IT'S NOT YOU....IT'S ME!

I'm feeling rather frivolous today, we’ve had some deep stuffs (‘stuff’ I know has no plural but if you know…you know!) on blog recently.
So we need to lighten things up.

Today I want to talk about modern day ‘Ships’.…new word for ‘Relationship’ (true story I didn't make that up). How times have changed, in fact to write this blog I’ve constantly had to refer to a new favourite of mine…The Urban Dictionary, an online dictionary for slangs and phrases. A great concept where people try to outdo each other with their crazy definitions of these latest slangs and words.


In recent years relationship shenanigans have become a new ball game.  No longer clear cut to the extent that a new type of ‘ship’ has evolved a ‘Situationship’. Yep you've read me right! Cambridge dictionary is not going to help you here. Urban Dictionary defines a 'Situationship' as 'a relationship that has no label on it… like a friendship, but more than a friendship, but not quite a relationship. “Friends With Benefits” are in a situationship, likewise people that are ‘A Thing’ are in a situationship’. If you don't know what ‘A friend with benefits’ is…. I can't help you, Google is your friend!
   
Back in the day when things were straightforward the relationship game was a simple 1+1=2 it went something like this:
Jonny likes Cynthia>> Jonny toasts Cynthia>>after a bit of shakara (aka; hard- to-get) Cynthia agrees=Relationship (and they lived happily ever after)
Or a not so happy ending possibly; Jonny meets Uche>>Jonny starts mixing ogbono with egusi>>Jonny starts ‘picking quarrel’ with Cynthia>> Jonny dumps Cynthia, gives Uche 'belly'  then marries Chioma=The End. We are still looking for Jonny till tomorrow, while Chioma is looking for assurance!  
                     
There were limited phrases to describe love or the feeling associated with it. We had butterflies in the tummy, our hearts either ‘skipped a beat’ or were broken, we were either in a committed ‘ship’ or a not so committed ‘ship’. You were either happy with your bloke/babe or not. Letters were written ‘you are the sugar in my tea, the strap of my bra, our love is like a ship on the ocean, hope this letter meets you well…if so doxology’ 😐

Now in this 21st century The Urban dictionary has found its niche as there are so many new types of feelings associated with these situationships that a regular dictionary cannot define.

Please bring out your jotters and urban dictionaries as I give you a  ‘SHIP 101 Tutorial.

We start with the biggest fat lie of all time, iconic title of this blog post: The ‘It's not you….it’s me’ situation. Defined as warning sign that you are about to get dumped, classified as a lie because in more cases than not what the ‘dumper’ actually means…. is that it is YOU (the dumpee) that is the problem and not them! But they want the least amount of grief in disengaging so they play this reverse psychology game! It's an untruth to cover the real reason like incompatibility, not finding one attractive or simply a case of having enjoyed the attention but not wanting to commit.


Another lovely one is ‘I need some space’ aka ‘Benching’ this means ‘I met someone and want to see where it will go, if it doesn't work out I will come back’. So they do what it says on the tin…sit you on the bench! One will not know whether they are coming or going as the ‘bencher’ scouts around for better options!
 
As you start to think but that's so cruel, the ‘Ghosts’ of the 'Ghosting' brigade come out of the closet! These one’s have modern technology to thank for their existence and this is how it rolls. Musa meets Ekate, everything is intense, he is totally smitten with her. They talk every day morn, noon and night, Whatsapp, Insta, facebook and snapchat. Musa starts to set his clock by Ekate, he's in the comfort zone, then one day he does not hear from Ekate. He calls her…. she does not pick (sorry to go off point but other day at work I was asked Ola, why do you say someone ‘does not pick phone’ it's supposed to be ‘ they did answer the call’ I replied where I come from that’s how we say it) anyways I digress! Ekate is not picking her phone, he Whatsapp’s her….  ‘the blue tick is not ticking’, he tries to slide in her Direct messages….he can't slide, he attempts to contact her on facebook…she has unfriended him and her status has been updated from ‘In a ‘ship’ to ‘it’s complicated’. He sends her a tweet….she has blocked him😩😢
     
He cannot visit her as he lives in Calabar and she lives in Sokoto (notice what I did there?)
Head in hands Musa now spends the rest of his days recounting every single conversation he ever had with Ekate wondering what he has done to upset her. He’s just been ‘ghosted’ by a ‘ghost’ he is the ‘ghostee’. Can you imagine the emotional torment?
 
But all is not lost my people as ‘ghosting has a junior sister, her name is is ‘Bread Crumbing’. In this case the ‘breadcrumber’ once again does what it says on the label. Picture this you are sitting on park bench and all the lovely ducks are walking around. You bring out some bread and sprinkle on the pavement and they all come flapping around you, eating the crumbs, you enjoy the attention but after a while you tire of them so you put the bread back into your plastic biodegradable bag (decided to go green here!) and suddenly the ducks all disappear.  You read a few pages of your novel ‘The Many Wives of Baba Segi’ but then get a bit bored. You look across the pond and notice an elderly couple bringing out a loaf of bread, the ducks have started to gather around them, you are not having that, so you quickly start breaking the bread and ‘scattering’ again. The duck come waddling towards you! Summary: flirting that leads no where…a few random texts to keep one interested, blowing hot and cold and not letting the ‘breadcrumbee’ leave you. Just giving enough to keep them interested.

I know you're thinking ‘a beg’ Negative Nelly this is all so negative…But we do have a ‘kind of' positive situation though. It's called ‘cushioning’ when I think of cushions; comfort and security comes to mind. This one plays out like this; Dino fancies Esabod even though she is in a committed ‘ship with Boniface 👀🙈. He knows it is wrong to start flirting with or wooing (do people still use this word?) Esabod. So what he does is to start hovering around her like vulture. He will send her the occasional innocent ‘Hi Esabod, how are you doing’, nothing to blatant, just occasional memes,YouTube videos and jokes making the rounds. All in case of ‘incasity’ she breaks up with Boniface then Dino will be the ‘cushion’ she runs to🏃🏾♀️ 🤔
Ingenious isn't it?

Let me sip some water while we move on to ‘Draking’ named after the popular Canadian rapper, Drake of the ‘Kiki do you love me? Are you ridin' ‘fame. Now if you ever listen to his lyrics you’ll find they can be ever so deep, love related and all about scars or wounds of a broken heart and so philosophical blah blah blah. Come on…. we all know them, the ones that live out their whole love life on Social media. The DP says it all….black screen for the bad times, the ‘couple with entwined fingers’ for the good times. The philosophic quotes like ‘if something is yours set it free let it go…if it comes back it is yours…if it doesn't blah blah blah blah blah’ for the times when they've broken up. All plays out like a soap opera…stop Draking it is all so boring and clichè.
 
I’ll give you a quick tale, went to a Naija restaurant and was seated besides a young couple, the girl was constantly scrolling through her phone that was on her lap, looking bored, she also wasted half of her meal. The dude was chatting away looking at her adoringly. My friend was so irritated saying ‘these young ones of nowadays how will they find husband’🙄, I asked her to mind her business but she was having none of it. As soon as dude stood up to use the gents….my friend jumped in with both feet! She leaned over to the lady whispering ‘haba why now? I beg pay this guy some attention now, it’s obvious he likes you, why are you  concentrating on your phone and wasting his money it's not good oh’. The woman replied  ‘yes I know he likes me… he's my husband!’
Phone distraction…secret use of phone when in company, rudest dating trend ever aka ‘sidebarring’  😩

On that note ‘accolades’ to the Urban dictionary for helping us out today👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾. Can you identify any of the above? Or do you think they only apply to the millennials?
And a little assignment for you….What is Kitten-Fishing?

Ps. Thank you for the phone calls and messages I received in support of my brother, Akeem. I shall keep you posted. God bless.


Have a great weekend, I'll bench you till next time when I'll breadcrumb you!

💅🏾