A friend of mine posted this blog on her Facebook page and it got me intrigued. The blog post features a letter about a woman who is set to be married. You’re probably thinking, ooh, a love story, how quaint, right? Or you’re probably thinking, whatever, people get married everyday. Who wants to read an entire post about that? Well here’s the thing: she doesn’t love the man she is about to wed. Ah, now your interest has been piqued.
Okay here is the lowdown: The 28-year young woman named Folu has been involved in a series of bad relationships, where she found herself giving away emotionally more than she received – a ratio of 70-30 percent to be more exact. Anyway, after dating a scumbag named Bode for over two years, who seemed to have taken delight in cheating on her and dangling a relationship on a string, our heroine began to realize that the feeling of being in love is “overrated” and is the most “negligible consideration in looking for a mate.”
Folu then goes on to discuss meeting her fiancé Tayo, with whom she has been dating and engaged to for 11 months combined. While Tayo, who is a born-again Christian, meets one of her requirements, he doesn’t dress nice, doesn’t offer intellectual stimulation and is not really physically attractive enough to get her excited. In short, Tayo is boring. However, Folu claims that with him, she has found her peace and joy.
So what is it about Tayo that makes her believe that he is the one, despite not being the one that makes her heart go pitter-patter? Well, in short, he is nice to her. He does stuff like pick her up from the airport, something her former lover Bode would never do, and makes her feel safe, secure, pampered and cared for. And although Folu does not love Tayo, she is convinced that eventually she could, especially after they consummate their relationship. According to the Folu, “I might not be with the handsome charmer I longed for as a young teenager. He might not have the best physique in the world. He might not have funny things to say to me all the time. He might not be able to make my heart do somersaults. He might not have the latest clothes and shoes nor know the latest slangs young peoples say. He might not understand my love for E! News and Yoruba movies. But of this I am sure: I am with the man God selected, handpicked for me….”
She adds, “My heart doesn’t have to skip beats when he is not with me. I don’t have to call him 10 times before I get one call back from him. I’m not pressured to do anything ungodly instead I am challenged to draw closer to God and know Him more that I might be a deserving wife to the man God designed for me and that I may bring him as much joy and bliss as he does me. If you call this settling then yes, this girl HAS settled.”
There is no way to verify the authenticity of this letter; however let’s assume for the purpose of this post that it is true. And it is not like there isn’t someone out there right now going through the same thing so it would not be so far of a stretch to ponder the possibilities. Nevertheless for those, who are familiar with my previous post in regards to settling, you know I’m not having it. I don’t care what the media says about the probability of marriage for Black women; life is too short to be with someone, who you sort of, kind of, maybe “like.” But that’s just my thing and if she is as truly happy and content as she says she is, than who am I to judge?
With that said, I do wonder if there is a variable to this whole love thing that we are all missing here? Maybe Folu has it figured out. Perhaps we give up on the ones that we feel are not the “one” too soon because they don’t give us butterflies, the moon and the stars every time we are around them. Hell, I know from experience that most of the guys that gave me butterflies also were the ones that gave me the most heartache too. Maybe searching for love is overrated. Maybe what we think is love is just based on fleeting moment of loneliness or lust. Perhaps we spend so much time creating the most intricate emotional check list of what our potential soul mate is suppose to be that we fail to see what has been staring us right in front of our faces: the boring and safe guy.
I know that there are folks out there who don’t always rush into relationships, let alone love. Those people are called friends. Yes, it’s true. There are guys and girls, who start out as platonic buddy-buddies and then after years of dating and romancing other folks, have asked themselves, why haven’t I dated this person before? Then suddenly the barrier between lovers and friends comes crashing down and they realize that the love they had been looking for is right in front of their eyes. Or at least that’s how it happened in Brown Sugar.
They say that love is all about chemistry but some folks do choose to be in love, if they can find someone they are compatible with including shared future goals and a value on devotion. After the physical attraction, sexual energy and those pesky butterflies flutter away, all you are left with is just a man (or woman). However it is the chemistry of love, which draws us to a person in the first place. Whether it be a person’s looks or personality or a dozen of other traits in a person we find attractive. And it will be those traits in which we look back on and hold on to when the endorphins wears off and we begin to settle into a relationship.
Also, there is something to be said for being in a relationship with someone, who is “nice” to you. I’ve been there before. He was totally different than what I had dated. He opened doors, returned calls and I never had to worry about how he felt about me because he told me – often. I thought that was good enough. I thought that his respectfulness would sustain us, more specifically me. But it wasn’t. After a year, all the other things that I found we weren’t compatible on began to surface. And I began to feel suffocated. What I realized is that, for me, love was very much tied to a feeling of emotional connections. And without it, it just can’t work. Likewise, I learned that a potential partner is supposed to be nice and respectful to you. That’s not a unique or special trait but rather a reflection of him as a decent and good human being.
While I think its possible to eventually fall in love with someone, I don’t know if that is something that should occur after the nuptials have been taken. I mean, what if Folu marries this man, and doesn’t feel the love she had thought she would eventual feel? What happens to her then? More importantly, what about the feelings of poor Tayo? Poor, mislead, lovesick Tayo? The whole thing just lacks clarity to me. And if anything, just illustrates why you shouldn’t rush into any relationship without full reassurance.
Charing Ball is the author of the blog People, Places & Things.
