The Struggle to Get a Lover: Yesterday's Experience

Young men these days are having it really easy, you know! Just get a girl’s phone number or name and she is yours already!

Over thirty years ago, we used to sleep for a week with the Oxford advanced learners dictionary in order to construct a decent love letter. In addition, most of us kept eighty leaves note books containing words as well as lyrics copied by playing and pausing cassettes of sentimental music. Some words and lines were also copied from the Pacesetters series of books, James Hadley Chase novels and Mills & Boon romance stories which we read!

After constructing the love note, there followed another three days in school where during break, one would invite at least two trusted and intelligent friends to proofread & vet the letter. Often, this entailed further additions or subtractions. At the end of the exercise, the most daring of one’s friends was selected to deliver the letter to the girl.

That too was not an easy task as it was not easy to see lonely girls in those days. In school, they were always in company of their friends. After school they were always at home and if they had to go out for any reason, they were either accompanied by their parents, siblings or older relatives. So, the letter delivery man had to lie in wait like a sniper anxiously awaiting its victim. And when the least opportunity when she was alone occurred, the errand boy would make his delivery and disappear immediately!

There followed another one or two weeks of apprehension and most times, intense audible palpitation of one’s insides as the reply was awaited. Good for one if the reply was positive, otherwise the catastrophe was that, the letter writer would be condemned to avoid the girl for the rest of his life.

Oh, and pray too that in the intervening period between the writing and the reply, the love letter wasn't discovered by one’s parents, a school head boy or teacher!

In the case one’s parents discovered the letter, what followed was the normal flogging and rubbing of pepper all over one’s body. Then, the culprit was marched to the girl’s house at night in order to warn the parents!

If the letter was discovered in school, it was read in front of the whole school during morning assembly and devotion. Then again, robust boys of the graduating class, were summoned to pin one’s arms and legs down for the regular head teacher’s twenty-four strokes of a whip on the bare buttocks in front of everybody - students, teachers, visitors and passers-by.

Despite this stress, one never got as close as seeing the girl’s undies until the end of the relationship. You see, s*x was never in the picture. It was all about having a female one could refer to as one’s girlfriend. That was all.

In the end, all one got was the chance to be with the girl during break time to exchange novels and steal a few instant film snap shots with her while holding hands near a flower during inter-dormitory sports competitions, science exhibitions, inter-school debates, quiz competitions, excursions or Independence Day celebrations at the main arena.

Any guy like my humble self who successfully got a girlfriend in those days was a hero. It wasn't an easy feat!

I guess too, those were the glorious days of respect for the girls. We were careful not to get them angry or provoke their jealousy by staying clear of other girls and do whatsoever made them happy.

Nowadays however, young men treat their girls like rags and s*x objects to be used and discarded at will, as they move on to other hot girls with itchy pants the next day. Some even go further to befriend and keep ten girls at the same time as concubines. How dare them?

After all, it's all about getting her phone number or name and chat her up in messenger via Facebook or WhatsApp! Everything is really cheap these days including love!

I remember vividly a few episodes in my checkered existence in those days! The first had to do with one dark skinned lass I’ll refer to as Julie. Our story started in the last days at primary school. Julie wasn’t exactly an eyeful in terms of physical beauty. Besides, since I was a bright kid in class, always scoring high marks in most subjects, I had been paired by my peers with a beautiful fair skinned damsel who then became my school wife. Now, this fair girl was coveted by most class mates including other girls, so I was seriously envied by many. Girls made overtures to win my admiration by sharing their lunch with me, buying me toffees, bringing me home baked cakes and candies, or sometimes, giving me money.

Julie was one of those who regularly sought for my attention with gifts to the extent that I became good friends with her twin brother who was our go-between. This lasted until we passed out of primary school and I went to a prestigious boys only boarding school while she went to a mixed commercial day school. My mulatto “wife” was also admitted into a prestigious girls-only secondary school situated in a different town, effectively cutting off all contact and separating us for good. However, Julie’s twin brother was also my classmate in the same grammar school so when guys were being mocked at for not having girlfriends, I had a readymade ally.

As we approached the fatidic youth day celebrations in which students were given some time off, Julie’s brother Andy, encouraged me to write a love note to his sister which he promised to deliver. I went to the school library, scoured many volumes on romance including poetry and came up with my first love letter which I considered a masterpiece.

Mind you, because I had had a ‘’wife’’ in primary school as well as female admirers, I had never written a love missive. Instead, it was those female admirers who discreetly wrote to me such letters which I quickly destroyed for fear of my parents who were as stern as the head teacher in such matters.

My love notes beautifully crafted, I went to the school bookshop and bought a specially decorated writing paper appropriate for such endeavors. I took time and calligraphed the letter which I put into a scented envelope for dispatch to my heart’s desire.

On D-day, just after celebrations at the main arena was over and we all made our separate ways to tour the town, Andy took off to see the sister whose school was based in the same town where we had our primary education. From what transpired later, he handed over the love letter to an enthusiastic sister who was very delighted to read such sweet words from my pen. Of course, she couldn’t reply immediately as she told the brother she’d reply upon resumption of the mid-term break which was in the offing. But this was not to be. Her enthusiasm and naivety got the upper hand.

It seemed some rascals had been pestering her for friendship which she all turned down so my letter gave her sufficient reason to be more defiant. She therefore went ahead to brandish my love note to her predators as proof that she was of a higher social status than her peers. The latter, in total jealousy, connived and stole my love letter which they handed over to the head teacher of her school. Things got worse from there.

Seeing that I was a student in another school which had prestige more than his, the principal summoned Julie to a disciplinary council to which they invited her parents. My letter was presented as proof of her poor performances in school work and she was threatened with dismissal. This prompted her parents to go the extra mile in pleading for forgiveness of their ward with promises that such would never repeat.

Poor Julie! As they got home that day, her parents took turns to flog the young damsel several times until her buttocks got raw from beating. In the end, they wanted to know my parent’s house in order to go and remonstrate with them of how I had been corrupting their daughter. Luckily for me, we had changed house several months before the start of the academic year so Julie didn’t know. As a result, our relationship died a natural death before it could even get off the ground.

I got wind of this upon return from the mid-term break via a stinking reply which I received through her twin brother Andy, whom she stoically never betrayed as our love letter postman.