Being attracted to a woman and hiding it is not a new thing.
Davido, fueled by a newly-found love and an apparent overdose on Biafran pengness has claimed, with a Twitter post containing a colourful word, that many guys are wimps because they are in love but won’t express it out of fear/weakness.
Do guys really fear expressing love?
To start with, being attracted to a woman and hiding it is not a new thing. On that Davido has a valid point.
Almost every guy has had that feeling of being smitten so hard by an interest in a woman but instead of acting on the pull towards her; they work harder to contain the feeling, effectively snuffing out whatever mushy emotion may have flickered in their hearts.
So, yeah, guys really do like women and quell the feeling instead of going out to pursue and explore the possibilities of that attraction.
But not because they’re pussies
This is where Davido gets it wrong – well, not totally wrong but so largely wrong that he might as well be said to have gotten it all wrong actually. Ok you catch the drift, yeah?
I hope so.
Here’s the first thing with men, women, attraction, love and this relationship of a thing in Nigeria – the average guy is socialized into believing that if he does not have money, he should not even think of love. [You'd love to argue, I know, but I am not in the mood for arguments today. I said what I said. Argue with your friends, maybe?]
If Davido looked around, he’d see that many guys his age don’t even have ₦300k in savings despite working pretty hard from 9-5, let alone ₦30billion.
'No Money No Honey' is a stronger deterrent for guys out here than a lack of liver.
ALSO READ: Why it's relationship suicide to keep a bestie of the opposite sex
When you don’t have money, and social media and almost everything you see continuously points to it as a major prerequisite to ever finding love in Lasgidi or any other part of the country, it is pretty difficult to not swallow your love interest like a morsel of eba that you’ve already eaten so much and become tired of.
Though I suspect this is a lesser worry for guys compared to not being boxed up enough, the fear of rejection is also a real deterrent.
Thomas G. Fiffer of The Good Men Project lists the fear of rejection as one of the three biggest things men are terrified of.
“Fear of rejection is not specific to men, of course, but let’s face it, men are more frequently the initiators when it comes to dating, marriage proposals, and sex, and we therefore face rejection more often when women refuse our advances.
“You’d think since we do most of the asking we’d have a thick skin when it comes to rejection, but it’s just the opposite. No matter how much courage we’ve summoned, how firmly we’ve convinced ourselves we don’t care about the outcome, and how much healthy self-esteem we possess, hearing no hurts deeply on the inside.
“A graceful no hurts a great deal less, while cruel, dismissive, ungrateful rejection drives a knife through the male psyche,” he writes with the unfaltering precision of an expert archer.
Having said that, some may say that the unwillingness to make that move despite the 50-50 chance of getting rejected is exactly what actually shoves them into the pussy box Davido created with that Twitter post, but that’d be nothing but a simplistic way to view it.
There’s usually a lot more going through a guy’s mind when he thinks of making a move than just the chances of getting rejected or accepted. If it’s a serious relationship that’s been considered, things like long-term compatibility, common values, belief sets etc are going to play on the guy’s mind and if things look bleak from any or more of these [and other numerous unmentioned] perspectives, then why bother?
Then again, as a guy, I’ll tell you for free, it could just be something about the vibes a woman gives off. If she looks like rejection, then all these things may not even matter as well. No sane person sees a brick wall and intentionally runs into it.
At other times, guys love women and refuse to pursue such feelings because they are unready for any level of commitment yet, and for that I think women should be grateful. I’d like to think that it is better for women if men take enough time to properly figure out their emotions before ensnaring women in an web of emotional mess with a centre that doesn’t hold.
So yeah, long and short, while it’s true that guys could ‘be in love’ and surpress it, being wimps and pussies sounds like the farthest, most insignificant reason why they’d do so.
Would someone be kind enough to help me tell Davido this?