It is not the days that make the year but the seasons, and since in the rainy season the roads are near inaccessible, I emege only i the dry season of the year. Psyche!

One evening, I was sitting outside my apartment (I live in a seedy tenement we grace with the name, Face- Me- I - Face - You in an up-and-down side of lagos) mentally "Connecting the Dots" with the stars in the sky when a neighbour-broddaman came and sat beside me. We exchanged almost impolite for me to ask why he still had his snshads on at 7:30pm, when he spat, "Women! and although this should have set off my chauvinist alert, it didn't yet so i simply echoed, "Women." in the spirit of broddahood.

A few years ago he met a girl and he had less trouble then than I am having now trying to dub her with rosy appellations: "the MBGN," African Queen," "the only skeleton in his cupboard," "the apple of his eye," "the sugar in his tea," ,  "because of am I no hear anything wey people dey tell me, even my family." So te story of the defrauded symbolism of dating goes. What would have been the use of scolding the broddaman? It all happened years ago; it was over, kapput, finis -- "I craze for this girl so tey I marry am sharp-sharp./" Gbam!

A familiar story, boy meets girl and in a blushing sec he weighs his future on the scale with urgent hormones. The sum of the equation is either a blockbuster release like Titanic or a marriage of strangers. In real life it is more likely to be the latter. Nollywood doesn't exactly project reality or its significance - you cannot jump the gun without consequence.

You cannot take nature's token pleasures in a gulp bt in contemplative sips.

Take walks and maye as your intimacy allows, hold hands. Affection is mutual and a lot can be said more without words. It is more coherent when it is expressed in gently talk and sincere politeness. Look at it this way, if you lose her as a "wife-prospect" you will have gained a friend and a special one at that.

Love is not as spontaneous as the thre-minute tracks of Daniel Bedddinfield's or Tu-Face Idibia's love songs. It rows into certainty and, even then, not even nearly. So, take time, tke care.

Meanwhile, my broddaman was just rounding up. "Ol' boy, na so my life take be o!" he said, taking off his shades at last to reveal his black eye - not one but two . "I ask am wetin she dey do for me sef; na him I jam trailer for my own house." He replaced the shades as I patted him on the back. All I could do.

What God has joined together ,  you know the rest.

Interesting idea, but is this fiction?

Seun, thanks for the comment.

It's actually a feature column sample. I write short stories and would have made it one if i wanted to.

How is work? What are you working on presently?

One love. I'm out.

Nottinghill.