Most people believe that when two or three girls are gathered, this slang wrapped in pitiful tears is resident among them. It would be an uneven battlefield if the men did not coin their own slang, talk about ‘Women are scum’, ‘Girls will ruin your life‘ , ‘Fear who no fear women’. Pages would fail me if I have to mention all the slang expressions that both genders have coined to spite and point fingers at each other. Some hide their faults under it, while others use it as a platform to apportion blames and grind in self-pity. As a result, it has taken root in our minds and has become the average teenager’s thought process. I thought hard about where exactly it starts from and this is what I discovered;

1. Incompetent Parenting

  Most parents automatically interpret having a crush as caressing lust, rather than sit their teenagers down and give them the proper sex education that they need, they avoid the topic like it’s a chronic disease. Others hurl threats and insults at their teenagers and call it sex education, this is why we have young adults who cannot talk to their families about their friendships or relationships.

They are left with quack advice and catastrophic solutions from half-baked friends or even worse, they’re left to face the emotional traumas and triggers on their own. As a result, we now have a society filled with teenagers and young adults who have allowed slang expressions like this to build walls in their minds, walls that block and frustrate sincere relationships in their present and future.

• Crashed Relationships

I’ve met people who became ‘players’  weeks after heartbreak, then they manipulate the emotions of others because they feel it’s the best way to protect themselves from another emotional trauma. Why become the weak prey when you can be the predator?  When you ask them why they are doing what they are doing, guess what you’ll hear ‘Well, ‘cause Men/Women are scum’

This creates a weird cycle where the avenger hurts other girls, then the other girls become avengers too and the harsh rhythm goes on and on like that like an epidemic. Never adopt the same traits that stabbed you in the back, you’re not protecting yourself by doing that, instead, you’re losing your self-worth and originality. Why be a cheap copy of the person that hurt you when you have the capability to be yourself?

• Peer Pressure

  There are also friends too, friends who claim to understand the situation when they are half-baked advisers who have barely gotten over their own triggers. Then we have girls who have boyfriends for different functions; we have the ‘true love‘, the boy that buys the food, the one that buys the hair and makeup, the other who gives the understanding and attention, etc. I get it, nobody wants to be caught unawares when the heartbreak comes, everyone wants to have an alternative somewhere. But that isn’t love, that’s just trying to fill the emptiness that you feel at the expense of the emotions of another human being. It’s like fitting in the right piece of the puzzle in the wrong space.

 You also don’t need a partner to fill that emptiness in your heart when you know within yourself that you’re not emotionally ready. If you just got out of an awful relationship, give yourself as much time as twelve months to heal, finding the next available suitor on your rack is the kind of game of chance that’s too dangerous to play.

• Gists/ Movies

While there are others who have sworn to ‘ wash hand commot from anything wey concern relationship’ because they saw the perfect girl get hurt ‘cause she fell in love. Let’s get this straight, just ‘cause Bisi’s immoral boyfriend broke her heart does not automatically make all men scumbags.  If you’re like me that watch melodramatic K-drama and romantic movies, kindly put it in mind that perfect and overly romantic men like Lee Min Ho in Boys Before Flowers and Aminu in Men’s Club can only be found in the movies. They only exist if God is your Match Maker. Yeah, I’m a romantic Child of God so I’m patiently waiting to know who He’s preparing for me when the time is right, I’m expectant as you should be expectant too.

 Honestly, I feel that this is not just slang expression, phrase, or whatever you want to call it, has taken root in our minds to the point that we label anyone coming close to us, that is of the opposite gender, like a flesh-eating heart ripper. We build thick walls around our social lives and then ask God why we don’t have friends. I admit that there are people that need to be put at arm’s length for your safety, let it be based on the red flags that they exhibit not on this mentality.

As I write, I’m also fighting a war against this mentality in my own mind every day. Truth be told, it’s easier said than done, but I’ve come to the realization that it’s my mind and I determine what stays and what is thrown out. It’s the same way you have an edge over your thoughts no matter how bad it can ever get. I urge you to please work at crashing this thought pattern with me so it doesn’t steal precious relationships from us again.

 I’ll love to read your thoughts on this in the comment section. Thanks for reading up to this point, I really appreciate it.

The Nostalgic Pen