By Bunmi Sofola

GETTING engaged is supposed to be a euphoric feeling; the man you love wants to spend the rest of his life with you and you couldn’t be happier. Your darling mother, who’s been at your back to settle down is over the moon that she can now instruct her master weavers to start churning out the Aso Oke her friends and invited guests will dorn. You and your friends are talking bridemaids and the presents you’re bound to cart home at the end of the ceremonies. So, why is it that more and more women are getting the engagement rings but are not making it to the altar? The answer is simple – one of the couple is keener than the other on marriage. Usually, it’s the woman. Rafatu, a seasoned textile dealer was in her early thirties when she discovered she was pregnant for the first time.

Naturally, she was ecstatic and Kingsley, her boyfriend and a divorced father of two, shared her enthusiasm. Recalling the bewildering experience that followed, she said:

“Kingsley, said he was glad he was the one to make me pregnant. I had met him just under a year at the Ports when I went to clear some of my goods. He was around to take delivery of the spare parts he ordered and was actually helpful in the speedy clearance of my goods. We exchanged contact addresses and phone numbers. Within weeks, he got in touch and we started dating. He confessed that his wife left him, because she thought he was a chronic womanizer. That had nothing to do with me. Years of being disappointed by the antics of various men I’d dated had made me thick-skinned to all their shenanigans. But I wanted a child badly and now that my prayers had been answered, Kingsley’s enthusiasm about marriage was like the icing on the cake.

“We had the traditional engagement ceremony and were planning the big wedding when a friend of mine visited. After the usual pleasantries, she told me she had something to tell me and couldn’t find an easier way to do it. My Kingsley was involved with another woman and she too was heavily pregnant. I knew he was a chronic philanderer but to have hopped from my bed straight to another woman’s bed, impregnating the occupants as he went, was a devastating blow for me to bear. I felt so humiliated but I told the friend I didn’t mind, that the wedding would go on as planned. The friend shifted in her seat. The other woman was planning a big wedding too and Kingsley was actually living with her! My friend said she wouldn’t have bothered to tell me if she wasn’t certain one of us girls was going to be left at the altar.

“After she left, Kingsley’s strange behaviour lately started making sense. He wasn’t coming as frequently as he used to and discussions about preparations for the wedding always bored him. So, a few days later when he showed up, I told him of the news I heard. By this time, I’d done a bit of home work myself to discover that the story was true and that he’d been going out with the other woman for more than two years, long before he met me. Kingsley assured me that it was because he loved me he didn’t tell me about this other woman in his life. That she was the one to first get pregnant only for me to announce my pregnancy a few weeks after. I shouldn’t worry, he assured me, it was me he would get married to. So why was he living in her flat! He said I knew he still had his flat and the fact that he visited the would-be-mother of his child didn’t mean he had moved in permanently.

“After we had our talk, I didn’t see him for some of the appointments we both scheduled. A week passed and there was still no word from him. I went to his flat but he wasn’t there – it was a few weeks to the wedding. His mobile was permanently on voicemail and he was never in his shop. In the end, I traced him down to the other woman’s house. She took one look at me, obviously recognised me and let me in – Kingsley was livid when the heavily pregnant woman showed me to the living room. We had a real shouting match and I asked him to choose who of us he was getting married to.

“He sneered he wasn’t getting married to anybody and that we should both leave him alone. When he wanted to be physical, I quickly left. My unborn baby was more important than life with this charlatan. My blood pressure went up and my doctor warned me to take things easy. I was admitted a few days to my delivery date. The birth was induced and I was given an injection to begin labour. In the end, I had a caesarian operations and was the proud mother of a pretty girl. “I sent words to Kingsley about his new daughter, but he did not show up for the naming ceremony. It was months later that I saw him – after I’d heard from the grapevine that the other woman who also had a daughter had kicked him out of her flat. I told him if he ever darkened my doorsteps again, I would call the police. I was amused when he kept on pestering me that I had no right to stop him from seeing his daughter. He obviously saw her as an alternate meal ticket! In the end, I sat him down and gave him all my hospital bills. If he wanted access to his child, he should refund all the money I’d spent. I haven’t heard from him, since.”

The More You Look The More You See! (Humour)

At university, a female lecturer walks up to the blackboard and notices someone has written the word penis in tiny letters. She turns around and scans the class, looking for a guilty face. Finding none, she erases the word and begins teaching. The next day, she goes into the room and again, in larger letters, sees the same word on the board. Once more, she looks around for the culprit, but finds no one looking shifty. So she cleans the board and proceeds with the lecture.

Every morning for the next week, the lecturer goes into the classroom and finds the same word on the board, written larger than before. And each day she wipes it off. Finally, one day, she walks in and finds a new message. This time it says: “The more you rub it, the bigger it gets!”