Friday, 1 March 2019

Companionship


It is yet another Friday in the new month of March. Once again, we get to have something to read.

I had some feedback from last week’s piece with a majority of the readership saying that I was a bit too easy on the government and the ruling party. Perhaps those opinions were fueled by the circulating WhatsApp audios that are implicating big people in the government and the ruling party in the whole saga. The week saw a breakaway group of people living with albinism meet the President with some pledges being made by the latter; police protection, bounties a promise of houses through the building materials subsidy program. We can only hope that these promises get to be fulfilled.

Earlier this week, I found myself looking at my Facebook memories. What I found was a post from years back; something I had posted when I was post call (I was coming from a night duty, to keep it simple). I am not sure as to whether what I posted was real or whether I was just trying to blow things out of proportion and provide some humor to people who patronize my timeline. In the post, I was lamenting about how I was so tired and looking forward to a hot meal only to find that there was nothing I could pull off the shelf, heat and swallow. What I had found then was a fridge full of ingredients. Upon having a second look with the hope of finding a drink to put me to sleep, I found that there was none of that either. The lack of organization in my house found me wondering whether a companion was the right solution. I went on to suggest that if I had a wife, my life wouldn’t have been so miserable.

When I posted that (probably just for the humor), some people who like to create negativity got on the wrong side of the post. To them, what I needed to sort out the mess in my life was not a wife but a maid. Their argument was that wives are not meant to be performing maid duties and to them what I was doing was more of objectifying the woman I was to marry. This was not the first time I had been accused of such. What people failed to recognize from my post was the sense that all I felt was that it was not good for man to be alone. On the most part, it wasn’t about the companion doing the heavy lifting for me in the kitchen. On the other hand, it was about me getting organized for her sake and enjoying the fruits of good life I would fantasize for her; for us.

Ironically, the day that I saw the memory was another hard one. I had yet again gone home late after knocking off around 2100 hours with a bad craving of beef. There was no beef in the fridge and I could not go out to buy. Neither could I cook for myself at such an ungodly hour. I resorted to taking some thobwa mixed with milk and lots of sugar for the sake of cheating my tummy that I have taken something. Perhaps if there was a wife at home things could have been different. Mwina.

I happen to live in a flat that is a stone throw distance away from Osborne’s. Ozzy is my classmate from secondary school and we are the good friends and neighbors who hardly see each other thanks to our weird work schedules. On one Sunday, I surprised him when I called him asking if he could escort me to town for some grocery shopping. To him, Sunday was the wrong day for shopping but in my defense I told him that I hardly had any food and cleaning materials. Then he threw a nuke at me. Richard, you need to invest in a girlfriend. His argument was simple. If I had someone walking into the house and checking on me at least once a week, I wouldn’t be “shopping on Sunday” disorganized.

Having acquired a good number of friends who are also wounded soldiers from across the board, I have come to appreciate how hard it is to find companionship in the modern day. People are so afraid of heartbreaks and they tend to wonder why a lady or gent should be worth their time when the previous one broke their heart. On the other side of the equation are nice ladies and gentlemen who are optimistic about love, relationships and marriage. Those who are eagerly searching but somehow can’t seem to land the right spouse. This got me wondering as to why people find it hard to break away from this unnatural state of being single at 26 years of age when you are nowhere near the priesthood dream.

You might have heard someone saying that the reason they are single is just that they haven’t met the right one yet. It seems to be a puzzle when you think about how someone cannot meet the right one when there are millions of potential suitors around. Perhaps such people meet the right ones but they just don’t have the right questions. Another possibility? They may meet the right ones but somehow they tend to feel intimidated by how good the other person is, creating a feeling of self-unworthiness prompting some resultant recoiling. Zibwenzi zimangotha zisanayambe.

I have at some point talked about how our past may influence future interaction and relationships. The balance between looking at someone’s past and looking into their potential future becomes a bit difficult to strike in the modern days where people want to play it safe. Again, another issue that impedes the genesis of many potential relationships.

We could add another paragraph that could talk about how playing hard to get has been a big problem and a barrier to love. That could stick, but I would rather talk about something else. What if people are going about finding companions the wrong way? A couple of instances.
It is not a rare thing to see a guy who likes a girl spoiling her and showering her with all sorts of presents and cash wads. For those with wheels, frequent visits after every workday are not an issue. Sometimes this may be real but sometimes this may well be a stunt aimed at getting intimate with someone they are not able to commit to. On the ladies side, some have fallen for the temptation to offer their bodies, money or their time, playing the wife to someone who hardly considers them girlfriend just to win their heart over. From my observations, such one sided interactions do not end very well 9 times out of 10.

When I wrote in detail on how relationships are starting and shared some insights on how I thought they should, I pointed out that I subscribe to the old school idea of an explicit proposal. In the modern days, such proposals are becoming extinct with people falling in love under unusual circumstances. There is an emerging question on how acceptable proposals from a lady to a gent are. To such a question, I have on a number of times answered that it all depends on prior interaction between the two people. What I find wrong nowadays is that there are two types of people that waver in the extremes. The first is one that would go for the looks or other attributes without getting to know more about a person. First meeting at a wedding and a few conversations later, people are all in. The second grouping is the playing it safe one. Know a person for a year before you can get one with a relationship, they think. Problem comes when people from the two extremes meet. What the patient person would consider a premature proposal would ruin the interaction and diminish the chances of a future proper relationship.

I could keep going with the theoretical analyses that would lead me to a total diversion from my article. To get back in track, however, I would like to point out that the need for a companion cannot be overstated and it goes beyond the mere reasons of personal organization and copying and pasting of our DNA. Some of us who are just setting out in life with promising careers and business prospects need to look around and to balance up our lives by finding people we can live and grow with among other things. Some would say that there is no formula for finding the love of one’s life. We at Richie Online beg to differ. To us, finding a companion requires a careful approach so that one can get a true friend they can live with as a friend and spouse.

Perhaps we should all take some time and have a bit or a revisions of the rest of the articles which the Venomous Hope dubbed the Richie Online Love Curriculum.

Here we go with the pieces from the curriculum. Happy new month, everyone.






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