by Aninoritse Odeli-Serrano

Another long and bitter winter seems to be waiting ahead. Oh, such gloomy weather looms. Grrrggghh!! This girl is not smiling o, in fact let me see what warm country will take me. Trinidad & Tobago? Ghana? Brazil? USA (the sunny parts) or good old Naija? Don’t worry, I shall let you know of my decisions, but seriously, I heard that last year’s winter was the worst the British have seen in 31years, and now this winter is set to take over.

Ha!! Na lie, e nor go see me! Indeed this is the time to disappear for four or five months.

Hopefully we’ll make it, and Lord knows where we all will be at the end of it. Which of us will have a job and which of us will not? Which of us will have lost and gained new relationships? Which of us will be richer or poorer? Anyway, let’s not dwell on these things before we all get depressed about a winter that’s depressing enough as it is.

In any case, you guys in Nigeria will not have to deal with the cold. The sun is all you get. Speaking of the sun, we all know that some people known as MEND (or not) decided to give a new meaning to LightUp Nigeria on the country’s 50th Independence Anniversary. I have a simple question:

When did Nigeria turn to this? When exactly? Hmm…Na wa o.

Only time will tell. On a brighter note, a few days ago I was playing catch up with a long-lost mate of mine (you know I have them plenty). We hadn’t spoken in months, and we were doing some serious catching up. My friend was telling me of his travels and what he’d been up to in the months we hadn’t seen each other. He announced to me: “I have joined an online dating service”.

Ehn!!

That was the first word that came out of my mouth.

Dude because why? Is it that hard to get a girl now? I questioned.

My friend Mark laughed. “Anino, it’s bad enough that I’m on it, don’t make it any harder by grilling me,” he said.

So I apologized, but my curiosity got the better of me, “So how’s the search going? Have you met any girls? What are they like?” I had many many questions for Mark, so he bought me a pint of beer and then proceeded to give me the gist about his dating experience online. I’m happy to share one story with you:

Mark tells me of this date where he’d planned to meet a lady in a nice restaurant and bar at London Bridge – a relatively a decent place for a first date. She had described herself as curvaceous, sexy and savvy. Now those where her words to him and Mark was looking forward to meeting her until he saw her. By the time she walked into the restaurant, it was too late for him to turn round and run.

“She was fat and I mean fat,” Mark said. She was large, as in big time large. The kind of fat that made her belly spew out of her jeans. The kind of fat that had wobbly arms and an extra chin. Yes! That kind of large!! Now don’t get Mark wrong, he likes his women big, but the big she’d described to him was a big fat lie. My friend had been played!

Deception is the order of the day in the online dating game. The truth is thrown out of the window the moment you log on.

“Do you smoke? Of course not, and when I drink, it’s only in moderation”.

No one is fat, they’re just curvaceous. Everyone goes to the gym, and everyone is very healthy. They all listen to classical music and watch documentaries while they rest from their tedious job of saving endangered animals.

This is clearly a big lie!! Who lives a life like that?

In the real world, they are either too fat or too skinny, and that’s why they have code words like ‘curvaceous’ and ‘athletic’. The smokers, they do three packs a day. And those that drink could give fishes a run for their money. Yes, they go by the gym on the way to Mr Biggs or the chicken shop. They listen to Oleku and dance Alanta; watch Africa Magic Yoruba, Super Story or the latest Nollywood ‘blockbuster’ on DVD. Need I go on? You know I can, but I suspect by you’ve now gotten the picture.

I guess when you’re into online dating you have to make yourself look better than you would normally appear. The danger of it is that the day you actually have to meet your ‘friend’, what do you do? There is also the danger of meeting perverts and psychos.

Surely there must be a better way to find someone to settle down with. “We just may have to do things the old fashioned way, the way our parents did it back in the day”. This is the Gospel according to my friend Mark.

What do you think?