Watching the woman you love drift away from you because you are poor is a mean sight. It’s even a sadder sight when it’s not that she doesn’t love you. But a woman counts the cost before she starts building, which is why every smart woman knows that love is not enough to sustain any lasting relationship. She may want to wait but when the wait becomes endless, she is going to start listening to other things apart from your professions and confessions of love especially if her biological clock is ticking very loudly.
Times and things are hard in this country and even beyond. We are all struggling to make ends meet and keep our dreams alive. If we are going to be honest, more often we feel like giving up instead of going on. It is particularly a tough season for our men, young and old, single or married. It is becoming increasingly difficult to resist the temptation to stray from the straight and narrow path. They want to do things right, the way their mothers taught them, the ways their fathers counselled them. But it is hard to find jobs, start a business and sustain them, harder still to make girls wait until things get better. Now, that last part is tough and painful. More and more men are throwing caution to the winds and doing whatever needs to be done to get ahead.
Abel puts his experience this way.
‘The dry spell has remained unbroken for seven long years. I have struggled to find a job; struggled to keep my sanity when the job I found after three years stopped paying salaries just after within six months of my resumption. I have been a squatter since graduation. The green pasture I thought I saw had become dry and brown. Bimpe loved me but I’m 35 and she’s 34. Once upon a time, we spent every free time together. Now she has an excuse to even be late for my birthday lunch. I know she’s seeing someone else and I’m depressed but I still don’t have my own accommodation at 35! She wants to get married and start a family. Do I look like someone, anyone’s husband or father? If I lose her, she’d be the last girl I lose to this life of struggle. I’ll do something about my life, anything.’
