Let's talk about men.

Calm down, I'm not slandering them.

Hi!

It's a few minutes after 5pm on Saturday, the gentle evening breeze is replacing the harsh glare of the extremely pissed sun. You are sprawled on your bed, chest up, legs spread out in an ungainly way. You are scrolling aimlessly on Instagram, and imagining that you are the main character in Giveon's songs. You are an excellent multitasker.

Just then, your friend sends you a reel. This snaps you out of your delusional thoughts, and you open the message, posthaste. The first thing you hear is, “Of course I'm an ulcer patient, I will not eat until my body starts shaking and I'm about to faint.” 

Immediately, you remember that you have not eaten anything all day, and of course, you suffer from peptic ulcer and chronic laziness. You finish watching the video, and you are guilty of all the allegations levelled against ulcer patients. It's not my fault I have ulcer, you thought. But your guilty conscience will not leave you, so you decide to go out to get something to eat.

You get dressed in a hurry, and applied lipgloss. You will not be caught looking like a ghost from a horror movie on the streets of Ilorin.

As you step out, the wind starts acting as if it's in love with you. It swirls around you, gently caressing your face, and playing with your hair. You see, the wind is such a flirt. You sighed. Of course you enjoy the attention.

You came onto a dirt road, and you felt the dust rising with the wind, and settling on your skin. You would not allow this small inconvenience to ruin your stroll, and so you prepared to escape into your mind to continue your delusions of grandeur. Just then, a small boy rode past you on a bicycle. He could have been 6 or 7 years old, you were not sure. He wore a white singlet - at least you assumed it was once white - and black shorts. He was barefoot, and his legs were coated with dust, dried grass clung to his knees. He must have been playing in the grass.

As you watched him ride the bicycle past you, you get thrown back to your own childhood, when you were learning how to ride a bicycle with your brother, and his friends. A loud cry snapped you back to the present. It was the boy, and he had fallen off the bicycle. He laid on the ground where he fell off, crying. He was probably injured, else he would have gotten back up to continue his ride.

Dide! Okunrin o kin sunkun faa,” meaning “Stand up! A man does not cry” in English.  A passerby said this. An elderly man that you judged to be in his mid-fifties. You also judged him for telling such a young boy not to cry when he was obviously in pain, because he is a “man”. This 7years old boy? A man?

When you got close enough to the boy, you helped him up, and you saw he had a gash on his right knee where it hit a stone on the ground. The cut was already oozing blood. The man was approaching you now, but you ignored him because a part of you was angry on behalf of the little boy. You dusted his body, and told him “sorry” countless times, until he stopped crying.

The man finally reached where the both of you were, and you showed him the injury. He looked at it, and ordered the boy to go back to his Mummy's shop. He didn't show empathy, didn't even act like he saw the injury. He just brusquely ordered him to go to his mother.

You were so angry. You were seething, but an inbuilt respect for elders stopped you from lashing out at him. You settled for giving him a cold stare, and stomping off. He ruined your sweet evening stroll. You didn't notice the wind and its subtle signals anymore. 

You will go back to your hostel without getting anything to eat. The man's words will stay on your mind, gnawing at you like a termite on wood. Men don't cry? You will think about the men in your life, and how you have never seen them cry, not even once.

Thank you for playing your role. You did well. Now it's my turn.

No, you are not okay, and it's totally okay not to be okay. 

Personally, I detest gender stereotypes, and I will never understand them. In our society, crying is synonymous with cowardice. It's just sad how boys will be told from a tender age that men don't cry, and crying makes them weak. Then if they cry, they would be mocked and laughed at. These are the issues, please.

Okay fine, you don't want to cry because you don't want to be labelled as a coward. But what about opening up? You don't want to cry, and you still don't want to talk to someone that can help about your shit? Is your head correct?

The next thing you do is bottle up your hurt and sadness. Then channel it into anger and aggressiveness. You would rather punch a hole in the wall, break things, or get into a fight rather than tell somebody. But you are supposed to be the logical gender naa.😭

You would go through all the pains and get a bloody broken nose rather than tell somebody about your troubles? I know the society, and its system is messed up, but you need to fix up.

Now this is just crazy. If you keep hiding your actual feelings and coating it with anger, I promise you, you will eventually end up as an emotionally distant, bitter, and dried up old man. 

I have seen men say that if they are in a relationship, they would never tell their partner about their problem. They would rather shut them out and go through it alone. This makes me want to scream. Infact, *skrimmmmmmsss.

Honestly, it baffles me. And again it's not so baffling, because I know there are ladies out there that don't care about their partner’s problems. They believe men are strong enough to handle whatever life dishes out to them. 

So if you are a lady reading this, I want you to know that men also have feelings. This sadness, fear, anger, hurt, heartbreak that we feel. They feel it too. These feelings are universal, they are not limited to a particular gender. Show empathy. Don't tell him to man up when he tells you about his issues. Ask him about stuff. Proffer solutions to his problems.

My man, complaining is not feminine. Crying is not a sign of weakness. Allow yourself to be vulnerable. Talk it out with someone you feel safe with. Feel those feelings. Give yourself the permission to be human. It only gets better.

Suicide is a leading cause of death among men. I just thought you should know. 

See, let me just wrap this thing up before I start another lecture on Repression Psychology . This newsletter is already longer than I intended it to be.

INSIDE MY HEAD

Did you miss me? (Say you miss me)

“I know I'm what you want.”

I don't know if it's writing this newsletter that gave me headache, or the club beside my hostel that is playing music at an impossibly high volume. It's 6 minutes to midnight and I'm starving because of laziness.

Valentine is in few days, and I still don't have a man. This is the work of my enemies, I know it.

I will probably drop a package in front of my room the night before, and act surprised when I see it on Valentine morning. I'm full of good ideas tonight.

What could I possibly need again? Could it be… money to get the package for myself? I'm single and broke. What did I do to deserve this?😭

Actually, I'm single because I'm broke. Don't think about it too much. 

If you read to this point, I just want to say thank you. For always coming back to read even though I suck at titling. For cheering me on. For leaving sweet comments. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I really do.

Now go ahead and have an amazing weekend. Get some sun, and don't rot in bed like I intend to. I love you.

Till I write to you again. Write to me when you can.

Byeee!