when it’s least expected.

    This task is usually easy when you are the romantic type. Romance is essential to have at least some of the time. Candles, candlelight, compliments, romantic bubble baths, and romantic dinners are good ideas. So it is wise to try to inject a romance into some of th

  • Bury the love hatchet

    Folarin and Ndidi have been dating for about three years. Each time one of their friends sends an invitation to their wedding or bachelor’s or spinster’s eve, her heart skips. This time around, it was Biodun’s bachelor’s eve, and Folarin kept the details from her. But, fortunately for her, she got the news from Biodun’s girlfriend because they were close. She found her way to the venue and found him with another companion.

    Cheated? Well, if there was another word that could take care of her feelings, this wasn’t quite appropriate. She moved nearer and gave the gal a beating of a life time. The whole party and attention shifted to her and on the spot, Biodun told her it was really over. “Now that you know that it isn’t you that I love, then I can have some peace.”

    What could she really do now? Perhaps it was better to go back to the drawing board and bury the love hatchet. If she got another opportunity to talk with him, they would try to figure out what went wrong and what they could do to get their love back on track again.

    Wait a minute! Haven’t they been talking about this same matter before? As a matter of fact, the talks actually made her upset and even angry at times because his arguments were always unrealistic. But then she persisted because she felt if they could talk things through and make him realise how much she still cared for and loved him, then he may just change this terrible attitude.

    That was not all. Even your friends and family had intervened at different times and it all turned out that you were doing the right things and that if he wasn’t listening, opening up, and “getting it”… then he was the one to blame. That he was the one being selfish and immature.

    Naturally, some of these other reasons made her feel a little bit better but it was only for a moment. It still didn’t explain why, despite everything she was doing to improve herself and their relationship, he was still getting more and more distant, difficult and just wanted to end things with her.

    Sometimes, it is possible to make a miscalculation based on your intuition. This way, you are likely to ruin a great relationship because you did the right thing at the wrong time. Of course, there is nothing wrong with following your instinct, the only difference is to understand where and how to apply it.

    For a number of ladies, therefore, you discover that instead of using this intuition to their benefit, such people actually end up shooting themselves in the foot and destroying what would have been a marvellous relationship.

    But there are times, when what you have is not worth expending precious energy on. The heart that you have fallen helplessly in love with is actually a counterfeit, an adulterated version of what you dreamed of. It may also be that you are not totally ignorant of the antics but you just want to hold on thinking that things would sort themselves out with time.

    Sadly, some women get so caught up in the mindset that “he will change” once they are married and he would fit into the arrangement with time. But most times, it doesn’t really turn out this way.

    For Bimpe who has found 60 per cent of her requirement in her man, it still can be a hell of a time. “The same laid back demeanour and quiet disposition that my sweetheart possesses and the reason I fell helplessly for him is the same laid back demeanour and quiet disposition that sometimes work my last nerves at times,” she recollects.

    In every relationship, it is important to spell out the terms and understand the personality you are dealing with from the outset. This would let you know whether it is better to continue or make a u-turn if it is only going to end in tears.

    If you do not get off a stressful emotional train, then you may crash with the train. Many get caught up in trying to mould and perfect things even when it is obvious that they are never going to go far together.

    It is better to let your woman or man be who they are….flaws and all. The one thing you need to know is that you love unconditionally with not only all the person’s good sides but with all the bad as well.

    We also need to remember that men think differently from women, especially when it comes to why they do the things they do in a relationship (s).

    “I am going on my sixth relationship and have been with this current boyfriend for seven months. At the beginning, I liked what I saw and it looked like a dream come true.” But gradually, she began to discover another side of this emotional story and at the moment she is at a crossroads. “He stammers, but I didn’t see it as a problem because he was always smiling and happy. But when I got closer and we got used to one another, I realised that he always got angry if I didn’t quickly understand what he was saying while stammering. At such moments, he could be really difficult and I wondered how I was going to cope with such moods in future.”

    Well, she needs to make up her mind on time. This may actually make or mar their relationship and she needs to be sure that it is something that she can cope with in future.

  • Just the two of us

    SEARCHING for greener pastures? Yes, everyone dreams of something good and wonderful. We all have standards and it’s great if we find what we want or something close to the original.

    Unfortunately, Rebecca has been criss-crossing the emotional zone without getting to the proverbial promised land in her search. “Most times, I wonder what is always happening to me. I have discovered that I do not love the people who fall in love with. On the other hand, I find that the people that I love or really admire are already hooked up. They have people that they treasure and they don’t usually care about my feelings towards them.”

    Well, sometimes we do not find what we really want. When you get to this realisation, then you just have to move and not stick to someone that you know that you can never have. All you need to do is to focus on the good sides of the person who cares about you and make the love idea reciprocal. If you do not move on and make the best of your emotional situation, then you are going to be caught in an emotional cobweb that may lead to depression.

    Fear, love, jealousy, pride, vanity and resentment. These are some of the emotions that we are faced with on a daily basis, whether we like it or not. The mind can be very adventurous when it comes to love matters. While some can stick to a particular relationship for so long and do things that would make it look new as the years roll by, there are others who are very adventurous.

    Like the mouse pad, love is just a click away. The person in question is always experiencing some excitements, a burst of emotions at any time. As soon as the present emotion fades away you can be sure that something fresh and new will take its place soon.

    For this group, no single emotional response can be permanent. This relates to the other kind of emotions too. For instance, when any emotion, such as anger, is experienced, the person is likely to stay angry only for some time; eventually the anger will fade away and a fresh emotion will arise.

    Interestingly, an abundance of good feelings, and emotional satisfaction, become the criterion for a successful life. However, emotions present problems for the mind (which is just the personality). When emotions become intense, they neutralise intellectual concerns. In fact, common negatively-valued emotions such as self-pity, fear, anxiety, as well as moods like depression, actually tend to inhibit rationality – in particular, intense anxiety seems to produce a mental fog in one’s mind, making it impossible to study.

    Experts also advise that it is important to understand the nature of emotions if we really want to forge ahead and make our relationship to work. This is because it has profound implications for psycho-therapy.

    Interestingly, a lot of people think that their feelings are the same as emotions. This is not true because there are fundamental differences between feelings and emotions. There are a multitude of emotions, but only three feeling. These include the pleasant one, the unpleasant one, and the neutral one. The importance of feelings is that they help give rise to emotions, that is, the bases of all emotions are the three feelings. Sometimes you can keep emotional hope alive in the face of certain odds. “Mid way into the relationship, things just went upside down and I thought it was all over. However, I made up my mind to play along because I loved her so much. She continued to date the other guy who turned out to be a Casanova. When she realised that I was the one that genuinely loved her, she ran back to me.”

    So how did he survive during the hurting period? you wonder. “Well, I must confess that it was really tough but I was determined to make it in spite of the odds. I filled my heart with memories of some of the happy moments we shared together just before the emotional crisis. His ever smiling face, sexy eyeballs and loving smile encouraged me to bank on luck.”

    When the emotional matter is more than a fling, then you would discover that a lot of people who are busy, successful, inspiring sometimes have issues with their partners in their lives.

    The big question, therefore, would be that can being successful reduce the amount of emotional current you give? Are you likely to be selfish and self-centred?

    Your environment, level of exposure and age also determine how you feel. A medical doctor explains the state of mind of the young girls going into puberty as anxious and adventurous. “At this age, it is normal to feel curious, anxious and ashamed, especially if you are the only girl in the house. I also have a case of someone who was happy because she was going to wear a bra. Others are ashamed and they wear double vest to cover the bump. Some of the changes include menstruation, pubic hair, pimples, growing by the hips, nipples and other internal organs.”

    She adds: “Mood swings also occur and the sex hormones are responsible for sexually maturity.  Here the young ones need information to guide them from irresponsible people who would want to take advantage of them.”

  • Flying and perching around

    Dotun attended the school’s alumni meeting a few weeks ago. Here, he met a number of his old school mates and they had become a shadow of themselves. Guys who used to be the toast and envy of all had deteriorated so badly and they all wondered why he looked so clean and radiant.

    “The only thing that keeps me going is my dear Amaka, the woman who has made me to fly in emotional colours. She is a wonderful heart to be with and every moment spent in her company makes me feel better and younger. She helps you plan your day in a unique way and when you are down, she is ever ready to proffer solutions that would make you go to bed with a heart filled with joy.”

    That, for him, is the emotional tonic required to fly around like a butterfly.

    A strong, healthy relationship can be one of the best supports in your life and business. As you look around for success stories, you find that good relationships improve all aspects of life as well as strengthening your health, your mind, and your connections with others.

    However, if the relationship isn’t working, it can also be a tremendous drain. Relationships are an investment. The more you put in, the more you can get back.

    For some, no matter what they put in the other party would just not make them fly because the relationship was not based on trust but on lust and material gains. Once you find yourself on the edge like this, it is better to device ways to repair the trust and love in a relationship on the rocks.

    At such moments, it may be better to withdraw from the hustle and bustle to nature. That was exactly what Adunni did recently and it took away the emotional confusion without stress. Here, she saw a beautiful butterfly flying and perching around. The brightly-coloured insect stole the show. It was beautiful watching the overlapping rows of tiny scales jumping around in excitement.

    However, she discovered that as beautiful and exciting as it was, the experience did not last forever.

    To understand this, you need to understand that as beautiful as the butterfly is, it has a short lifespan. The average lifespan for an adult butterfly is 20 to 40 days. Some species live no longer than three or four days; others may live up to six months.

    From egg to adult, butterflies undergo a series of physical transformations known as metamorphosis. After mating, the female butterfly lays her eggs on a caterpillar food or “host” plant. The eggs can hatch within a few days, or within months or even years, depending on whether the conditions are right or not.

    In addition, a caterpillar’s first meal is its own eggshell. It then spends most of its time eating the leaves of the plant on which it hatched. An adult butterfly uncoils its long, straw-like proboscis to sip nectar from flowers, juice from rotting fruit and water from puddles.

    Many butterflies have developed interesting ways of defending themselves from predators. One method is disguise, or “cryptic colouration”, where the butterfly has the ability to look like a leaf or blend into the bark of a tree to hide from predators.  Another method is chemical defence, where the butterfly has evolved to have toxic chemicals in its body. These species of butterfly are often brightly coloured, and predators have learned over time to associate their bright colour with the bad taste of the chemicals.

    Interestingly, it also reminds you about the lyrics of the song by Westlife titled ‘Flying without wings’.

    It talks about everybody looking for that special thing, that thing that makes them complete, the thing that brings excitement to their emotions and life in general. The song writer hints that such pleasures and excitement occur in the strangest places, places where you never knew or imagined that you could find cupids arrow.

    The big question then would be where can you find the kind of love that you truly desire?

    Well, some actually find it sharing every morning while others have to stay away from the maddening crowd to find it in their solitary lives. If you do not get it here, then you may just rediscover lost affection in the words of others or in the deepest friendship. Friends whose hearts are as beautiful as the butterfly can be a great asset. These are the kinds of hearts that you would cherish all your life.

  • Never walk in anyone’s shadows

    THE sore on her left arm was healing already but it was itching. A little scratch here and there appears to be soothing. Just while she was feeling relieved, it got painful and was bleeding profusely. For a lot of people, if the wound itches the tendency is to scratch. Unfortunately, scratching is bad for the healing process. The pain from that old wound reminds her of the emotional wound that she was nursing at the moment.

    For a long time, Nkiru’s desire was to have a good relationship and have the best from the emotional world. That proved abortive and right from school it was tough getting a heart that would melt naturally into hers. Disappointed with the emotional trial and errors that came her way, she finally left school and went for her national service in Enugu.

    Service year was sweet, filled with passionate memories and it was at the peak of it all that she met Chidi. Everything fell into place and it looked like nothing was ever going to change her love for him. “We went everywhere together, laughed around and played like little children. We just could not hide anything from each other and it looked like this was romance made in heaven. As the days went by, I also discovered that we shared so many things in common and never quarrelled for a day.”

    Then they got to the point where it was important to seal the emotional deal and get things done formally. Nkiru had also chosen a bridal gown design and a number of other plans were in the pipeline. That naturally should have been the best moment in her life but somehow the unexpected happened. Chidi gave her a call and told her that they could not continue with plans for the marriage. Reason: “My father has insisted that I must not marry a Yoruba girl. My mother tried her best to convince him but he remains adamant. Unfortunately, I respect my father so much and I cannot go against his wish. I actually need his blessings for the marriage to be a success.”

    The news hit her like a hammer. It left her dazed for days and even weeks. During this period, she kept hoping that things would change and her dear Chidi would come back to her and say it was all a dream. He didn’t. In the midst of that emotional confusion, she fell ill and went to the hospital. Here the doctor revealed that Nkiru was expecting a baby for Chidi. She called him to tell him about the news and the response was even more devastating than the first experience.

    “You must be dreaming. Your plan is to tie me down against my wish. I am sorry, it won’t work. It is over and you can do whatever you like with the baby.” Nkiru decided to keep the baby while Chidi vanished into thin air. It was tough, but, luckily, her mother and friend, Dorcas, stood by her. After that experience, she became very hard on all the guys that came her way. She went back to school and had two masters and went on to pursue her PhD. On the job, she was flying really high and she had many suitors on her trail. As far as she was concerned, they were all inconsequential. Her son, Donald, was doing very well in school and he was the apple of her eyes. She loved him so much while the boy adored his mum.

    Life for Nkiru was complete but somehow friends and family would not let her be. The song on their lips was, “Nkiru, you need a man in your life.” She finally found Tade, an accountant, who attended the same church with her. To her utmost surprise, he had never been married too. He had a good family pedigree and was very simple. His two sisters were also very wonderful and in a short while the wedding bell rang.

    The two of them had been emotional victims with wounds inflicted by hearts they once loved. It was therefore a turning point and the emotional wounds of the past began to heal. About two years after the marriage, Nkiru had a daughter for Tade but somehow she began to notice something strange about her man. He had mood swings and there were times that he got so agitated and violent. He managed to cope but the major casualty was her son, Donald. Her husband and her son just did not get along and it made her really sad.

    One morning they argued over something and Tade smashed the windscreen of the car the boy was going to take out. Nkiru quickly got out of bed to intervene and he smashed her head with a big stick. It was after this experience that one of Tade’s sisters opened up telling her that he suffered from depression when his former girlfriend deserted him. At this point, he was sad and remorseful. This was really dangerous but she just cannot abandon her Tade now. He needs her more than ever, after all the agreement was till death do them part. Donald would go and stay with her mum so that Tade can have more attention.

  • Starting on a clean slate

    WHAT do you do with love that has gone sour? Usually, it is better to throw it in the trashcan before it runs the tummy. That is exactly the way Teju is feeling at the moment. She had just survived an emotional hurricane and just could not fathom where and how she was going to move on. The feeling at this point can be compared to jumping off a moving train; the disaster that would follow is better imagined than experienced.

    Flashback down emotional memory lane and it looks like the best love story. But along the line, she came to the realisation that the relationship which lasted for two years and four months was filled with ’emotional errors’. The guy she wanted to donate her heart to was a serial cheater.

     Sadly, Teju just had to move on, hoping to find a better heart, one that would not contaminate whatever was left. On her heart, she felt it may just be too hard to start over on a clean slate. The other option therefore was to avoid any emotional entanglements for now.

    The emotional pressure she was going through started to affect her work and so she thought of different ways to recover herself.

    A few weeks after, she just could not take her mind off and there was also tension at work. Teju decided to take a break from work and the restaurant in the neighbourhood looked like a great arrangement. A few minutes’ walk down the road and she was in the right place, relaxed in the serene environment, feeling different. The meal was also great and she waited a little just to get refreshed before going back to work.

    Two jolly good fellows walked in looking as famished as she was and they also had lunch. Once the stomach was sorted out, they talked about some of their recent conquests and escapades. Midway into the conversations, they remembered a third friend, Lanre, and the exploits he made when he was part of this team of emotional ‘musketeers’.

    Unfortunately for them, Lanre recently found love and amended his ways. “I just don’t know what is wrong with that guy. How can he lose all his head for one woman? I thought he was stronger than this but he has really disappointed me. Sometimes, when I remember his matter I get really upset. That is why I have stopped thinking about him,” Adamu lamented.

    The bone of contention is the fact that their good friend has repented. Old things and ’emotions have simply passed away’. “One other thing that he does is that he actually keeps all the money he makes into a joint account with this woman. To make matters worse is the fact that the alert actually goes to the woman’s phone number. He just cannot do anything without her. Is that really what they call love? Humh….. I am sure that something fishy is going on.”

    The question here is what is wrong with being faithful a hundred per cent? Our friends, however, feel differently and believe that it is better to have a Plan B in every arrangement. “That is not how to be faithful at all. I think he is just being a mugu (dunce) and I am very sorry for him. I just hope that it won’t be too late before he realises what’s going on.”

    Humorously, Mr. B talked about a similar experience and how a smarter Alec survived the emotional struggle. “Muyiwa had always been smart from our schooldays. Then about three years ago he met this lady and he became very cool and calm. The first time I met the lady in question, I just did not like her at all. She was very rude and domineering and I told him that he was not likely to go far with that kind of lady.”

    He continued: “For the first time, Muyiwa was visibly angry with me and he told me not to interfere with the relationship because he was in charge. So I left him with his emotional cross and thought this was another lost case. We met at a friend’s party about six months after and we reconciled. It was there that he made me realise that he was not as foolish as I thought. ‘We have a joint account and we use this account to service whatever we need to run the home. I pretend to put all my resources in the account but I have a secret account where all the extras that I make is kept. The strategy, however, is to look and feel helpless financially, so that I can continually draw from the joint account. This way, I have a robust savings account that she doesn’t know exists.’

    Can you beat that? Well, a lot of women actually get stuck on the road to an amazing relationship, and most times it has to do with a fear of the unknown.

    Lots of women who are afraid of being alone also end up picking the same kind of men over and over who just don’t “get it”.

    So you need to identify what you want and if it isn’t there, then there is no point hanging on. If you’re afraid of being alone, you’re likely to put up with behaviour you aren’t comfortable with just for the sake of being in a relationship.

  • Just the two of us…we can make it if we try

    THE emotional space is as competitive as any business environment you can imagine. Faced with that reality, it is always better to make sure that the one that you are attracted to get value for the emotions that they would be giving to you. You just have to put yourself constantly in your partner’s shoes to appreciate what you do or have left undone.

    Conversely, accepting a situation that is anything other than what you truly want in a relationship will not only make you unhappy, it will also keep you tied to someone who is not right for you. So really ask yourself what kind of relationship you want before you become involved with a man and the chemistry starts to cloud your vision.

    Adunni and Tolu had courted for about seven months and they got along pretty well. During this period, the two lovebirds discovered some of the things they shared in common and hoped that the relationship was going to lead them to the altar. Just when Adunni thought she had found the man of her dream, the dream was aborted.

    How did things fall apart? you ask.  A few weeks before the discovery, Adunni paid Tolu a surprise visit in the office. That was in order; it sometimes gives you direction and you would find out if you are on the right emotional track or not.

    How did the bubble burst? Our dear friend who was still day dreaming an emotional adventure ran into another ‘competitor’ who surprisingly had won the emotional crown. “I found them together in a very uncompromising way and I began to ask some questions.”

    So did she get answers to these questions? Not really. “Tolu simply introduced the lady as his fiancée.” No apologies! For a few seconds, she felt as if her heart had stopped. This relationship had caused her so much harm in the past and this certainly was the last straw. Gradually, she gained composure, got her car keys, ran out of the office and sat inside the car for a few minutes.

    It was very cold and she was lonely and alone. All kinds of things started riveting on her mind. Cars were revving as everyone was in a hurry to get out of the car park and then she finally found her way out of the mess (physical and emotional).

    Like Adunni, Nnamdi is in a deep emotional mess. He was supposed to meet his fiancée, Matilda, in the restaurant at 5 pm. The traffic was really bad and somehow he was a little late. He finally found his way into the restaurant panting and almost breathless. A few seconds after, he felt better and looked for her in their usual corner.

    To his surprise, she wasn’t around. That was quite unlike her and he decided to call her on phone. The line was dead and so he decided to wait for his sweetheart.

    With his laptop opened in front of him, he happily slipped into a happy reverie of all their moments. The things they had shared. The words she had said; he had turned out to be quite the poet.

    In that few minutes, he tried to work on some of the pending mails in his inbox. Here he found a note from his beloved Matilda. “I can’t make it as promised. I am a bit confused about this relationship. Please I need some time to think about it all. Sorry for whatever inconveniences this might cause you.”

    At this point, he knew that something new must have happened; after all they spoke about an hour ago. So, where do we go from here? Should he really give her another chance or start thinking of a plan B?

    It is important to know how to interpret your partner’s mood from time to time. Usually, when a man or woman acts withdrawn, that is a signal that the person is undergoing an emotional process and needs time to recharge.

    Women tend to think that if things are going well with a guy, that he will naturally want to move things forward to the next level. They’ll just assume this even when the guy has never talked about the future.

    Things will be coasting along, and suddenly the guy will change gears; she’ll find out he’s dating other women, or he doesn’t make plans with her every weekend, and she’s left wondering what the heck happened.

    The answer is that the woman created all these expectations about what the relationship was supposed to look like and how he was supposed to behave, and when he fell short of that, she became disappointed and unfulfilled. This usually winds up in a confrontation that causes tension and maybe even creates more distance.

    When the emotional matter is more than a fling, then you would discover that it can be very devastating to handle. So the next question is how you survive during the hurting period. The crux of the matter is that it can be really tough but you just have to be determined to move on and create a better emotional space for the future.

  • Pretender to her emotional throne

    Dotun wasn’t even her type of guy but somehow Lauretta put all her affection in his emotional basket. “Till date I just cannot pinpoint when and how I fell in love with him. The only vivid detail I remember about our emotional beginning was that we met at a shopping mall. That day, I had a lot of things to carry and he volunteered to help me take the shopping bags to the car. We met once again at the mall two weeks after and that was how we became friends. For me, he was just like any other guy and I did not plan to have a relationship with him.”

    Perhaps, he wasn’t good looking? “No, that was not the reason at all. When it comes to physical attraction, he was very handsome. Personally, I do not get attracted to men because of their looks. In fact, I try to avoid good looking guys because of the many distractions (from ladies) that they are faced with.

    “When he first broached the idea of a relationship, I turned it down. Then what I felt for him was just friendship, something you feel for a brother. Unfortunately, for me, he just did not give me any breathing space. While I was evasive, he persisted.”

    Her friends actually described him as a ladies’ man and he was. When they met about five years ago, he dated a lot of women and most of the relationship, he confessed, was fairly shallow. But along the line, he realised that what he felt for her was quite different and gradually they became almost inseparable. So what brought about this emotional transformation? you wonder. “There was a day he came to look for me in the office and I was not around. He waited for about two hours and dropped a note for me. Every line was moving and I treasured the note so much. I remember pinning the note to my diary and I read it over and over again.”

    That was the turning point for Lauretta. “I began to notice some of the things I did not see in the past and decided to give him a chance in my life. It was an exciting experience and we had a number of memorable activities together. We had a good life and his company was cherished on a daily basis.”

    He swept her off her feet and just when she thought she had found what she desired, he cross carpeted. “From my emotional hero, he turned out to be a disaster. I began to see that the relationship was all about him and I wanted it to be about me too.”

    The only option was to pull out of this emotional race to save her aching heart. “It was quite painful but the break gave me some direction. I also realised that I had been wasting my time all along. It turned out to be a fruitless emotional journey.”

    Going into the next phase of her life was turbulent.

     

    She poured herself into her career but it was hard forgetting him. “Even though I realised that I had been taken for a ride, I still missed him.  I dated two other guys but I kept comparing what they did with the things I learnt from the one I still loved. My best friend, Ada, noticed what was going on and said I wasn’t satisfied with the other guys because I was still in love with the wrong guy. When she said that, I realised it was the truth and I started crying. In anger, she shouted at me, saying “Why are you crying like a baby, if you do not love that traitor? You need to wake up and move on with your life. There is really no point crying over split milk.”

    Her friend’s words also freed her from the emotional turmoil that she was going through. It also opened her eyes to the fact that she was still in love with Dotun. A couple of weeks back, he had called and apologised, saying he had learnt from his mistake. Perhaps, it was better to look at the possibility of getting back together. So she put a call through to Dotun and happily they were reunited. The two of them realised that they still have areas of disagreements as the months rolled by. Yes, they have come to the realisation that they were always going to have some bumps here and there but there was nobody that they would rather be with. It was therefore better to hang together and make it work, no matter the obstacle in the way.

    Yes, everyone dreams of something good and wonderful. We all have standards and it’s great if we find what we want or something close to the original.

    Like Lauretta, Moyo has been going through some dark patches in her love life.

    Even when she puts in her best, she keeps criss crossing the emotional zone without getting to the proverbial promised land. “I often wonder what is always happening to me. I have discovered that I do not love the people who fall in love with me.” All you need to do is to focus on the good sides of the person who cares about you and make the love idea reciprocal. If you do not move on and make the best of your emotional situation, then you are going to be caught in an emotional cobweb that may lead to depression.

    While some can stick to a particular relationship for so long and do things that would make it look new as the years roll by, there are others who prefer to be adventurous when it comes to matters of the heart.

  • Jumping off the emotional train

    WHAT do you do with love that has gone sour? Usually, it is better to throw it in the trash can before it runs the tummy. That is exactly the way Teju is feeling at the moment. She had just survived an emotional hurricane and just could not fathom where and how she was going to move on. The feeling at this point can be compared to jumping off a moving train, the disaster that would follow is better imagined than experienced.

    Flashback down the emotional memory lane and it looks like the best love story. But along the line, she came to the realisation that the relationship which lasted for two years and four months was filled with ’emotional errors’. The guy she wanted to donate her heart to was a serial cheater.

    Sadly, Teju just had to move on, hoping to find a better heart; one that would not contaminate whatever was left. On her heart, she felt it may just be too hard to start over on a clean slate. The other option, therefore, was to avoid any emotional entanglements for now.

    The emotional pressure she was going through started to affect her work and so she thought of different ways to recover herself.

    A few weeks after, she just could not take her mind off and there was also tension at work. Teju decided to take a break from work and the restaurant in the neighbourhood looked like a great arrangement. A few minutes’ walk down the road, and she was in the right place, relaxed in the serene environment, feeling different. The meal was also great and she waited a little just to get refreshed before going back to work.

    Two jolly good fellows walked in looking as famished as she was and they also had lunch. Once the stomach was sorted out, they talked about some of their recent conquests and escapades. Midway into the conversations, they remember a third friend, Lanre, and the exploits he made when he was part of this team of emotional ‘musketeers’.

    Unfortunately for them, Lanre recently found love and amended his ways. “I just don’t know what is wrong with that guy. How can he lose all his head for one woman? I thought he was stronger than this but he has really disappointed me. Sometimes, when I remember his matter I get really upset. That is why I have stopped thinking about him,” Adamu lamented.

    The bone of contention is the fact that their good friend has ‘repented’. Old things and emotions have simply passed away. “One other thing that he does is that he actually keeps all the money he makes into a joint account with this woman. To make matters worse, is the fact that the alert actually goes to the woman’s phone number. He just cannot do anything without her. Is that really what they call love? Humh….. I am sure that something fishy is going on.”

    The question here is what is wrong with being faithful a hundred per cent. Our friends, however, feel differently and believe that it is better to have a plan B in every arrangement. “That is not how to be faithful at all. I think he is just being a Mugu and I am very sorry for him. I just hope that it won’t be too late before he realises what’s going on.”

    Humorously, Mr. B goes on to talk about a similar experience and how a smarter Alec survived the emotional struggle. “Muyiwa had always been smart from our schooldays. Then about three years ago he met this lady and he became very cool and calm. The first time I met the lady in question, I just did not like her at all. She was very rude and domineering and I told him that he was not likely to go far with that kind of lady.”

    He continued: “For the first time, Muyiwa was visibly angry with me and he told me not to interfere with the relationship because he was in charge. So I left him with this emotional cross and thought this was another lost case. We met at a friend’s party about six months after and we reconciled. It was there that he made me realise that he was not as foolish as I thought. We have a joint account and we use this account to service whatever we need to run the home. I pretend to put all my resources in the account but I have a secret account where all the extras that I make are kept. The strategy, however, is to look and feel helpless financially, so that I can continually to draw from the joint account. This way, I have a robust savings account that she doesn’t know exists.”

    Can you beat that? Well, a lot of women actually get stuck on the road to an amazing relationship, and most times it has to do with a fear of the unknown.

    Lots of women who are afraid of being alone also end up picking the same kind of men over and over who just don’t “get it”.

    So you need to identify what you want and if it isn’t there, then there is no point hanging on. If you’re afraid of being alone, you’re likely to put up with behaviour you aren’t comfortable with just for the sake of being in a relationship.

  • Hearts would continue to break

    What type of heart are you searching for ? A heart made of stone or a kind and loving heart? How do you discern the first from the latter? Interestingly, love looks like one of the cheapest commodities in town.  It comes in different garbs. No two experiences are ever the same. Like music, every heart swings to love and the most important thing is to be able to discern genuine love, when you see one.

    While some hearts travel from one village, city and continents to find true love, others simply find hearts that are magnetic and romantic in the neighbourhood.

    Are you still in doubt? Well, if you take a good look around, you are likely to find all kinds of heart telling their romantic stories via Love avenue. You can actually find love anywhere and everywhere. Interestingly, in places that you least expect to find one. The love race can be interesting, easy, exciting or tortuous.

    Does it have anything to do with those involved? Not really! Truth is that it makes our world go round and round. Feeling tipsy? Yes, that is what it does. When you get to these dizzying heights two things happen to you; the first is that your sweet heart, the one who has put you in this state comes to your rescue and you are taken to another realm in the love process. Conversely, when the heart you are getting tipsy for is a pretender to your emotional throne, then you have a grand slam, the type you see in wrestling. Knock out!

    A dear friend is in this state and she had a close shave recently. She almost lost her life but somehow the driver (heart) was able to manoeuvre the car. That saved her from having a broken arm, limbs and perhaps a battered face.

    Confused! So confused!  Over what? you wonder. A heart?  Is it really worth the stress? Yes, sometimes it is.  The crux of the matter sometimes is that this is part of the process. Hearts have been broken, hearts would continue to break and hearts would certainly be afraid of being broken from time to time.

    The best thing to do when you are stranded on the emotional tarmac is to take a break and wait for a better plane if you do not want to crash land.

    So how did our dear friend get to this state? you wonder. Her first emotional disaster was in the university; the Romeo that she banked her emotions on was only fooling around with her. By the time, she came to this realisation, things had fallen apart. The experience was not very good and she made up her mind to step aside from the emotional terrain for a while.

    It worked! The poor heart regained her emotional sanity and was able to offer emotional advise to friends who got bashed along the line. However, her friends and family would not allow her to be. They kept talking about her single state and it was at this point that Banji strolled into her life.

    To be or not to be? The temptation was just too much and before she knew it, she fell helplessly in love with another emotional criminal. Just when she thought she had found what she wanted, the table turned.

    “I kept on receiving all kinds of threats from other ladies warning me to leave their man alone. Somehow, he had captured my heart and I just didn’t want to let go. I trusted him so much in spite of all the negative information I was getting about him.”

    If she trusted him so much, he didn’t. “About two weeks ago, I fell ill and was hospitalised. As soon as I heard that I was going to be on admission, I sent him a message. Banji came five days after and when he came to see me, my neighbour, Patrick, also came visiting. As soon as he saw Patrick, he told me it was over. I tried to tell him that there was nothing between Patrick and I but he just walked out.”

    End of the road! The gambler had been looking for ways to end the relationship all this while but she refused to read in between the lines. What is the point hanging on to someone that does not trust you? What is the point hanging on to a heart that is preoccupied with emotional distractions? Truth is that you aren’t going to go far together and the more you try to make it work, the more pitfalls and disasters.

    Finding love again can be easy for some but not everybody gets it right. For the latter, love is fraught with pitfalls and mishaps.

    Luckily, it ended well because Patrick was genuinely in love with her. All the love that she was travelling many distance to find was in her neighbourhood. Now, she has to make up mind about the dude, the one who genuinely loves her. But somehow she is still wondering if she should give love a try again. Could this be the heart that she has been searching for all this while? Is this the heart that would bring back her emotional sanity?