Is this how it is being a man? 🤔👀

​I often wonder how it feels to be a boy. 

Let’s start from the younger years. 

At a young age, in a traditional setting, you're spoilt. You’re the son of the , the soon-to-be ‘man of the house’. You’re given preferential treatment- you don’t have to do a lot of chores, you get the biggest meat in the pot after your dad and whenever you’re hungry, your sisters get yelled at for not giving you food. 

You feel loved. Cherished. 

You’re a boy after-all. 

In a  modern setting, I wouldn’t say it’s quite different, but there’s more chaos. If you have elder sisters, they refuse to be ridden because of their gender. You’re forced to wash all the plates in the kitchen. So you grumble but you get along with it and on some occasions, you go running to mummy, complaining, lamenting and definitely exaggerating. 

“Mummy they want to kill me with plates in this house.”

“It’s not me that used all those plates and they want only me to wash it.”

Your maternal figure stands up, she rises to your defense. 

How dare they ask her son to be in a kitchen washing plates?

You walk behind her, finding it hard to swallow your smile as you watch her shout at your elder sisters. 

“I don’t want to meet that kitchen like that and this boy isn’t washing anything.’

You know your sisters would be angry with you but for that moment, you’re relieved.

You watch them grumble and move grudgingly to the kitchen whilst you lay down on the biggest sofa in the parlour, stretching your legs in an effort to relax. 

You’re a boy after-all. 

 

And then, you grow. 

You grow from being a child to your teenage years. 

Puberty hits. 

You grow taller and your voice begins to deepen. 

You begin to know what emotions are and the sexual beast in you awakens. 

Tola that used to look normal in a school uniform now begins to look more big- breasted and when you look at the girl you once termed your best friend, all you can imagine is she under you.

But, you’re notorious. 

You’re the troublemaker of the school, the one teachers term a ‘bad influence’ but always smile at you when you wink at them. 

You’re now an handsome teenage boy after-all. 

You get your first girlfriend and you’re new to this thing called ‘love’. So. You give her everything you think could be love. You text her till 2am on a school night, kiki-ing on 2go and telling her

‘evn in ma drms, I thnk abt u’

She blushes. She’s your first true love you think to yourself. 

You see her in a class and you throw a love note in her bag.,

Anything to make her smile. You imagine her reaction when she reads the line:

‘i wll tke a bullet 4 u’

She texts you the night of that day, you talk about kissing each other. It’s your first chat about sexual things, you’re excited, agitated but you have to act like it’s nothing. 

You also have to act like it’s nothing when you see her kissing your best friend under the stairs. 

You break up with her but you can’t show that the golden notorious boy of the school is heartbroken, can you?

You’re broken, shattered. You thought she was your forever. You had dreams of marrying her and then you make an oath to yourself. 

‘Women don’t deserve good things. I’ll be a player.’

It’s a coping mechanism because you’re weak. You know it, but you do not care. You know you’re resorting to being a ‘player’ because you’re scared of being hurt. 

But you can’t get hurt. 

Men are robots, they’re not supposed to feel any emotions.

Atleast that’s what you’ve been told since you were younger. 

And so, you cover up all of your emotions

Because soon,

You’ll be a man. 

 

You fast forward into your 20-s. The societal pressure is huge but you have no idea what you’re doing with your life. It frustrates you that everybody acts like they’ve figured it out but you’re losing your shit. 

There are so many opportunities but you have to have money to make money. 

With Funke constantly billing you 2500 for amala, you bury your head in your palms and you wonder how you will ever have enough capital to have something good running. But you’re a man, you cannot decline when she asks you for money to buy wigs. 

Should you dare and she goes on twitter to post:

‘The men with small dicks that we’re managing sef cannot pay for our bills.’

You can’t imagine how much your boys would laugh at you, how they would torment you and make the regular jokes about it. 

Even though your dick was nowhere near small. 

You reminisce about the girl you fell in love with. The one who wanted to help you grow into something bigger, better. You sigh and it still hurts that you let her slip away. You think about the good times you had with her, the midnight snuggles and the stolen kisses. You sigh and you shake your head. You think about the break up and wonder if you should have fought harder for her? She never billed you like Funke, whose only advantage was the constant good sex. You sigh. How are you meant to go about this? You’re going through your midlife crisis at 23!.

You sleep. 

You wake up, you scroll through your phone to ease your burden and ease even a little of the pain and confusion in your heart.

You open your whatsapp and it’s filled with the everyone wishing Tunji the Yahoo boy congratulations for buying a new Mercedes Benz- the latest model.

You wonder to yourself:

“Abi fraud is the way ni?”

A message comes through from Funke

‘Babe you’ve not sent me money for my nails. They’ll look really good on your…’

You wonder to yourself again.

“Abi I should use this girl?”

You laugh it off, shake your head and comment ‘oppression o. congratulations boss’ on Tunji’s post. 

Your sister’s call comes in. 

Another billing. 

But you can’t tell her you’re broke. 

You’re a man.

Your mum’s call comes up next, you already know what she was going to say. 

‘Get a job my dear.’

‘Get a wife my love, your daddy married me when he was 21. I need grandchildren soon.’

But how will you provide for the family when the only way you can feed yourself is if your bet clicks and Mr. Bayo’s predictions aren’t false - which they always are.

You sigh, throw your phone against your bed slightly, scared that your screen will crack for the 5th time and you put yourself to sleep.

 

Hold on a second. 

Is this how it is being a man? 

 

 

Dear Reader, 

I’ve tried different areas of creative writing and I decided to write from a man’s perspective this time. Yes, this is going to be a series of different kinds of men and how they’ve lived their lives. Yes, you can ask me to write about a particular kind in the comment section(please entertain me with men like serial killers or something, let’s test this writing skill shall we?) and yes, I remain your favorite writer!

Do let me know what you think in the comment section and if you want more of this. 

 

Till we meet again or shall I say

Till the words I type with my fingers drag me back to you!

Toodles!

 

Image from WikiHow!