My World Without Women!

I moved on, only to meet another beautiful girl, Nene who feared and loved God. However, I would learn another lesson about women that made me ask a question; “Why would the chaste and virtuous women offer the treasured gift of sex to men that do not want to sleep with them or to those that feign not to be interested in sex?” She saw me as a spiritual giant and I tried to be a man of integrity before her. Nene and I started out as writer-colleagues and pen pals with no strings attached until we met face-to-face. She had literally fought her way out of another friend’s room who attempted to sleep with her in the past. She had cut off from guys who were out of sync with her core values since all she wanted was a sex-free friendship unlike them.

Then we were alone someday and the words came out unequivocally, ‘Though premarital sex is a sin before God, I won’t regret if it ever happens between me and you.” I thought it was all a joke until the signs dispelled my illusions. God’s grace and mercy that kept us far from hitting the hay and I learnt a saintly and chaste man has passions like the most dreadful of playboys. Then I learnt another lesson: A good and chaste girl will offer (i.e., reward) you with her invaluable treasure (her body) on a platter of gold, which she was wary of giving desperate guys who were desperate to see her naked. But you would do well to preserve her worth in your own eyes if you reciprocate by not sleeping with her. She would realize that in her hour of vulnerability and seeming recklessness, you didn’t take advantage of her, but honoured her. You might think you missed a rare opportunity but she would respect you for life!

I learnt another lesson I call the ‘the foolish lover loses it all when two blood sisters are involved”. If you are in love with the elder sister, be wary of her younger sister, who would seem to love you more for the sake of her elder sister. And if you disdain the wisdom of the sages, the cupid’s arrow will strike you and you may end up losing both of them in the ensuing romantic warfare. If you have expressed romantic interest in one sister, better stick to her for if you try to vacillate later, the cupid’s arrow will deal you a deadly blow. So beware and not be wise in your own eyes before you ultimately experience ‘the loser takes it all’ syndrome!

I thought cradle snatching was the refrain of vile and immoral men until I met a sweet16-year old dame, and a friend of my little sister. She was all beauty and innocence dotted the beautiful smile that she flashed at me. I was clad in suit while her secondary school dress sparkled. Her eyes looked deep into me with some kind of romantic hunger, and I could only blink. I tried to ignore her but her heart sent notes that teased my heart for a long time. When Valentine’s Day dawned, she sent a message through my little sister: ‘Tell your big brother this is Lovers’ day and as an adult, he should understand what I mean unlike these secondary school boys!’ My heart said, ‘Go for the kill and take the advantage of her vulnerability’. I struggled for days and wondered how things would turn if I distract her from her studies when I already had a masters degree. Then I learned another lesson years after she grew up into a woman: ‘When you snatch a woman’s heart because of her innocence and inexperience, you will someday lose her to another for the experience she has garnered.”

I once met a saintly woman that everyone respected for she was in touch with heaven. I didn’t know why my heart moved her way, but it didn’t anyway and I struggled to pull it back. Thoughts of her held me in captive and no denial could assuage the emotions she evoked in me. Like Solomon, my ink drooled and dripped with passion that I couched in words and verses that spoke of my love for her. They sounded like ‘Songs of Solomon’ and I was not ashamed to have been in love with her. Like a man living in an illusory world, I would not take a “NO for an answer” for the second, third, and almost the fourth time. She was not in love, I painfully admitted even when my heart deluded me. Then I learnt another lesson from women: “A man risks the rejection of unrequited love as much as a woman whose love is spurned by a man she is in love with.”

When a guy’s sisters are his best friends, they would go to any length to ‘jealously protect and shield you from other women’ that try to cling to you, or show any romantic interests’. My beloved sister once came to see me at my work place, and saw how my female colleagues hovered around me. I assured her they meant no harm, as they were married women who had no scandals in their lives. But she would retort and protest vehemently saying,’ they should leave my brother alone abeg! They have seen a nice, good-looking, God-fearing and compassionate guy whose future is bright.” I also learnt that if a girl is receives genuine love at the home from her dad, brothers and uncles, she would acquire good self-esteem and confidence that will help her in her love life. She will not fall hopelessly in love by the first guy that send them a romantic card, or whisper “sweetheart, you are my first love, and I will die if you ever leave me for another.’

Tosin was not originally my patient. A female colleague had been treating her for weeks until I heard a sob from her room someday. I knocked gently and she urged me into her private room in the ward. Her one-month-old baby boy was in her arms and both were in tears. She had sustained a chip fracture in her hipbone, few weeks after her baby came, and she was afraid she might not walk again. I didn’t do so much other than a hand-squeeze amidst some encouraging words and soon her tears were gone. She told her husband about the ‘doctor who cared for her’, and we soon became family friends and her ‘family therapist’.

Zibah, a married woman disdained and loathed by her female colleagues. Her words for sure were caustic and she was not far from being unfriendly. The women warned me to avoid her like a flea, but my heart protested. So in trepidation, I drew close and she saw in me, someone she could open up and talk to. Her home was a place of emotional abuse. Her ‘born again’ husband whom she offered her innocent body hit her with belts and threw fiery punches that wounded her heart. He lounged in the arms of other women. She was afraid of STIs and HIV/AIDS and no one heard her silent cries. She was bitter and her anger was vented on men and women that she met daily outside her home. She blossomed soon after she separated from her abusive husband, and became the lovely woman her female friends did not see. I learnt another lesson: A woman at every point in life reflects and expresses the seed of love or hate that men have sown into her life. So when a woman looks tough, detached and indifferent to love from a man, just look deep into her soul, and she will tell you about the men in her past, and you will know she’s hurting others in her bid to run away from her painful past.

Though I look gentle and nice, but my heart is not far from being a mean heart of stone in certain instances. For instance, when I lost my only and elder brother, I ‘refused’ to cry for I felt it was a man’s lot to be strong in times of pain. My mother and sister, and others should cry because they are women, but not I, “the man of the house’. So I steeled up my heart even when my pent-up heart felt like exploding as I watched his casket being lowered into the grave. I knew I would see him no more. But I had to be a man, and my eyes should be as dry as a withered leave shriveled by the harsh harmattan breeze. But how could you explain this scenario that played out before my very eyes? First, I cried like a baby when a dear friend died two weeks after her wedding- where I did my first MC Job. Then I wrote a dirge in tears after another died in her prime after a lost battle with cancer. Then another died. and I remained inconsolable for weeks!

Nothing has awed me as much as women. When you thought you have finally figured how to deal with them, they spring up more surprises. They may agree with you when you tell them that ‘this friend-relationship is without strings attached’. But with time, their heart would move and if they try to pull back without success, they would blame you for hurting their heart or leading them on. They usually are seen as the victims in the ‘battle between the sexes’ when actually they have acquired a lot of medals for the many men they beat to their wits end! Neglect or ignore a woman genuinely in love with you, and you would risk the backlash of an angry tigress. You would be shocked to see how her love transmutes to hate that erupts like a volcano.

Some things about them intrigue and astound me. Why do they seem to love and admire good looking, cutely dressed, popular, rich and influential guys? Why are their emotions so sensitive that they pick up things that you didn’t speak out but may’ve harbored in your heart? Why do they see men often as distrustful, while they feast on the lies brewed by men? They believe men are ‘naturally-polygamous’ to stick to one woman for life, yet would stick to a man they love for life? Though they may appear mature, strong, tough talking and independent, but when you ignore their stoic exterior and scale through their emotional walls, you will see that little girl in them that loves teddy bear and dolls! Though wise, educated, sophisticated strategists, they often fall victim of a well-intentioned cupid arrow shot from the bows of sweet-talking playboys. So easily are their hearts won over by the ‘small and seemingly inconsequential things of life’ like telling them their artificial hair braids are better than the locks of another woman with long flowing blonde hair!

A man’s best friend is actually a woman even when he denies and refuses to admit. As loyal friends, they would not dump you even after they marry and would make you become their husband’s friend so they can keep you forever as a friend. A woman has the power to bring out the best and the worst in a man depending on how he treats her. It is her choice to make him turn into a prince or a villain. And if a man thinks he is even-tempered and gentle, wait until she unleashes her verbal armory and he would lose his cool and see his anger boil like a fury animal. But treat them with respect, and show some degree of genuine thoughtfulness and tenderness, and you would unwittingly recruit them into your fan club for life! Hit your knees to the floor and plead your guilt when you blow things up, and they would pull you up with tears and may not remember your vices again.

What could be both pleasurable and distracting to a man than the company of a pleasant and lovely woman? Even if she appears ugly at first, the more you linger around her, the more her inner beauty captivates you that everyone wonders why ‘beauty is always in the eyes of the beholder.’ Much as I would not like to admit, my life would have been bland and endlessly boring save for the women in my life.

When God created and molded man into a figure of strength and power, the angels hollered and shouted ecstatically like football fans did when ManU FC defeated Chelsea FC to win the UEFA Champions League. But when He tenderly sculpted and carefully trimmed the woman into a figure of beauty and grace, a holy awe hushed the angelic noise that heralded the creation of man. One by one, they gently picked up their cymbals and tambourines and joy filled heaven as they rose to enact the first standing ovation which the audience copied when Handel’s Messiah was delivered to mortal men. God heaved a sign of relief and the joy of accomplishment filled His throne. He reckoned that He needed a rest after exhibiting His most outstanding work of arts , and this rest was called a ‘ sabbatical’ which professors would adopt in years to come!