The Hunt
Dating, derived from the act of two people setting dates to meet. A time when people can put their best foot forward – best dress, best behaviour – and leave the bad stuff, the real stuff in a box to be opened when the deal is sealed. It’s a human endeavour; therefore I do not trust it.
But this mission is not about my trust issues. Actually it is in spite of my trust issues. I’ve only ever been on dates with people I’ve known for months at least so I’m nervous as hell. Why should I be, though? It’s not like I have to stay with them if I don’t want to. That’s what dating is all about isn’t it, getting to know someone well enough to decide if they are the one you choose to mate with for life.
My first date is a friend of Ayitey’s. He described him as “someone you’ll like”. Apparently, he likes most of the same things I do and he’s “single and looking”.
He comes to my house to pick me up. The only good place he knows is about an hour away from where I live and quite close to his house. I choose to take him to a lounge close to my house instead. It’s safer…for me.
Walking is a great way to get to know someone, I think. Some of my best conversations have been had while taking a stroll with someone so I ask him if he minds that I want to walk to the Z Lounge. He says no. I have no way of knowing if doesn't mind because it’s our first date or if he’s agreeing because he really likes to take walks.
We talk in a start-and-stop manner for about 10 minutes then we fall silent. It’s uncomfortable. We’re getting to a dimly lit corner in my neighbourhood where something funny happened with my mother a while back so I decide to fill in the silence and tell him the story.
“My mother was coming back from her friend’s house down that road at about 9pm. When she got to that corner, she saw an older man throwing stones at the base of a wall. She asked him what he was doing and the old guy said, breathlessly, it’s a snake, it’s a snake! My mother, having a mortal fear of snakes, hurried past. The next morning she went down that same path and searched for remains of the snake, it turns out that it’s a shoe lace that the guy was stoning to death,” I laugh at that. He doesn’t.
When we get to the corner, I point it out and say, “And that’s where the old guy killed the shoelace.” I think it’s a pretty witty line which deserves at least a chuckle. But I get nothing.
Strike one, no sense of humour; this is going to be a long night.
At the lounge I find myself leading the conversation; asking all the questions.
So I ask, “Ayitey tells me you like movies, which kind?”
“Oh, anything with lots of action in it.”
“So the story doesn’t matter to you?”
“Not really. Give me special effects over a winding story any day. I mean movies are for entertainment you shouldn’t have to think about it, we do enough of that in our daily lives, the film is the escape.”
Strike two we can’t sit down and watch “A beautiful Mind” together and mutually enjoy it.
I’ve heard enough.
The second date I went on was with a guy who wouldn’t stop talking about himself and the many UN meetings he has been invited to speak at because he’s seen as some African tech whizz kid. (Yeah, look at this young man from poor, dirty old Africa actually able to decipher the complex language of technology and look at us giving him a chance to see a world he would otherwise never get the opportunity to see). I see it is a condescending, oppressive move of the west, like almost everything they do; he sees it as the greatest honour to be bestowed on someone his age from Ghana. He even so much as said it’ll be in my best interest to date him because he “could show me the world.”
NEXT!
I go on 6 dates in 2 weeks; all major disasters!
“I give up,” I tell Ayitey after the last catastrophe of a date. “Its slim pickings all round. The good ones must all be taken.”
“Don’t be dramatic, you’ve only dated six. Alright, let’s take a break from hunting. There’s an all-female band playing at The Republic tonight and I hear they’ll be a flamenco dancer too. I want to take some pictures. Let’s go, it’ll be fun."
I acquiesce. The show has already started by the time we get there, thanks to Ayitey’s tardiness – I was ready on time.
We find a spot to sit and order some drinks. A few minutes later, Ayitey excuses himself to start his photo session. I’m sitting alone swaying to the music when a tall, good looking man who looks to be in his mid-thirties walks up to my table, blocking my view of the stage. The seats are all filled now and he was drawn by Ayitey’s empty chair.
He motions and mouths if someone is sitting there. I nod and look towards Ayitey. He’s not going to come and sit down any time soon. When he gets in the zone he likes to be thorough. It doesn’t make sense to make the poor guy stand when there’s an empty chair and besides, his tall, broad frame is blocking my view of the stage so I motion for him to sit down and shout to him, “When he comes, you’ll have to get up.”
He nods and sits.
The wiry flamenco dancer is in full tapping and swirling mode. Her fingers tickle the air in choreographed grace while her feet stomp an energetic and rhythmic beat on the hard wood stage floor. In her moves I see a blend of several Ghanaian traditional dances melded with foreign influences. She speeds up as the Spanish guitar ascends onto a plane of exhilarating chords, holding the crowd spellbound until she abruptly halts in a beautiful pose, one arm high up in the air, bent at the elbow, the other hand on her hip and her legs firmly planted on the floor holding up her body slightly bent backwards; the amber street light illuminating her silhouette like a beautiful sculpture. The crowd roars with cat calls, whistles, applause and animal like sounds. Everyone is on their feet.
When the crowd settles and we sit down the usurper of Ayitey’s seat leans in to me and says.
“I could have sworn I saw adowa and keteke in there somewhere.”
I turn to him with the “I was thinking the same thing!” look and catch his smile and his expectant look and something I can only describe as a taught rope snaps somewhere in the vicinity of my chest. That rope must have been holding my heart steady because immediately it snaps my heart begins to race.
I don’t think I have ever been in love. Not the way Mansa describes it. I have had boyfriends and enjoyed their company and missed them when they weren’t around but according to Mansa, if I really was in love with them, it’d have taken me more than a few weeks to get over them. Remaining close friends with them apparently is also an indication of my lack of deep emotional attachment. Mansa considers herself a bit of an expert on my life. According to her, if I was in love with any of them, I’d still want them even now so being friends with them would be “dysfunctional”.
I have often considered this and I have come to the conclusion that I do not have a problem. It is those who allow themselves to get so attached to another human being who do. I think I understand that people come and go in one’s life so when it’s time for them to leave, I don’t fight it.
Mansa poo poos this and retorts, “You just haven’t been in love or you wouldn’t say that.”
But what causes one to fall in love? Is it ordained? Is it something that the person does and something about them one likes that causes a person to say, “I have fallen in love”?
Why haven’t I fallen in love? Ayitey says it’s because I know too much and I’m too cynical. Mansa says I know too little and I’m too cynical. I think it’s because love is a myth; a figment of lonely and bored imaginations. When Mansa breaks up with some guy she swore heaven and earth she was in love with and mourns for her customary 3 months (comparing him with everyone in sight and talking about him non-stop) she finds someone who she claims is multiple times better than her ex and falls in love all over again. Anything that fleeting can only be a chemical reaction like indigestion, nothing as dire as they describe.
“Ehee, I only wish to be there when you fall in love. You wait and see, yours will be so moving, so devastating that it’ll make a believer out of you. That’s what happens to people like you,” Mansa cursed me one evening.
Sitting there with the amber street light flooding one half of this stranger's face lighting his smooth caramel skin; contouring his strange hawk like nose and lining his thick, smooth lips; causing me to forget my words, I suddenly think about Mansa. I need her; surely she must know what to do in this unfamiliar situation.
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