Teens and relationships

Trust me this is the most exciting part in a teen’s life, if am to use biological terms I can describe it as the most influential ingredient in a teen’s life. Teens nowadays act like old people, they want to hold responsibility and feel in charge. The boys want to feel obligated to responsibility; the girls want to feel wanted and cared for… it’s like a stage show or drama out there. What else can I say; it’s the “dot.com” era where every boy and girl has to get involved in a boyfriend-girlfriend sort of “thing”, it’s the trend (I hear). Personally I find it normal as long as they are not sexually oriented. But can any parent put a stop to it? I say it’s the stiffest thing to do. I mean teens today have all kinds of communication means to keep in touch. Almost every 15-year-old and above is signed in on a social networking site like Facebook, Twitter, dating sites, mobile phones etc. Gone are the days of writing letters and consulting the dictionary to find gigantic words to pour out to a girl. Internet is now their primary source of communication. Now, the most exciting thing is the messages they exchange. Comedy I like to call it. Recently I landed on a teen mobile phone. I happened to read the messages (I am lucky he didn’t find me revising his SMS’s). As I hit the inbox, I was first struck by the name on the first message. Often you will meet others who save their girls as “Ingabs Minaj” when actually she’s “Ingabire”…amazing. But I guess this one was patriotic. The name was saved as Sandra Inkoramutima… “From Meddy’s song, Sandra Inkoramutima” (Meddy helped many, I said to myself). Of course at this point I expected the text to sound charming like the name but it read, “the sun went to slip, the sea went to slip, the moon went to slip but I stayed up to say goodnyt” 143(to mean I luv u). The second was not any different, still from the same “Inkoramutima”… “Ur luv z lyk Juju…u sh’d come rescue me”. Ha-ha how sweet… Ummh! Such words for a 16-year-old; these kids are poets! I wonder why they even dread going for spelling Bees and essays or poem competitions. They would go an extra mile to watch high school movies or romantic comedies to acquire the skills of approaching those they desire. They watch “backstreet boys” videos and cram or write down the touching lyrics to mess with the girlie hearts. From a perspective view, you realize this hustle of the teens is mostly in Africa. A white kid will bring a boy to the house and tell the parents; “mum dad, he is called Dave and he is my boyfriend, we love each other”, simple, just like that. And the parents are so happy. But which father here in Africa are you going to tell such rubbish? He rather builds a four-metre-tall fence and lock you in until you learn your lesson. So teens, devise means to let your parents know that you have that “Inkoramutimas” somewhere. This should be in the context of the Rwandan culture otherwise you might have a rough time getting pocket money now that you are back to school. bolivewanted2010@gmail.com