WHAT’S THE POINT?

Sometimes I think relationships are such a hoax. Big fat hoaxes which start with a fairytale illusion that at some point in this twisted life, we will get the one our hearts desire; our prince charming or lady love! Lies I say, lies that we have been fed since childhood in cartoons, movies, soap operas you name it. The boy gets the hot girl and the girl gets the man of her dreams. It doesn’t always (if ever) happen this way, and yet we keep the dream alive.Irony!

Girls dream and fantasize over their desired prince, hoping that this knight in armour will come in all his splendour, and swoop them off their feet…  Be the hunky stud who will be the rock and haven in their lives, the love of their lives who will shower them with tender loving care ; treat them well as if they were the most precious and important thing to him and possibly live a happily ever after.

Boys dream as well. That at the end of it all they will get the woman of their dreams. Attractive both on the inside and outside (but more of the outside-I stand to be corrected), loving , caring, soft, gentle, dainty, someone who can be a home maker and can walk with them through the ups and downs of their lives and so on.

Growing up, brimming with all this expectations the girl and boy await breathlessly for when they can actualize their relationship dreams and fantasies. Some start young, others a bit older. It starts with the honey moon phase where everyone is all lovey-dovey and starry-eyed; attraction is the name of the game.  If one is lucky they will stay in this happy place for at least a month.

As fast as it starts, all the butterflies, flittering-floating feelings of love, so does it fade, and fast. The dredging reality that all is not well sinks in and sucks the life out of the relationship. The bed of roses suddenly has thorns.  What they thought were star qualities suddenly become the most appalling qualities. Soon, it becomes a story of “You’ve changed, you’re not the person I said yes to,” or “I’m bored, I’m not happy I want out” then the ultimate shift in direction. Those who are in want out and woe to those who are out because they desperately want to get in. Problem is they don’t know what lies in store for them.

The cycle goes on for a large number, especially those who start young: a case of kissing too many frogs for one’s lifetime while a few fortunate souls find the one who was made for them and continue to their ‘Happily ever after’. Worse still are those who get into marriages that start out all blissfully and eventually turn out to be depressing, daunting, draining, unsatisfactory and irreversible, especially where children are involved. So at the end of the day I ask myself this one question, what’s the point?

By Miriam S N Mathenge

*Disclaimer: I do believe in true love and relationships working out for the best. I just question some of them at times.