A CYNIC’S GUIDE TO GETTING HITCHED, EPISODE 1

Everybody’s doing it


I’m getting dressed for a wedding, even though I hate the damn things, but it’s my girl, Mansa’s wedding so I have to be present.

My mother, who I live with, walks into my room unannounced.

“Where are you going?” she demands.

I roll my eyes as I sit on the bed to slip on my stilettos, “To a wedding. I told you last week that I’d be going,”

“Aah, your friend, er, that fair one, what’s her name?”

“Yes that one’s wedding,” I roll my eyes again. She’s getting old, forgetful and extremely talkative.

“Ah, but is that what you’re wearing?”

And also very annoying; she’s referring to my blue, no frills three quarter length sheath dress and my black, leather pumps. She second guesses my every decision. I suppose she has a right to. I’m 31, still living with her and no boyfriend in sight, let alone a husband.

With only my small business (which itself is still at the suckling stages) to call my own, I can officially say that my life sucks! And by all indications, it’s going to suck even more in the coming months if not years.

I finish dressing up; grab my purse and race out the door before Mama Dearest can ask me anything else.

At Mansa’s wedding I sit on her bed and watch her struggle to fit into her traditional dress for the traditional wedding ceremony. She’s usually a UK size 12 (today a size 10 because of the stress that comes with planning two weddings) but she’s squeezing into a size 8 dress because she was determined to fit into it when she first had it sewn three weeks ago. Her intense diet didn't help.

She looks beautiful, but not like herself, all that make-up and fake hair makes her look like an airbrushed magazine model. When she’s dressed she can’t sit down for fear of ripping her dress at the seams; it’s that tight. But she’s happy, very happy so I am too, for her.

Ayitey, my best friend who is also Mansa’s wedding photographer takes two more photos of her before heading downstairs to take pictures of the family members gathered downstairs.

“Adubea,” Mansa reaches out to me on the bed to come and stand beside her. There are four other young women in her bedroom: her two younger sisters and two other girlfriends of hers who I don’t know very well; they are colleagues from her workplace. The make-up lady just left.

“Go and see what’s going on, I’m sure Kwamena and his family have arrived. I squeeze her hand and smile. Her excitement is nothing if not contagious.

I walk down the stairs to the living room where the traditional wedding ceremony is taking place. The Okyeame who is usually a theatrical person is rattling on about the significance of two families joining together. I tip toe to the gathering in order not to disturb the attentive and amused families. Kwamena’s family has arrived and it’s almost time to call in the bride. I rush off to tell Mansa that she’ll be called upon any moment now.

Ten minutes later the Okyeame, a dark, buxom woman in her late fifties knocks on Mansa’s door and invites her out. We, her sisters and friends, walk with her in a straight line as is customary – the Ghanaian version of bride’s maids. After much cheering and clapping and laughing, the bride is soon seated beside her groom, who is wearing a caftan that matches her dress.

Did I mention that I hate weddings? Ah yes, I did; that’s how deeply I abhor them. Well not just weddings but social gatherings of every kind. I find them to be tiresome travesties completely undeserving of the extravagance and budget bestowed on them.

Cases in point: anyone looking at Mansa’s beaming father sitting so close to her mother would think that they were the model of married life. Those close to the family, however, know that they haven’t said a civil word to each other in years.

There is also a skinny young woman in the crowd on the husband’s side who as of 3 months ago was having an affair with the dapper groom. No one but I know this, of course. I ran into them once playing kissy face at my favourite hangout. On confrontation he swore to me that there was nothing going on. When I told Mansa, she said the tramp had been introduced to her months ago as Kwamena’s cousin who was in town from the UK for the year and that I was not to worry, “Kwamena will never do anything like that to me.” I let it go lest I come across as the jealous single friend who is trying to break up a healthy relationship.

It’s as if that one day (in Ghana, two days if you add the white or church weddings that have now become the standard) on which so much money and time is spent will make some grave difference in the lives of the couple. A bad relationship before a marriage will go on being a bad relationship after the ceremony and a good relationship before a wedding will go on being a good relationship after the ceremony. It just leaves you with more people to lie to and hide from when things get worse because now you have officially given them permission to dig into your relationship.

I’m thinking this exact same thing as I sit with the wedding party at the ‘head table’ the next day. The traditional marriage on Friday and the white church wedding on Saturday; farce upon farce. It’s time to throw the bouquet and all the single ladies are invited to the floor to catch the coveted flower arrangement.

When the pink, yellow and green bunch is airborne, two young women leap into the air and both grab it. On landing, they tussle for a minute before the stronger of the two manages to fully possess it. She brandishes the bouquet over her head like it is a trophy. I shake my head.

I catch a glimpse of my best friend, Ayitey, the wedding photographer and we exchange knowing smiles. Ayitey and I have been friends for 6 years now. We met on Facebook and have not gone a day without talking to each other since. Ayitey, unlike me, absolutely loves weddings or social gatherings of any kind. You would think it is because he makes a living off them but it’s the other way round. How strange for a man.

Most people think we are an item and those who know we are not think we should be. We’ve talked about it and decided we don’t have any romantic feelings towards each other. We agreed that if we are ever to hook up it will be because we are the last two unmarried people in our age group. That was four years ago and its beginning to look like we might be the last two standing soon; Ayitey is also single and we’re attending at least two weddings every weekend.

Have I always been this cynical about marriage and life in general? Yes. Why? I don’t know. My father was an absentee who had another family in the US where he lives now. As one of my exes said, “What’s a girl without her Daddy issues?” But he’s not the reason why and like I told my ex, a girl only has Daddy issues if her father’s absenteeism causes her to make life choices based on it. I don’t sleep around, I don’t choose men who are exactly like my father or nothing like him, and I don’t shy away from relationships for fear of being hurt. I never met the man, how could he affect me in anyway? I think I’m cynical because I’ve seen too much of real life to be fooled by the rosy side of things.

Far from having any absent-father self-esteem issues I am quite confident in myself. If you ask me what I think of myself, I’ll tell you, I’m awesome.


I am single because, even though I enjoy male companionship and most of my good friends are male, I have never really felt the need to dedicate my life to one let alone co-habitate willingly with them. To be honest, I find them more bearable to deal with than those of my own sex. I wish it were not so, then maybe I could understand what this constant need to be possessed by a man is all about.

The relationships I have been in always ended amicably even though, very surprisingly, four out of the five of them left me for other women. I’m so frigging awesome so you can understand why I’m so baffled at such results. How did I get into those relationships, well quite frankly, I discovered sex and like every misguided woman I thought it was ok to sleep with a man as long as there's a 'suitable' label on our relationship, so they asked and I said yes.

Mansa hasn't always had the best luck with relationships either but the difference between us is, she wants them and marriage has always been in her plans. Actually, marriage has been her master plan. It's almost as if she's the lonely part of broken whole searching for her other half. She found it with Kwamena. I, like I said, never understood that yearning.

But 2014 is my “Year of” long lasting relationships, as the religious stickers say. I’m in my thirties, that biological clock everybody, especially my doctor, seems to be talking about has got to be sounding an alarm. Sadly, I don’t hear it.

I’m home. It's past 8pm. Ayitey and I stayed long after the ceremony was over so I could be the dutiful bride’s maid and see Mansa off on her honeymoon. Then we went to have drinks at The Republic, our favourite hangout.

Mama Dearest is asleep, so I try not to wake her. I am grateful for the temporary reprieve for there will definitely be an inquest in the morning for details of the wedding. She probing and I reluctantly mumbling answers is our version of conversation. It is difficult for me to be chummy with her because growing up she was very distant to me and my brother. I suppose it was because she felt betrayed and used by my father who left her alone to raise two children on a meagre retailer’s income. In later years she changed her outlook and with my brother in far off UK for school and subsequently work, I’m the only companion she has. She’s been trying to make amends. I appreciate her efforts but being intimate with her still doesn’t come easy to me.

If I had any issues at all they would be Mummy issues. Her coldness in our formative years is most likely the reason why I don’t care much for having children of my own because I’m afraid I’ll treat them the same way she treated us.

I take a shower and switch on my laptop to check my messages. There’s a Facebook message from Deladem. Deladem was the first man to ask me to marry him. That was 10 years ago right out of university. I said no because I had all these dreams and ideas of how I wanted my life to be and marriage wasn’t in the cards.

He, unlike most men who are rejected, stayed in touch over the years even though he moved to Denmark. Every time either of us breaks up with someone, we joke that if I had accepted his proposal, we wouldn’t be going through any of that. Several times in retrospect I have wondered why I said no to him. We knew each other inside out, we liked the same things mostly, we have incredible rapport and we care very deeply about each other. But then I remember clearly that in the moment he asked me I felt an inexplicable panic; it felt like my life was ending before it had the chance to start. No use in worrying about that now, he’s in a relationship with some woman he met in Denmark and it looks like he’s very serious about her.

He is online and I tell him about the wedding. We chat for a while until my eyes start to get heavy and I tell him goodnight. I am sure of three things in my life; my mother’s love, my ability to bake a mean cake (which is what I do for a living) and Deladem’s friendship.

So you ask, for someone who hates weddings and thinks she’ll be a horrible mother, what’s so important about finding a man? Could it be because everyone is doing it? I’ve never been one to follow the crowd and for someone who thinks every human endeavour is overrated, I can guarantee that’s not the reason why.

At the rate people are getting hitched it’s only a matter of time before everyone becomes a twosome. Ayitey with his devil-may-care attitude actually has scores of women chasing after him and it won’t be long before he gives in to one of them, then I’d be left alone.

It’s purely logical; two heads are better than one, safety in numbers and so forth. It’s a cold, hard world; it just makes sense to have someone in your corner. So yes, I also seek a partner and if marriage is the accepted way of getting that person, then so be it. The thought of ending up like my mother, all alone with only my near estranged children for company also keeps me awake at night. I intend to put an end to those sleepless nights.