TGIT is now almost like a weekly ritual constantly observed by my friends and I, it is only skipped if any of us have other personal engagements. Tuesday is like a perfect pick when we all came to agreement which day of the week to make as our movie hangout evenings. First,I am not the clubbing sort spite my much love for 9ja beats so going to the movies instead sounds good, Tuesdays never collide with my class schedule, my work and basketball games on ESPN and TNT.NFL is Sunday and Monday night on CBS , but the actual Koko is that movie tickets cost $5 on Tuesdays at Regal Cinemas(This is a good date tips for you brothers, plan it for Tuesday, Book it online before you go pick her up so she wouldn’t know you came on Movie Clearance day and she will take you for both an organized ,fast lane and a true computer savvy dude.)Anyways a word is enough for the Donjazzies.
After the movie this Tuesday, we went to Apple bees as the choice of restaurant for this week and after we had eaten and felt our pants zippers might worn-out, our conversation turned to our class schedules, jobs, families back in 9ja, crises in the middle east and finally we shifted gears to the inevitable…..GUYS. Old crushes, new dates, toasters, and my friends’ undaunted quest at trying to chide me about my not dating anyone and my usual response of “I am presently trying to be what I want in a guy”, when suddenly one of my friends chipped in her own list of what her dream dude résumé should look like – money, financial status, education, goal driven, career oriented, and employment which we all overwhelmingly nodded to as key. The conversation was humorous; we chuckled and even picked at ourselves, talked about some relationship and dating blunders we’d committed. And yours truly, nothing was off limits in this conversation.
As the clock ticked 10p.m, we all dispersed and promised to catch up on our gist next Tuesday; I started thinking about the premise at which my friends and I gauged our “kind of guy” on. I remembered back at my college days in 9ja, a question in my advertising exam stating,”Advertising is a means to an end but it’s not the end to itself. Discuss”.The same just kind of applied here again, Yes, our lists were truly a means to an eligible suitor but they alone are not the end to itself in having a happy home. I realized my friends and I seem like the product of the materialistic society we live where we are always striving for more. So it is only natural that that same materialism would bleed over into our interpersonal relationship choices.
All of these characteristics totally overshadow the important traits a person should have to build and maintain the foundation in a good relationship. Yes, we cherish the thoughts of the Wall Street kind of guy, the swimsuit cover girl, the Microsoft whiz kid,the dude with the Denzel Washington face, the Chris Rock humor and the Dwight Howard charming smile. These characteristics alone only make a societal highbrow wedding but they alone don’t make a marriage with a stable home. Seldom are the word trust, commitment, honor, humility, considerate, commonsense, character and monogamy used as essential credentials in this day and age.
Another TGIT awaits us and I have to reopen this for discussion in our next week date night but till then I couldn’t help but ask, Have we over-commercialized our relationships and marriages so much that we have become extremely shallow and this by and large is why so many of us have failed expectations in our relationships and primarily why divorces are at record high? What is your take on this?