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Love: From the Archives of this 21year Old

love from the archives

When I was a kid, love was my mum bringing me a humongous strawberry ice cream cone, daddy carrying me on his shoulders, kisses from aunts and tickling from uncles. As soon as I could read a little love became fairytales, Cinderella and Rapunzel. When I became old enough to read novels, which I confess is lots earlier than you would think, it was the hero that professed his undying loyalty. The hero that fought for he lady, pampered her, lived for her and sometimes died for her.

Love was basically the perfect man. Then teenage hormones set in and my views changed again. Now the cutetest loner boy in class, the ripped bad boys and the cocky arrogant guys basically all the boys that are wrong became the yardstick to measure this emotion. Sometimes I could even be that older guy who you know is totally unattainable. The older guy syndrome faded fast though, starry eyed I may be but stupid I am not.

Heroes and their ladies..

And so the hero complex definition of love stuck. I gorged on movies, novel and everything that reinforced that belief. In movies love is a spark, love is when eyes meet across the table, love is magical, and it is a trouble free ride to paradise, love is a fairytale…. Love is cliché.

 You know that when we build up a pre conceived notion of how something is supposed to be in our heads it is pretty hard to let go of it. Let’s say, like sex. Now in every novel, movie, or fictional work, sex is like finding the treasure at the end of a rainbow. It is built up to make every girl want the whole she-bang. But in reality, sometimes sex sucks. Your fist time, sex is usually painful, that doesn’t make it less important it just helps us appreciate it more.

What do girls want?

love from the archives

We want Mr. charming to come in and sweep us off our feet. It’s in our nature to want all the good and none of the bad just like hot make up sex with no breakup. We want hero’s, gentlemen, bad boys that will be good for us. Every girl who has ever read a novel or seen a movie wants what was promised her, a forever kind of love. We want the spark, and moonlight walks and it’s not bad to want it, all that’s bad is forgetting that the bad makes us appreciate the good more.

But my fall from cloud 9 to reality took a really long time. I had thought that love was simple, easy, and straightforward. I once fell head over heels for a guy because of his smile. Unfortunately for me, he didn’t see me he same way but I had my movies and they gave me hope that one day he would come groveling. I mean how could he do any different, he was supposed to be my first and last love. Love was everything to me, at least it was.

The truth

Doubt began to creep in when Mr. Soul mate refused to show up. But I put my heart out there again and again. But something began to happen every time I opened my heart and I got disappointed – again and again I might add – I began to believe less.  Giving words to my feelings is a form of therapy for me and most times I end up discussing them in abstract with someone. This is how I came to the conclusion that here is no such thing as a perfect love. Old fashioned love – YES but perfect love – No. I have been told a million and one times that I am too focused on looking for the fairytale that I miss the real thing. That may be true, but I’m not going to stop looking for my magic.

There are no real fairytales, no love without mistakes, forgiveness and all the major life lessons. In the midst of all that though, you will find the magic, the happiness, the sense of safety. Fairytales feed our need to lie on a bed of roses, unfortunately, in real life roses have thorns. I know I am never happier than when the hero gets together with the lady and they live ‘happily ever after’.

 Love in the 90’s

I lived the most of my life with my grandpa and grand ma till my grandpa passed away. Although an extremely brilliant and smart man, an easy man he was not. A few years after his death, I and my grandma were discussing friendships built in her time vs. how we build them now. Somehow we ended up talking about love and I told her I always wondered why grandpa didn’t love her again. She laughed and told me that her husband loved her totally and completely. She aid although he had his faults (the cheating, shouting, even accusations money issues all of which I remembered) but in his own way he really loved her. Then she reminded me about the time he would hug her and play music and they would dance and he would draw me to them and we would all have a blast.

Imagine a woman I thought would resent her husband for all the pain he caused her, explaining gently to me – an onlooker- that all is not as it seemed.

My realization

Here is what I realized, the minute I was reminded of one good time, all the other little things I had forgotten started to come back. I’m not accepting though that love should have that much pain in it but I see now that love encompasses even the faults. And even with his faults, my grandfather respected my grandma, in every area.

I am not a girl who is #single life. I like the idea of a special person to share your life with. Someone who is just as whole as you are, and together makes you a better whole just as you make him better too.

My Stand, My Love

love from the archives

 People may say I have watched too many movies or read too many novels to be practical but here is my conclusion. I want to fall in love, the love that comes with fights and hurdles to pass through. The love that will give me peace and the happiest days I might have yet. I am not going to settle for less or just anybody. I want the fireworks, the magic, the sweet smelling rose petals and I will deal with the thorns as they come. If that is cliché, then yes world! I am cliché. It’s all in the way you see it.

I want crazy stupid love and by God I will get it, even if I have to fight for it.

Love and Light from this birthday girl .

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Bants with Rubies

Single in 9ja: the F code to why you are still single

     
Imagine my 15 year old cousin making fun of the fact that i am still a single pringle. Yes o!If you follow me on IG and have me on whatsapp you have probably seen this on my status/story. I will keep saying it though because it touched the bottom of my junk-food filled belly. If you happen to be single like me and have friends that any little thing its ‘lovey-dovey’ time , you kow how pained i am.
          Last week i went with my aunt @kemisolamoradeyo who is a relationship counselor to an event.On the way back in the taxify cab we started up a conversation about Davido and Chioma (i will just skip that part because if i start to talk ehn…)
      Anyways , we (i, my aunt and the taxify driver) began to discuss relationships and what men want from a lady. (maybe i’ll do a blog post on that from my aunts point of view). Now this talk was long and it moved from one topic to another. The driver supported the fact that my aunt said that no man right now wants a lady who does not have a job or a business of interest. He went further to give an example of a lady who he was dating  that spends 2 days learning tailoring and the rest partying.  A 29 year old lady who will travel from Illorin to Lagos to party. – picture me with my mouth open here because it just sounded like a Nollywood movie script.
        That aside , we then began to discuss ladies and guys who are single and yet are good-looking and well set up with a job/business. That was the conversation that inspired this post.
        If youre younger and you feel like this post is for the older ones,think again and if you are older and think this post is for the younger ones,you got it all wrong.
Serving it to you straight here is the F code to why you (we) are still single

  • You’re not putting your best foot foward

      Our generation is the ‘Slay Age’ as my aunt calls it and its a really apt description. I mean, there are times i see a 13 year old on instagram and i know that on IG she simply blows me out if the water. So tell me why when there are younger teens with the best dress sense ever , you now decide to use the most blurry unflattering picture ever as your dp. In as much as i am 10005% on this table that i am shaking and a devout supporter of the “lazy’ type of style, make sure your lazy is chic too. Starting this brand ‘Lazytrendychic’ is as much for my benefit as it is for yours, this blog has motivated me to dress better and make an effort (still lazy but well #shrug emoji).
        The fact is dressing lazy is not bad as long as it is lazy and chic. One thing my aunt said stuck with me. She said if she takes her kid son to the mall to pick a toy, he is automatically drawn to the shiny, prettily packaged toys first. This she related to both men and ladies. No matter how non-materialistic you are you still are drawn to appearances . So if you are drawn to fine nicely dressed guys , how come you ignore the fact that this applies to you too.
Dress up to feed your ego darlings. Do it for you!

  •          Ditch your ‘Dream Man’ fixation

     Eyyyyy! before you all come for me , i am not saying you lower your standards! For no reason at all should you lower your standards. Now lets be honest here, we all know that our dream men posess qualities that are just simply outrageous/ridiculous. I mean you find a fine bobo , 6’2 tall, good behaviour and just because your dream man has six packs and he doesn’t you say no. Pssst! take it from me, your villagers are at work. Hopefully las las its not a midget aunty will marry.
     On a more serious note though, we all need to re-evaluate and formulate more realistic expectations. Remember that at the end of the day, all you need is someone that makes you genuinely happy.

  • Break Free of your past

    There is a catch phrase coined by my continuously mentioned aunt that just explains this point for me .
“Shenk the Sheges”
        Dear darling girl or guy, you are out of that relationship for a reason. You cannot keep carrying a torch for your ex. In case you were not aware,everyone gives off a vibe subconsiously. No matter how much you want to get back into the game, without leaving the past behind you will keep giving off an unapproachable vibe to people interested in you.
your ex , in  this case is the ‘shege’. You need to Shenk – ditch the Shege– bad luggage.
    Plus , we all should be careful what kind of vibe we give off and we should also be doubly careful to not completely judge by the vibe a person gives off. It may all be in your head, so you gotta try to know for sure, Shikena.

  • You just don’t give a f#ck

        Pardon the obscene word  but honestly , those on this table just know themselves. If you fall into this category just smile to yourself. All i can say is Do your make up… or not ,dress up, go out and make the cash while having fun. When its the right time , the right guy will find you.  Remember this tips for later.
       Do not forget to like and comment guys. Plus share to every one you know and those you don’t. You can also follow me on IG @ireprubies and turn on post notifications to know when there is a new blog post. I try to post at  least once a week but ideally twice (Tuesday and Saturday).
 signing out, XOXO.

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