On Dating

 

Let’s get on with it, shall we?

For this article, we will throw Richie Online Back to January 2019 when we had an article answering an important question. The question? When does a relationship start?

One may wonder as to why this platform decided to publish such an article. Going through the article today, I realized that I had we had a contentious issue back then in that there were very blurred and almost non-existent lines between a good friendship and a relationship. In other words, people used to prematurely transition from a talking phase to a full blown relationship without due process.

I would not do this issue justice if I do not do not give a bit of context to it. From the observations and experiences of the time, people used to get into somewhat one-sided relationships because of a general deviation from the traditional genesis of a relationship. There was a common saying that this whole thing of asking each other out was old fashioned and people just needed to figure it out that things have started from the flow of the conversations and everything else. The only problem that came with that was that once the male species involved in such had eaten the forbidden fruit, they would start acting all dodgy and defend themselves with the stupid “I never asked you out” excuse. Many a female cried foul. Here is another one. Men started acting jumpy when asked for money from the so called-girlfriends.

In the article, I tried to highlight that ambiguity in the start of relationships is an issue and that people need to take a pause from enjoying the intimacy or anything that they may be enjoying at the time to clearly define what is going on. It is always for the best, we at Richie Online argued. At the same time, we also acknowledged that relationships do not have a single winning formula and that what may work for one may not work for others. Still, we advocated against the total deviation from the traditional sense of relationships as that seemed to be the safest way of starting and running a relationship. We encouraged men to ask girls out and the ladies nodded in agreement. Two and a half years later, I found myself exposed to similar kinds of conversations around dating.

Thursday, June 3^rd 2021 was an interesting day. Having worked too much in what is a very flexible job, I decided to give myself some time off to just relax, have some coffee with friends and text people. Viewing people’s WhatsApp status posts became a default activity in the breaks. In my interaction with my friends of the other gender, I came to notice one thing. Gents! Ladies are mad at us again for not being good at declaring our intentions. This time it has nothing to do with getting intimate with them and running away with excuses or something of that sort. Well. They are still mad at us for that because we are getting worse with our failure to express ourselves and to ask out. Allegedly.

Let us wind this back a bit. Back then, when we wanted to date someone we used to find ways of meeting them in person to ask them out. These days this whole thing has gotten a whole lot easier. If you want to ask someone out you search them on Facebook and send them a friend request. They accept, you like a few pictures, slide into the private messenger and once they agree to give you their number you are halfway there. A friend of mine once advised me to start moving around business cards saying that giving someone a business card is like proposing nowadays. The man went on to say that if the lady calls, it means they have accepted the proposal. Now I do not encourage such kind of relationships because I know that they do not last beyond a week after the first sex but I am just giving a picture of the far we have gone from the old days when we did not have WhatsApp.

Modernization has introduced the concept of dating to our lands. You bump into someone and exchange contacts and in a bid to know them better, you take them out for lunch. Once you sufficiently know them, you can either decide to ask them out or let it go. That, at least is how things are supposed to go.

I will get back to you mute gentlemen. Them ladies are saying that you people are not asking them out. You are taking them out for dinners at fancy restaurants multiple times without saying anything. By the way, do you know that ladies get one dress for an occasion then throw it away? Having them buy dresses for three dinners without telling them what you want is unfair, they say.

Having heard similar things from three ladies who are not connected in any way, I was tempted to pick the minds of a couple of people from both sides of the gender river on this. I will not go into the details of the conversations but I will try to share the thoughts.

Gents! The ladies have a point. Sometimes you need to say what you are on about. It is good for you and it is good for the lady. You cannot keep on taking someone out, being nice, taking pictures and giving them hope without saying anything. Keeping such up may easily lead you into an avoidable entanglement that you may not want to be in.

That being said, y’all ladies need to exercise some patience and raise your threshold for the “what are we” question. Here is why. Not all of the need to declare intentions comes from the fact that the male species is leading you on. Sometimes it comes from your inner desires to get things going and move to the next step. I will get back to this later but you need to learn that there is a reason why they say that you can take the cow to the river but you cannot force it to drink.

There are several reasons why the male species choose to withhold the words of love that the other gender may love to hear. The first reason may be the thing of being unsure about what they are going into. There is this problem that is exhibited by both genders in which people are very nice in the talking phase; getting saltier as the relationship progresses and finally revealing their true “devil’s cousin” character when they finally get married. The modern-day VW-driving man is not as courageous as the olden day Humber riding man. He would rather test the waters and be sure about what he is up to before he gets cracking. Hang in there, ladies. He will talk.

The other reason why he is not saying anything for now (sorry to betray you, gents) is that he probably has several of you and he is trying to pick the best. While he is taking you out wearing a worn out Arsenal jersey from the 2017 season, he is going out with another girl clad in a suit and bowtie like Ken B Wazakena on his date with Zani Challe. He is probably trying to explore the possibility of getting back with his ex-girlfriend from two months before. Now these are details that he will not tell you because he is counting on the possibility that he will come back to you if things do not work out wherever else. What he will do is to ghost you to focus on the other end and when the next time you hear from him he will be telling you how much he wanted you back then. That will be when things go wrong with the other girl, eti? You see? The world can be unfair at times but you need to know these realities because some of you have not been reading the world.

One person I talked to last night suggested that we normalize dating with an open mind. To them, we need to remember that we do not need to complain about being led on once things do not work out in this modern day dating that we are advocating for. Akuti not every dating process should lead to a committed relationship. Guess what gender this one is from? Female.

I will add the element of being classy and honest. Gents. It is good to be orderly and honest. Getting this far with the article means you are aware of what ladies do not like and that is being taken for a ride. We have to be honest about our intentions and our flaws instead of selling false dreams. We need to avoid this things of hurting other people deliberately. Perhaps we should also pay attention to the content of conversations in the dates. We need to talk long term plans, ambitions and things along those lines because I hardly have any use of what anybody's favorite color is on the first date. 

Here we are then. Relationships are a mess, but once again we at Richie Online have sorted everything out with our vague opinions. What you do with this set of facts and opinions is completely up to you but we have done our part to provide solutions.

Gents! Let’s do better.

Ladies! Hang in there.