Whats your Relationship Status? In/Not In/It’s complicate (Situationship)

I am not a guru when it comes to relationships. Lets just say I'm more of an observer. But have you ever asked anyone if they are in a relationship and they respond with the phrase “It’s complicated”? Or have you ever responded to the same question with the complicated answer? A lot of times I sit and wonder why and how we get into so much complicated situations. I guess it’s just the Situationship clause. A word I now strongly think should officially be added to the English dictionary just the way I added it to my Microsoft word dictionary now that I am writing this.

Honestly, I’m not sure if this is 100% applicable, but it definitely defines most of the bases on getting into the complicated/Situationship category. Okay, think about this for a minute and decide for yourself.

Scenario one:

Boy in a relationship meets girl in a relationship, girl likes boy, boy is a happy go lucky fella but willing to have a little fun. So, they begin to spend time together. Boy tells girl he is in a relationship, girl comes to terms with it but still wants to spend time with boy. Girl starts to like boy and starts to see original boyfriend’s weakness as boy’s strength. Boy is having a little fun so he is good.

Boyfriend starts to suspect something is going on, so girl and boyfriend starts to ague frequently. Girl has boy’s shoulders to lean on when boyfriend gets nasty. At the end of the day Girl and boyfriend break up. Since boy was always there girl feels boy is the hero always there and thinks he is an alternative (after all, the fiasco started because of boy). The connection to boy is strong but only for boy to remind girl that he is in a relationship and had always been in a relationship. Boy has some slight feeling for girl so boy keeps comforting girl. Somewhere in girl’s mind she is thinking boy will break up one day and then they’ll be together. Girl is automatically caught up in the situation.

Scenario 2:

Girl meets boy, boy meets girls. They both get really close girl likes boy, boy likes girl. Boy wants to date girl, apparently girl has always had this crush on the next door neighbor hoping the neighbor will one day knock at the door. So she intends to be single when neighbor gets the eureka to show up at the front door with his arms open wide. Boy has no clue of this but boy wants to date girl so he is constantly on her case. Though they are involved in every possible way beyond the FWB line. 

Boy for some reason keeps sticking around. In this case because boy is madly in love with girl and gets everything from girl except the boyfriend title he forgets he’s in a SITUATIONSHIP. Girl will walk away the very moment next door neighbor knocks at the door.

I'm tired of making up scenarios already. I guess you get the general idea. Word on the street is that Cupid got shot dead and people don't genuinely fall in love magically anymore. So in my opinion, the best way to deal is just be on the same page, but humans will always be somewhat selfish.

But wait! is cupid really dead?

Loyalty to Communal Family Values and Our not so Modern Society

As Africans, and ultimately Nigerian, one of the cultural attributes we have been known to pride ourselves in is Loyalty to communal family and values. By calling ourselves Family we refer to the long extension of the family most people call Compound, local community going beyond a set of people that share the same name but long reached to an association of a group of people who have in the year intermarried inhabiting a common location with common set of values.

Folk communal family image from: http://babathestoryteller.com/

What we were made to believe about our lineage is that communal families share a set of beliefs,
common attributes and most especially that special thing that keeps them locked onto each other called “Loyalty”. I can go on and on defining loyalty which I believe a lot of “us” in my generation know about but have hardly experienced in different circumstances from those before us. The strength of our societies in the past depended on loyalty and communal family values. We have also come to learn the importance of communal family and lineage. Certain phrases such as “what family are you from” “which of the communities do you hail from” will sound familiar while interacting at certain levels.

In this modern day and age, as strong as we say we try to hold family values, can we boast of loyalty to the traditional definition of communal family as we know it to be as Africans? A lot of times the younger generation (millennials) are blamed for being disloyal to “the family”. On the other side of the table, does the old saying “the family will always stand to protect its own even in the storm still exist”? Is the family loyal to its members? Often times, millennial focus on the value of giving back to that very sect which has given to them no matter how small. The question again is, has “the family” given to earn a return? Or has the family taken from whom they owe their loyalty? There is more attachment to the nuclear family the communal family isn’t close to enjoying possibly because of the answers you have given to the questions I raised.

However, in recent times, for the very few of the new generation that care for the communal family association have mostly found newer families far away from where they typically will call home. A newer family confident enough to prove their loyalty over and over they share their values with. So, can we say it is right for the communal family to make demands from those whom they have robbed off their loyalty when success knocks at the door?

Finally, should our current society characterise our vision through the originating communal family if the essence has truly been lost? Should our society hold us by our family values or by our individual standards? These are some of the questions I will leave you to think about......

                                                                                                                                                                                      Deji Layade October 2015

TEN THINGS YOU PROBABLY DON’T KNOW ABOUT ME

As humans, we tend to camouflage a lot of deep things that have to do with our personality. But in the real sense of it, the sensitive human part of ours is one thing that makes us “Human”. I doubt if we would be called human beings if we are devoid of sensitivity.

That was me trying to make a grand entrance…

Ok, straight to the business, my mother is a woman and Dad is a man!

Huh?

 I’m sure you are wondering if that’s something you probably don’t know. Well, I had some time to sit down to think and was able to come up with a few things a lot of people don’t know about me. This is not to say that some people don’t, but a lot of people around really do not know (especially the ones I met in the past few years). What I am about to do is share just 10 (Ten) of them with you….. even though I have a jar full of items.

This is not a top ten list of my deepest behavior or thoughts. It is just a list of 10 things ‘you’ probably do not know about me.

1.   I was born a Christian, but have a VERY LIBERAL RELIGIOUS VIEW. This means, I don’t condemn any religion or believe that any is superior/inferior to others. The one thing I hold on to is that everyman has something he needs to believe, which is why we all have our various ways of connecting with the creator. With experience I’ve had so far with different religious doctrines, one thing stays consistent across all which is the belief in a divine being (creator). As for me, I go to church, I believe in God and accept that Jesus is the son of God that’s the way I connect with the supreme being.

2.   Two months to age 27 and I STILL LOVE FAIRY TALES. Do you remember snow white, Cinderella, beauty and the beast, Aladin, little red riding hood etc... Well, I can start with them and never get tired or bored watching all of them. Knock yourself out if you want, I just slipped being stuck to book of nursery rhymes by just an inch. I still think they are really good.

3.   A FAILED MODEL – I once claimed to be a model at early Uni days around age 17/18. Luckily I was signed up with an agency *name withheld* and sadly at the other leg of it I never got a single professional Job. Failed or not, once a model always a model J (I learnt some modelling tricks). I blame the failure on not living in Lagos as long as it makes me sleep well at night.

4.   Launched a fully registered COMPANY OF MY OWN BY AGE 21- I am sure some of you have seen a logo that reads NASH Entertainment with me before… well it’s a fully registered company I launched officially at my 21^st birthday. Native and Skills Hammerlock Records and Entertainment was registered as a record label and an entertainment company to take up audio, video and tourism. I set the target to establish my own company by 21 which I did. A long dream still alive till this present day. My empire will ride on the NASH Platform.

5.   I have recorded ENOUGH SONGS TO COMPILE ATLEAST (3) THREE FULL ALBUMS AS AT 2011 and yet I never officially released an album. I released a 3 track ‘not for sale promo cd’ in 2009. One of the songs – Gbabe hit the top of many music charts in Ibadan while another song on the same cd  - Sewere produced by Zeez hit several charts in Lagos peaking at No1 on Unilag FM and  No6 on Rhythm top 20 Naija hits sometime in the year 2009 while I was in school. The 3rd track on the cd titled ‘MissQuintessential’ will be the centre of the next thing on the list of things you probably don’t know about me.

6.   MISS QUINTESSENTIAL WAS INSPIRED BY A LADY – A track on my ‘not for sale promo cd’ released 2009 was written and composed from start to finish in less than an hour. The interesting part you probably didn’t know was that I had a babe I was crushing on back in school in mind while writing that song… she was my muse for this one. I denied being inspired by a babe to write the song all the way and even at radio and press interviews till this confession.

7.   FALLEN IN LOVE TWICE – I have genuinely fallen in love with ‘just’ two women. I dated one of them for just about 5 months. The Second never wanted to date me and now I’m crushing on another that looks like one of them and she doesn’t even know. This is quite dicey because there is confusion between genuine crush or crush because she looks like someone I once fell in love with. I doubt if I will be able to find that out. Who knows?

8.   Definition of MUMU FOR LOVE (aka Sucker for love) – This is one thing I find very embarrassing all of the time. Every tough guy has his MuMu moments. In this case, mumu for love. For the people that are really really close to me, they know how bad it gets when I really like a babe. To them it’s no news I become the most useless person that exists on the face of the earth. I’ve been a hopeless romantic in few cases. This was never for the eyes of the general public. It also explains the terminator attitude I have around certain women. I don’t want to be sharing my mumu buttons around.

9.   A SHY GUY – A lot of people will challenge me for calling myself a shy guy. The truth is, I’m one of the shyest people I know. But it’s a different kind of shy. I have performed all forms of art from singing, dancing acting MCing on big stages in front of a crowd too many times with super confidence but still feel super shy if I have to sing/act in front of one or two people. Most people see this as pride, so I suck it up and pretend like I’m really suffering from pride.

10. Was ONCE A HAPPY-GO-LUCKY GUY – There was once a happy-go-lucky young boy many years ago that was never bothered about anything, he never rationalized anything or weighed options before making moves. Lived based on the NIKE principle ‘just do it’. I got into a lot of trouble being that way growing up. A lot of people I have around me now will really doubt I’ve ever been that carefree and happy. I guess life took its toll on me. Things got quite super serious when white collar got into the picture.

As I wrote earlier, all the things you likely do not know about me is not limited to the ten above. I just randomly selected ten to pen them down to paper so don’t say you know all about me just yet.