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The green eyed monster

    Jealousy is such a delicate word, people really should be mindful of how they throw it around. It is an emotion characterized by anger, resentment and disgust. Left to me, jealousy is an emotion we can’t help, it’s innate. What becomes the problem is when you allow that jealousy become envy. It’s almost like the difference between H.I.V and AIDS. Although one is gotten from the other, they are both one and the same. I know- it’s a very weird construct. When you see your fellow man moving and the same isn’t happening to you, you are bound to feel a certain way about it. Human beings are progressive creatures that ask questions and feel funny when they aren’t progressing. 
That doesn’t mean you’re a vindictive or spiteful person, it just means you want to move when others are moving and would like things to happen to you at the same appropriate time it is happening to others. As our heavenly father that God is, I personally don’t feel he would take offence if after committing your affairs into his hands you ask for a confirmation or reassurance if things aren’t going the way you expected. Christians always forget that we are not God, and are so quick to shout blasphemy when you even come close to complaining or questioning God’s intentions. We all strive to be Christ like: meaning to be like Christ (for those that don’t understand). This very statement is acknowledging the fact that we are mere mortals, and as such, we are bound to feel pained when we lose or seemingly get left behind. 
As children, we feel sad when we don’t get what we want. You might be wondering what I mean by children- but aren’t we all children of the most high? Irrespective of age, we are all children in his eyes and novices in this ‘lifeing’ stuff. People often mistake envy for jealousy, and annoyingly use them in the place of each other. In my opinion, jealousy is felt when another person receives a slight edge over you. Its temporary, you’re supposed to feel it just momentarily and then allow it to slip away. But when over time you feel pained because someone else has something that you don’t, that’s envy. Which means, you’ve made a concerted effort to hate someone over something they have. Even the dictionary defines envy as a feeling of discontent or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities or luck. 
You and your friend were vying for a promotion at work, and he gets it. You initially feel a pang of anger, but you let it go and be happy for him regardless. You were initially jealous he got it, but you let it slide. Now, if you hate him based off of his new position and the perks that come along with it and you do things to sabotage him, you’ve allowed it cross into the dangerous realm of envy. Even during award ceremonies, the other nominees who didn’t win are supposed to feel jealous for the person that won. Yes they will all smile and congratulate, but will most likely be angry they didn’t get it instead. This is just my interpretation of the whole thing, I might be wrong. Nowadays, people are too quick to accuse you of being jealous like you’ve committed a crime, or it’s something you have control over. In actual sense, they mean to say he/she is an envious person, but as I said- people use the two in the place of each other. I can’t remember if its envy or hunger that’s associated with the colour green: either way, the safest zone is neutral. Peace and Love
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Unpredictable 365

    Life is really an unpredictable place; anything could happen at any time. There is no standard method for almost anything. You could spend a lot of time planning and prepping for something, only for it to fail woefully- and also spend the shortest possible time with the same thing and have it turn out to be a success. I don’t know why I haven’t written a post about this before now: it’s something I’ve experienced a considerable lot. And because it happens quite often (at least enough to be noticed), it’s getting that much deserved attention today. Since I started actively writing/blogging, I noticed that the posts I spend days scheming about always get ‘normal’ reviews, as opposed to the ones I spend no time on. 
Irrespective of my days of planning, double checking my syntax and punctuation, tripple checking  for spelling errors, people always gravitate to the ones I write in a hurry, under pressure, with no thought. The ones I personally thought wouldn’t do so well.  It began a couple of months ago, and I didn’t pay it any mind. Then it started happening more frequently, and I would have been daft not to notice. How I come up with these posts is relatively simple.  Since I’m constantly thinking of something, I’m always writing something no matter how little or stupid, even if it’s just a one liner and I don’t understand it. Immediately a thought comes to me, I bring out my phone, go to my memo and just type it out so I wouldn’t forget; then work on it later. 
If I’m in the middle of a conversation and something pops in my head, out comes my phone. And if I can’t type at that time, I would just keep repeating it in my head still it sticks: of which that conversation has already ended to me because my attention would be divided after that. At any given time, I always have at least 5 topics in my memo for future use. Okay maybe not 5, let’s say 3.  Some worked on; others just remain a couple of lines because I can’t decide what angle to lasso them from and how to move forward. Believe it or not, for the first couple of months- I already had a story set out for every day. It was just for me to pick and choose which would get posted on Monday and which wouldn’t. 
Not every post goes through this method of scrutiny though. There are times; I’m dry as a bone. Nothing comes to me and I’m always fidgety about what to write, especially if I have to post the next day. There are also times push comes to shove:  when on the morning of post day, still nothing. Then I break myself and start the join join process with an unexpanded topic I have on my phone, and it eventually gets the best reviews. Y’all are awesome and unbelievable. The things we can pull out of ourselves when we are under pressure are amazing. I can’t say I’m going to stop planning all my posts from now on, and leave everything to seconds before deadline- I just thought this was worth a mention. As I said before, there’s almost no standard rule for anything and what worked for a certain person in a certain situation and at a certain time, if repeated by the same person at another time- might not work anymore. And because said person was successful with it doesn’t necessarily mean it would work for you, it’s all part of the topsy-turvy nature of life. Peace and love.
Friday, 27 July 2018. Time: 3:41am
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Polaroid

    Yo, have you ever sat down to think about the things you said before, or the things you thought about and how dumb they were? On some particular days, I just set aside everything I’m doing to go down memory lane and it’s always a bitter sweet experience. Face book memories have made it worse for me, and I’m thinking a lot of other people too. The first thing that comes to my mind is ‘Mark Zuckerberg wan cast’. I definitely share some memories when they come up, but there are some that are so stupid, I can’t believe I used to speak, think or act in that manner. 
My convictions were so strong, and my ideologies were troublesome. To start with, I used to type with a lot of abbreviations, no commas or full stop, talk less of leaving a space in-between each word. Ironically, I don’t even understand some of the memories anymore. The me then, and the me now would never be friends, as a matter of fact those guys are so far apart in thinking, they might as well be strangers. The beauty of our daily evolution is progressing to be a different and almost unrecognizable figure from who we were yesterday.  In as much as we might think we aren’t changing, our thought process and belief system is being moulded and re-shaped every day, even as you read this piece.
It’s always funny when you see those guys that try to win their girlfriends back with the ‘I was immature then but I know better now’ line. Know better?  Dude, it was just a couple of months ago, and you are technically still the same person:  but that is as far from the truth as a lie could get. A lot can happen in a couple of hours, a couple of days and a couple of months. I’m not the perfect person, but I think I like the space I’m in right now. I’m evolving and changing. Leaving myself open for new things to come in. In light of it, I think most of my indecisiveness comes from that, even if not most- it plays a key part in it. Indecisiveness in the sense that, my old values and new values always have a power tussle- which makes it almost impossible to come to a conclusion. 
Change has also made me realize sometimes you can’t always wait for the perfect condition, another contributory factor to the above mentioned indecision. Sometimes you just have to take the good with the bad and dance in the rain. You can’t put your life on hold waiting for the perfect conditions to come, if you’re lucky they will and if you’re not, they won’t. So if you look at yourself in the mirror a couple of months from now, and you don’t recognize the person staring back at you; remember that it’s still you. You’re just a maze of evolution and forever changing patterns. Peace and love.
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Sommeliers are not from Somalia

    I can’t stop stressing the importance of breathers. When you’ve been at a problem for a while and it seems you just can’t get past a block, take a break from it. There’s no use hammering at it, most likely you still won’t get it to work. Just leave it, go do something else and come back to attack it with fresh eyes. Different things act as breathers for different people. For some, it could be taking a break to eat or taking a break to have a bath. You could even leave it for a couple of days to attend to other things: something to distract you and take your mind off it. Either way usually does the trick. 
My own thing is taking Strolls: there’s nothing as refreshing as the air on my face. I don’t even think of anything, I just go. Seeing the faces of people, hearing their voices and just being by myself with my thoughts does something for me I don’t think any therapist can. Strolls and walking have become such a big part of my life, it’s almost annoying. When I get to a new place, the first thing I do is take a stroll. Somehow I feel I get to know the place a little bit more when I do that. It’s not like I’m out her touching streets, or licking pavements and listening to wind whispers, but walking or strolling gets me in tune with nature and reality. It’s always amusing when I’m walking and people assume it’s because I don’t have money. You couldn’t be farther from the truth; I’m just walking because I’m walking, deal with yourself. 
When on these strolls, I don’t think of anything in particular. I just open my mind up for new ideas to be imprinted. I always keep it a blank slate, no need to take a breather from something only to continue thinking about it on said breather; that would be rather counterproductive. When you come back, most times new patterns and angles emerge that could be a more feasible place to tackle the problem from. My cousin plays a lot of FIFA online on his Xbox, and one day I watched him go through a 3 match losing streak, then he startles me by jumping up to switch off the game console. When I asked him why, he said ‘if you’re playing online and you lose two games, you would most likely keep losing the rest if you continue, so don’t.  Switch off the console, take some time off then come back much later, and your luck might have changed’. 
I don’t know if that’s an exact science, but it obviously works for him. Even during exams and you’re stuck on a particular problem, it’s usually advisable to go through others first, tackle the ones you know then come back to the ones you don’t.  I’ve found that theory helpful at least once or twice. Never allow yourself to get chocked up. Most of us work better under pressure, but when that becomes a personal motto, baggage keeps piling up until your nerves snap out of desperation. If you’re not used to breathers, start taking them. If you do, you’re on the right path. Just keep doing you, peace and love.
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Lookie loo and the knows

    As far back as I can remember, I’ve been a curious person. I’ve always wanted to know the reason for things, and the stories behind certain incidents. The ‘I need to know’ factor has been lurking in my life for the longest time, and people really underestimate my need to know. Curiosity and inquisitiveness are one of the distinguishing traits between human beings and animals, and constantly striving to get better only comes from knowing, and knowing is gotten from understanding. Even when God gave dominion to man over all animals, we still had to understand them to lock into that declaration, so there you go. In my head, my recollection of primary school plays like an old VHS tape; some parts are clear and concise, and others are just filled with static. 
Either way, I remember my best thing to do back then was to look out of the window into the streets, and wonder what the numerous people outside were doing? Where we’re they going, and why weren’t they in school or at work? I would occasionally go out of class and walk the quiet hallways of Fountain nursery and primary school- peering into rooms, or sometimes just enjoying the peace and quiet. You may have guessed it, despite having friends- I wasn’t the most social child. I didn’t really mind that I didn’t play with too many people and they didn’t play with me either: I was more on the quiet side. I’ve always been a looker; I love to stare at things and internalize, or sometimes just ask seemingly random questions. 
These days, it’s like the basic inquisitive instinct in people is dead, so they’re always surprised whenever they come across a person who has an active sense of reasoning. It’s like Whoa! Are you serious with that question? Yea buddy, I’m serious like a heart attack. Sometimes I ask questions and people think I’m trolling, or intentionally try to piss them off and make a joke. They couldn’t be farther from the truth; most times I just want to know stuff. If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t have asked (isn’t that the whole point of a question). I’m aware that I confuse people when I ask a question or say something with a smile on my face, they can never tell if I’m being serious or not. To be honest, that holds a 50/50 probability rate- as it could be either of the two i.e. Serious/not so serious. Because I question something doesn’t mean I don’t believe in it. It just means I want to know more to understand it better. For example: if you have any questions about religion, people naturally assume you don’t believe in God. The correlation between the two and their methods of jumping or arriving at that conclusion, I never seem to understand. 
Seeing an egg, and asking questions about that egg: where it comes from, what’s inside, who made it and such doesn’t alter the fact that you can still see the egg, it’s visible- present, and may or may not end up as an omelette in your stomach later on. You’re only asking because you would simply like to know more. So many things are affected by people not asking questions, even this religious gullibility we’re experiencing on a large scale stems from the fact that people don’t want to know, they would rather be told. Questions are frowned upon like you’re mad when you ask too much. Before, the slogan was ‘read before you sign’, now if you even ask what you’re signing for it’s a problem. He say-she say and word of mouth are the order of the day. As we age, let’s try to hang on to our child like curiosity, and aim to know more on our own as opposed to believing the perceived norm. Be inquisitive, don’t be an animal today. Peace and love
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To Biker and Margaret

    Sometimes, I believe I’m going to be a good dad- and at others not so much. I’m not a judgemental sort of guy, and although kids are expected to be prim and proper, I’ve come to terms with the fact that not everything is going to go according to plan every time. I’m also under no illusion that kids don’t curse. I know they do, so no stress: just caution them to know when to curse, and when not to. I’m basically a kid myself, and I want to have more of a friend relationship than a strict father relationship with my children. Yes I’m going to be very stern, I’m 10 out of 10 going to beat my kids but, apologetically: you know those parents that after they beat you, tell you why they beat you, and apologize for beating you? Yes those guys. I’m going to take my time to impart life skills and lessons. The same things that applied to me as a child, would apply to them too. 
Always say please and thank you, never pick your nose in public, don’t eat outside (politely decline when asked), don’t be rude or you might get a slap, don’t be cheeky or you will get a slap (maybe not a slap, but something will definitely happen to you), always have fun but not too much fun, don’t stay in anybody’s house till after 6pm, and I mean anybody. It’s always amazing whenever I see my neighbour’s kids (unaccompanied by their parents) in my house at past 7; my mum would have killed me. She actually beat me on a couple of occasions, until I learnt that lesson the hard way. I feel like a lot of parents are neglecting their kids and not bringing them up properly. Both parents are chasing money, never spending enough time to relate some quality values to their kids. I understand the need for money, but we all should also understand the need to pay attention. 
Never alienate your kids to the extent they feel they can never talk to you.  Whenever I hear rich people say they won’t leave their kids anything when they die, all I can think of is look at this idiot. You’re deliberately and consciously making the decision not to leave your kids anything, and somehow you think you’re wise and teaching them a vital life lesson? Speaking of money, I remember when I was small and I respected beggars and poor people so much, I never wanted to hurt their feelings, so I would be most careful around them. Knowing me, even if I fail at teaching my children all these things, what you can be rest assured is that my kids would have a strong moral compass. They would know right from wrong; when to stand up with your head bowed, and when to look people square in the eyes just like daddy does. Always respect, but never fear anybody. Teach them the small street smarts I have. Don’t think it’s innocent when another man taps your pockets and asks you what do you have (except he’s a robber and you’re at gunpoint): he’s about to obtain you. If you’re outnumbered, comply. If you’re not, be firm and wisely stand your ground. 
In the event of having a girl, I would be head over heels for her, especially if she has big cheeks. Allow her drink almost whatever she wants from the best cup, that way no man would entice her by luring her to come and drink something special in his house from a gold cup. She would be used to special. No half baked kids over here, so years of speech training in primary school just like I had, would cut it. Spelling bees, non competitive quizzes and brain matches would/should be regular. She’s going to be the right balance of party girl and bookie. I’m not going to give any sob story about my childhood: what I had or did not have. My childhood was a hoot. No comparison whatsoever, I’ll even join them to gossip about their friends that are dickheads. But most importantly, I’ll give them an opportunity to make decisions by themselves. Treat them like human beings not owned creatures. Listen to them, reverse roles, and teach them to always face the consequence of any decision they make, just like my mum taught me. They’ll be wonderful kids: and you’ll all be proud. You’ll love them even more than you love me, that’s a promise. Peace and love.

Ps: nobody is pregnant

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Hateraid

    Who creates all these funny standards some of us live by, and where did we learn it from? You’ll hear the things some people say or see what they type, and start wondering how you never knew this level of stupidity existed. It’s only right to open the floor with the ones that think staying off social media is a sign of maturity, and it somehow proves they are busier than the rest of us. They’ll now be forming I have things to do, as if everybody else is just sitting around and waiting for Jesus to come , while they started a fortune 500 company with the time they had. I can understand it if you genuinely don’t rate social media or you don’t like the level of pretence on there, but to go out of your way to form activity because you want to create a ‘my life is busy’ mentality is just foolishness, and you’re not well. Let’s move on to the ones that are ever so ready to dictate, and tell others how to live their lives. The ones that can’t marry a man that earns 50k, and will advise you to move out of your matrimonial home: because you and your husband had the smallest of arguments? 
The ones that would spoon feed you with their thoughts of what an ideal man/woman should be, and how they should behave? Have you ever sat down to ask why most of those people are hardly in any happy relationships? Even if they are, most times you would find out that their spouse constantly flirts with the thought of suicide from having to deal with an unbearable person like them. Me personally, I don’t even think anybody that earns 50k should be thinking of marriage. But if as a lady you can deal with that, how is it my business? I’m confused. Is there like a book, or some sort of standard outline that I don’t know about? Somewhere people go and look up silly rules to dictate to others? These kind of people are even good; the ones I truly find hard to understand are those ones that knock other people’s hustle. Apart from the ‘if you’re happy for others, God will do the same for you’ philosophy, can’t you just be happy for another person’s accomplishment? 
As they say misery needs company. Because they don’t have it, they have to break down the ego of someone else who has it. Some people are just natural haters, they really can’t help themselves. My 3 year old niece is always complaining about this one girl in her class that beats her and breaks all her things. We didn’t really pay any mind to it, as we didn’t think it was serious. A couple of weeks back, my niece celebrated her birthday in school. She looked stunning, with a lovely silver tiara on her head to finish her look. When she got back from school, the tiara was broken, and your guess is as good as mine as to who broke it; the same girl that was always troubling her. But we were all in the birthday mood, so we let it slide. Days after that, the pictures she took in school with her classmates were sent to the house, and we noticed a particular child that stood at the opposite end of the pictures, with the meanest look of envy coupled with hatred and disgust on her face, boring holes into my nieces skull with her eyes. We were shocked, how a little child could muster so much hate that it would get captured in a picture was unbelievable. She was hard to miss; as she appeared in almost every picture, with a scowl on her face. So we asked, ‘who is this girl’? Lo and behold, it turned out to be the same girl that always breaks her things, and we were all like no wonder. Some people just have hate in them, the Stinkmeanor’s of this world. Forbes recently named Kylie Jenner a soon to be youngest self made billionaire off of her cosmetic/make up money, and social media went crazy. Everybody had an opinion.
 I mean, people were discussing it in offices; with opinions being divided for the most part, but everybody had something to say. I for one was happy for her. The kardashian/Jenner clan have shown time and time again that they can turn a bad situation into a good one, and they aren’t just pretty faces. Regardless of how they became famous, they have shown that they have business acumen: obvious from the one or two or three or four business decisions they’ve made, which is ultimately backed by the kardashian brand and momager/marketing guru, Kris Jenner. Speaking of Kris Jenner, one twitter user was so angry, he went on a rant about how she isn’t self made, how Kylie leveraged off her KUWTK fame, and the only self made person in the family is Kris. Why are you mad? If she leveraged off the success of the show, so what? How many other people have had popular shows and still didn’t do anything with their fame? All that aside, she succeeded in the line of business she chose: how is that a bad thing? When did we become so bitter that we just can’t be happy at other people’s success, and have to find ways to complain and bring them down? She didn’t steal or cheat to become a billionaire, she did legitimate business: when did that become a problem? Please, sense for sense sake. Peace and love
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My 50 cents

    In life, people always expect preferential treatment from you based on the relationship you have with them. They expect that when they do wrong, you should naturally take their side. For me, that is quite hard. I believe right is right and wrong is wrong. So, if you’re expecting some sort of special treatment from me, sorry to disappoint you. Me, I’m just going to check you regardless of who you are, where we are, and sometimes how old you are. If I support you when you’re wrong based on who you are to me, isn’t that a slight on my character? Because that indirectly means I’m aiding and abating ‘wrong’ and I can’t stand for that. Old people especially in Nigeria are walking around with the belief that they shouldn’t be checked on account of their age and purported ‘wisdom’. 
Every human being until the time of death is constantly learning, nobody is above mistakes; and learning from your mistakes is growth. That doesn’t apply to young people alone, it applies to everybody. In my opinion, old people act up just as much as young people but expect you to let it slide. If I do something and admit I’m wrong, I’m definitely open to reasoning and correction. But if the same can’t be said for you because you’re old, and it’s disrespectful to disrespect old people, where is that leading all of us. There’s an Asian proverb that says ‘you can never fill your cup, if it’s already full i.e. you can’t learn anything new if you already know everything. 
Ordinary sorry is hard for some people to say. Admitting they made a mistake is like openly admitting they are prejudiced, which is like openly admitting they have an STD: never going to happen. I think it’s about high time, old people are held accountable for their antics, especially their words. I’m not going to give anybody any preferential treatment, family or friend. As I said in Line 3 or 4 above, wrong is wrong and right is right. The way young people stand to be corrected is the same way old people should be corrected (with all due respect). All this misplaced priorities and out of proportion respect is becoming annoying.
I got into a filled up BRT bus last week, and I had to stand because there were no seats available. A couple of school kids were already sitting in the bus, and one of them offered his seat to me which I declined. Then some young men at the back unaware that he had offered before and i refused, told him to stand up for me to sit down and I declined again. I know a lot of people would jump at that offering, but in the real sense (still using me as the example), how old am I?  Am I too old to stand? Am I sick or Am I pregnant that I desperately need to sit down? That small boy had every right on that seat. He got into the bus before I did, so I would have basically taken advantage of him if I took his seat on account of being older than he was. In my head, doing that is equivalent to ‘riding’ him, and that’s not the man or adult I’m trying to be. On the real, I’m not even close to being an ultimate man nor I’m I telling anyone to go and disrespect anybody, but too many times we all forget that respect is earned. It should be given freely, not demanded for or assumed. Peace and love.
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Don’t drop the soap

    These days, you can’t log on to social media without seeing one or two stories about rape. The funny thing now is, there are a lot: so it’s hard to separate fact from fiction, as a couple of sob stories have been busted as lies. I strongly insist that our men act right, but I’m also going to implore the women to be very sensible too. Men, because a woman dresses in something revealing; doesn’t give you any right to get frisky with her unless she wants it. She staring back at you isn’t verbal confirmation or confirmation of any sort for that matter. And women, in as much as everybody is entitled to wear whatever they want, you should realize that men are creatures driven by sight: and with some men, the more revealing your dress is, the easier it is for them to fantasize about you (even if you’re right in front of them), and the harder it is for them to control their sexual urges. 
Men are very easily turned on, and it’s very possible to get a guy sexually aroused without even knowing it. It may be the way you talk, you mistakenly whisper in his ears, or some involuntary action he deems as a flirtatious or green light, and he’s good to go. So you have to be careful, not every man is able to apply the same level of restraint. For some depraved predators, just being female is sexy enough, they don’t need another reason. Rape and consent are synonymous because you can’t speak on one without bringing up the other. I understand that No means No, but when you place yourself in a sexually charged situation or atmosphere- you should expect some sort of sexual activity. Hypothetically speaking now, a guy and a girl go on a date. She comes through looking inviting like small chops at a wedding, all throughout the date she’s acting flirtatious: whispering in his ears, looking at him all seductive, gumming body either through hugs or teasing him with a playful/amateur lap dance, then at the end of the day they both go to his place. 
She says she isn’t going to stay long, he’s like no worries. They have a steamy make-out session, after which she proceeds to give him a happy ending either by way of a blow or hand job. Then the fully aroused guy (being of sound mind and body), wants to have sex and she says NO. Finally, something quite drastic happens, and I’m thinking, what did she expect? I’m not saying it’s right, but if you don’t want it even in the slightest, why place yourself in that situation at all? Because I can control myself at times like that doesn’t mean the next man can, and I’m not making excuses for anybody. Yes, a man should know how to control his urges, but honestly: that’s easier said than done. You having consensual sex with a guy, and later accusing him of rape as a means to defame or punish him, technically isn’t rape. 
You’re just ruining people’s lives and reputations. Because, once someone has been accused of rape, that brand stays with them forever: whether they did it or not. If you said yes to him, but he didn’t hold up his end of the bargain after the fact, that is not rape. Rape is a stigma for both the accuser and accused, and shouldn’t be a vindictive tool for defamatory revenge. Men, if you know any of your friends are exhibiting some funny behavior, talk to him and don’t sweep it under the rug. Don’t be a party to his foolishness. Aggressive consensual sex is different from rape. If you get hurt while engaging in S&M, or some other freaky bondage type things, that’s on you. You brought that on yourself, really.  I strongly believe that jail time or some sort of punishment should be attached to wrongfully accusing people of rape. It’s happening everywhere not only in Nigeria, even abroad. Women lying and damaging the reputations of men they labeled rapists. You can only do right if you know right. Peace and Love.
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The Woman Ordeal

    Anyone that knows me knows I’m very big on equality. For the most part, I think this whole new age ‘Feminism’ is sometimes blown out of proportion. But every now and then, something happens that provides a glimpse into what women are dealing with, and you understand why they are so pained. Being a man shouldn’t stop you from speaking the truth, and the truth simply is some men are pigs. I thought things were getting better?  Once in a while, you come across a person who you feel has some sense, expresses some opinions that make him shine like a beacon: but the hypocrisy that exists nowadays is something else. The only place some men display any shred of decency is on social media, or whenever they have a public platform at their disposal. 
Always pretending to say something sensible- keeping up appearances, while creating an illusion of intelligence and inclusion. Most times, men are bullies, and naturally expect everything to go their way. Some men reek of ignorance that is disguised as Testosterone, which is in turn masked by their ego. Some don’t even have any reason for trying to put a woman down. You ask them why and they reply ‘Just because’, like ‘just because’ is a good enough reason. In a bid to get dominance that is supposed to be earned, they try to be forcefully assertive every time: even with other men, which usually results in a fight. Most women can’t fight a fit man, as 7 out of 10 times they will be bested, so in a bid not to be taken for granted, they start acting up. Some even have their defenses up so much, they just spazz out at whatever feels like a slight on their person. I witnessed an incident last week Friday that re-awakened my consciousness, and inspired today’s write-up. 
I was at a restaurant with a friend somewhere in Ikeja, when a woman came in and announced that she was looking for the owner of a taxi with plate number bla bla bla. A man beside me responded in the affirmative, and she simply told him he blocked her car in, and he should come and move his. He immediately said he was coming, not offering any sort of apology for blocking her car. She went out to wait for him, thinking he would follow: but after waiting for a bit and didn’t see him come out, she looked in through the sliding door to see that he was still sitting and eating his food. She came back in and said ‘oga come and move your car now, I have to go’, to which he replied ‘Ah I can’t come until I finish eating, madam I can’t leave my food’. All this while, I’m sat right beside them- minding my business, but I was shocked. The woman began arguing with him and he continues to eat. For some odd reason, there were only men in the shop, and up until then we all pretended to be preoccupied with the telly. I got involved when I noticed the other men in the restaurant supporting the man that was eating. ‘madam you can’t expect him to leave his food’, ‘madam this is a public place’ bla bla bla, even the friend I was with started chatting about ‘he can’t leave his food’. 
At this point, all I’m thinking is ‘what sort of desperation made this woman go from shop to shop in a crowded complex, looking for the person that blocked her in? The chances that she would actually succeed using that method are almost astronomical. But she did it anyway, which goes to show she must have really needed to go. Long story short, I raised my voice in her defence, and luckily the guy gets up to move his car. And just then I realized something; if not for me, these men were about to bully that woman. Without my intervention, it would have been just her against at least 5 men- and she would have been outnumbered. But immediately I stepped in, they all went silent and just murmured quietly because they didn’t want to get into it with me. Is this what women experience daily? What if she had a sick or dying person inside the car? She would have had to wait for him to finish eating. What if he took 15minutes? Would she have to wait the whole time? Really, let’s not take this whole ‘the man is the head’ mantra out of context. Know that although she’s a woman, she’s a human being too. Everybody deserves to be treated with respect, not only men. Before you act a fool, ask yourself: if you were the one in her shoes, what would you do and would you allow it? Peace and Love