@tpia
I, sure, would love that interrogation, and a good launch pad would be to consider the rising tide of interracial and inter-ethnic unions, enabled by a shrinking world space-patently referred to as the global village, against growing concerns and agitations for privacy, individuality and associations that strengthen or conflate that desire.

The drift to a global culture seems unmistakably high; technologies, easy travels options, education, political systems and religions, etc., have assumed that universal color. It’s not out of place to view this in the light of a stealthy new order that invokes attractive and inalienable justifications for the propagation of these sweeping waves, which among others, border primarily on economic interests when viewed or observed closely. Blithering ignoring the still seared idiosyncrasies, people have of themselves and, in relation to each other, this wave has hit no harder than African states and its people. Still, unsure of their coordinates as states-with contesting ethnic and religious squabbles in ascendant mode, from a former imperialist era, they are thrust into the new structure that denies their individuality in one breath and in another stroke, fans the embers of diversity when convenient. A case in study is Nigeria, an arrangement still locked with the inner questions of nationhood, waking up lately to this tide by a generation, yet, unweaned of the burden of deep seated suspicions and unease, by political estates that enabled the structure in the first place. Elsewhere, regardless of what the media passionately bruits, as this writer’s first-hand experience has provided, the most puzzled are states with the “United”, forenames. Probably, strong legal and political structures may have tendered these questions; but, they still prop up in and around informal discourse, where street, mob opinion and prejudice are formed.

Could all of this be man’s oddly curious way of seeking affiliation and yet affirming his identity? It may well be that as cultural animals, our survival is dependent on a complex balance of community inspired associations and individuality; any mix more likely to endure, would be built on that consensus and well defined boundaries.

@claremont
The real test of associations or relationships is in moments of stress or storms and, on those occasions, bottled or deep-seated misgivings, mostly bordering on religious affiliations, economic flanges, ancestries or bloodlines and by extension ethnic foibles, etc., become sweltering concerns and interests. It mostly reveals deep seated escape rationalizations people have of the other and man’s intimate need to promote and guide his interest-self-preservation, if you say, with the anchor on his individualism.

Yes, at the surface and to the most exposed, those differences may be submerged or hushed, yet they don’t fail to inspire convenient justifications for acts or impositions on the other in moments of threats or insecurity-a disinterested investigation of most conflicts and disputes would reveal this central notice.

What makes the Nigerian situation worrying, is the heightened consciousness of these differences and, the ease of their employment, to propagate violence or hate, all, in the shield of particular interests.

@iice
No better put. I don’t know any more ethnic or tribe conscious community like Nigeria-years of post-research confirms this. Hardly any conversation goes without the whipping up of ethnic or religious differences. It may well be reflective of how this arrangement called Nigeria is routinely sustained-coercion, rather than from a sculptured and workable draft or consensus, by few political estates and their principals.

This national question springs up in all areas of engagement and interaction, and will continue so, not until Nigerians become lost on escape routes or are at dead-ends and, have only the resolution of these core issues to address.

On trial here is society, of which the family is ground and, our implicit complicity in its near demise. If anything that is worth observing, it is the uninhibited urge for primitive accumulation and the coarse interplay that works its way in the quest for the material. It may not be completely divorced from the morass and inner battles that count for today’s reality. On the one hand is a new world order-capitalism, individualism, feminism and its rabid compliment, misogynism, etc., - whose comprehension remains largely fickle and the other, is screaming silence from tested tradition. It’s a world of living contradictions, both in the messages preached and the reality on the battle ground.

The present scape is tilted towards the material, as largely vented in the humor and space that is given to winners of the grabbing game. The male often sets the direction in the larger space with actions that set the female, as always, into the overdrive with modulated versions of the former. Hence what is found as a conquest for the male, in the nature of trophies and their accumulation, evokes reactionary imitation in a domain they evidently wheel- amorous associations or “relationships”.

The task here is to rescue the family, which sadly both genders have imperiled, from the avarice that has characterized the definition of success and attainment. The restoration of in-house community, with self-check on the origins of possessions and, the re-invention of deadened moral inhibitions and self-worth, are sure routes to salvaging, if any, what remains of society, else, we unwittingly may have signed off an age and clime.

The party most pained is the one who invested more-materially and/or emotionally; the most naïve and overweening-the majority which are first time females- succumb, with the gravest and embittered response to the other and collective, or are thrust into a recoil and distrust of that set, hence the tendency to exact a “just” pound of flesh on the next, would be victim-which are hardly ever difficult to come by. On the other hand, where weighed resources were involved, which are majorly, males, the response is a deep loathe and rue on unfulfilled intentions and expectations- sly or noble- and, could well explain the heightened aggression, manifest in later engagements -in sum, we are products of our previous experience.

Now, since popular take on “relationships” is fashioned after some implied or expected transaction, the latter is given, more, to privation than the former, and would only learn with bald or realized bankruptcy from continued indulgence in the trade.

Sometimes, you marvel at the gaping disconnect between words, meanings, interpretations and usage, in the trade that goes by the label “relationships” in this age; in one breath, independence and chivalry, are recited with a strident chord and, in another, we ape after given and culturally embellished roles-no worse sobering fraud exists than this.

Any fellow out there, trapped in the consumption that spendthrift, a prodigal bearing and, an obsequious or unctuous tilt, would earn a warm bed, could well brace up for the coming bathe of a frigid blanket-the unreal would bear out and fade in time.

.and, talk of the convergence of conniving ignorance and manipulative pedagogy- where else but in Nigerian religious business centers, a capitulated pew and their sheeny CEOs-we would never get it right, not like this,

Probably, an infinite minority-a likely matured and responsible subset, which is a great investiture-not with the make of transaction based and fiction inspired “relationships”, we’ve embraced today-that search will take some long tenure.

This essay only brings to the fore, probably on this forum, a satiric expose of the elevation of prostitution-and sadly, the loss of moral inhibitions and consequent coarsening of social sensibilities- under cosmetic labels of "runs", "taking care of me", "happening gal/guy", etc.,,that our society has descended to. And, one that suggests how rabid and warped, our adoptions of other civilizations can be or lead, even when cushioning institutions that obtain elsewhere are nonexistent here. The decay may well be in it's inchoate stage and, could spell doom-or in the nature of the nihilist charter prediction by Nietzsche, a demise- for whatever shreds that remains of our society.
It's crass opportunism, buoyed by capitalism, the failure of institutions and government, and a materialistic and consumerist approach to life and in dealings with others, that has won us this opprobrium as Africa's largest exporters of sex slaves and barons. What's news is the erosion of any distinction between age long prostitution and the make of modern day "relationships". Under, different labels such as those above, the quest for financial gains and, the reduction of any course of action or interaction to a transaction, have robbed us of humanity and the descent to chaos and the dark ages as we know it.
We could still rescue society by enabling the family and long standing tripods that made ours work, as no dispute exists to that fact, with the re-invention of self first, before others.

I, once snapped at a colleague for his poor impression of his host community, but after reading this thread and a few handles, I believe the joke was on Hollywood, with the “Rise of the planet of Apes” movie title-it’s been here all this while.

The brain enthuses and, for some, justifies to yet unimagined levels, with a cocktail of hormones and other physiological actions, whatever social cum physical attributions we may have of ‘love’, in the selection of mates for procreation and companionship.

Cases, like this abound and, given the extent to which pious submission, for which modern corrupt religion demands, both from its manipulative purveyors and, an ignorant and conniving pew, only strengthens the abuse of the vested benefits that religion could offer. It’s clearly, as in this case, one, of borrowing an alibi for a made up mind. You had her lost long ago-the signs stared you in the face, and have only taken voice in the confirmation of a concluded ditch. To let go would serve better than to play the victim.

@ Claremont
No better captioned and, in urgent need of escape vents.

Can’t this fellow called 'sexkillz' , really have a conversation without the tilt to vile, invectives and gutter diatribe. An attention, true or otherwise, was drawn possibly from the poster's experience , firsthand or otherwise, and all that any objective or sane fellow should do, would be to dismiss or support and, without the resort to base salvoes. It is really telling of character and class, and little wonder that Nigerians anywhere and on any platform can’t do without the cultivated urge to tear and extinguish any contrary view- a sad commentary- I sure know, that in particular style, an unbridled stream of vile would soon issue from the odium's summit.