Living life: We hopeless Romantics

I wonder if it is just me or the weather, but these days every music clip on television is about the idyllic lover who went away, forever. The men and women, our artistes, they screw their faces all over the place, squeeze a tear or two from their dry eyes, open their arms out to imaginary partners who have already left. Going by the number of these break-my-heart lines, is it just that we live in a world of hopeless romantics? It does not help matters that men as macho as the Nigerian musical twins are doing songs like No One Like You where perhaps there is a really happy wedding, without the jitters, the perennial fatigue and the actual happiness in the two sets of families and friends and it really becomes popular. People are suddenly hungry for emotional nourishing and they just can’t find any, somehow, in this sea of over six billion souls, if there is anything of the sort left around. My bosom buddy, the most macho of his crew, whose pastime is conquering gullible women’s hearts and proceeding to smash them to smithereens, for a hobby, is suddenly going mushy and mellow, once and again mentioning some girl’s name and marriage in the same sentence, stuff that a few months ago would have sounded blasphemous or treasonable, coming from him. And its not only him, the forces of gravity seem to have suddenly began to wear on people’s blood pumping organs. My dear friend, a cute happy-go-lucky missus in her mid twenties is clearly going through the motions. Beautiful, intelligent, independent and most importantly, ready to get hitched. My missus just seems unable to lock in on Mr. Right. Not because there are no eligible candidates. The good ones are simply taken or are not into the big dreaded word, commitment, while the awful ones are, well, all over the place, whatever that means. That’s her saying, not me! How multitudes of women and men can throng these good streets of Kigali peering hard but not finding each other in this big wide city is one of those mysteries which the musicians cannot solve but will happily ride onto. Everyone thinks the next best person is so untrustworthy, not old fashioned enough to love the way people were supposed to fall in love, as if love was a pool of life-yielding, happy-breeding liquid (who knows?). Nobody dates the other any more because everyone thinks any one who wants or accepts a date has only one thing in mind – the sack. How true, you know better. Maybe we just stopped being unpredictable, everybody knows how everyone woos or are wooed. It is all over the internet and on the leisure pages. You can even get it by sms if you are that so idea-strapped – make him want you more – how to keep her there longer, phew! That’s how you end up with millions of love-starved individuals who will seldom do anything to find the one thing that they are desperate to land their hands on – a partner – all we do is brood, fantasize and sleepwalk through our lives, too scared to do anything risky. Not with all these diseases, heartbreaks, divorces, and unwanted pregnancies. Who tells you love is a form of life insurance? Get a life. Have a love-starved, oops, romantic Sunday. kelviod@yahoo.com