Love and Politics

BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
THE Whisperer is not a politician, that most reviled of professions, but recognises the importance it plays in all matters.
Love conquers all, truly, but what happens when your relationship becomes the subject of politicking as it will someday?
Many years ago, The Whisperer, who likes to think of himself as of indeterminate race or tribe met a girl from the Eastern part of Nigeria.
It started off like many relationships start, thunder rumbling overhead in clear blue skies, flutters in the stomach, sweet love songs having meaning wherever one came across them, wanting to be with this person all the time, and then the politics came into play.
One day, an older woman from her parts asked her, “What are you doing with this boy?”
It was a question posed entirely on tribal divides and I was flabbergasted. Now, I have since learnt that the politicking is not limited to the East. My “tribe” is as guilty of it as any other and sometimes the politics comes from religious and financial angles
Richard Nixon, the former United States’ president was caught on tape saying abortion might be allowed if the prospective parents were white and black.
Politics with a mix of something more malevolent. Let’s be grateful that the days of the Nixons are gone, at least in America.
Is love entirely free of politics, ever? The girl you find just a bit more attractive because her father is a Director General and lives in a house that makes the MTV “cribs” of the superstars’ pall in comparison?
The guy you think might be a good catch because he holds a European Community passport? A pretty girl once asked me outright where I was born.
When she found it was in Nigeria, a country she apparently considered landlocked and unable to produce any good thing, she lost interest in me. I’m glad she did, it showed a remarkable lack of intellect on her part and years after, she’s still ‘landlocked’ and that young man has become... well, The Whisperer.

WHAT to do when the young man you’re crazy about has a dragon for a mother and you can see from the first time you say hello that she’ll only let you marry her son over her dead body?
She doesn’t think you’re good enough because you’re not a doctor or an engineer or she thinks you just lack pedigree.
You let the young man be if he can’t sort it. It’s his fight, not yours and if he can’t settle that, there’ll be many things he’ll leave unresolved in your life.
As an aside, it amazes me to see some families claim pedigree. What is that indeterminate thing called pedigree? How does it develop? How does a family recognise if it has one?
I come from a middle-class background (at least I hope it was middle-class) and have some self-acclaimed pedigreed relatives who amuse me no end with their posturing. In the proper sense of the word, they do not qualify in any way. So, is pedigree about money, or education or royal lineage?
If it is about money, is it about new money or old money? Can the new rich stake a claim to pedigree?
Can those whose grandparents were rich but who have now frittered away their own inheritance stake a claim because they come from good stock?
A person who considers pedigree and not the worth of the man or woman standing in front of him or her needs therapy.
Let every person be judged on whom he or she is and not how many bags of ammunition a parent managed to sell as a gun-runner during the Congo war.
Then of course, there is the intellectual class which will accept you as long as you have some modicum of intelligence. Let all those who have been discriminated against run to its ranks.
The politics in religion must never be under-rated. The religious leader who tries to match-make members of his or her flock for the sake of not wanting them to disperse to other flocks or seeking to maintain some kind of control over specific members by fixing them up with ‘loyal subjects’.
No, it’s not always all about love with religion, I’m afraid. For non-Africans, the power of African religious leaders is incomprehensible but the power is alive here, nonetheless.

THE Whisperer went to see a young woman he was enamoured of while still at university, and met her father for the first time that day. He was a high-ranking member of the government and he asked, ‘What’s your name?’ so The Whisperer told him. Then he repeated the surname and asked, “What does your father do?” That day, I wished my father had some exotic job like an astronaut (Nigeria still has none of that) or a space engineer. Politics walks hand in hand with love in many places.
I remember the story my friend, Soji, told me a few days before we were called to the Nigerian Bar. We had gone to different universities even though we grew up one street away from each other, then had met up again at the Nigerian Law School.
That day, Soji told me a tale I will always remember as long as there is life in me. He had finished secondary school but hadn’t been admitted to university and he had taken up a job. He had however met this young girl who was in first year at a university studying medicine and they had begun a relationship, one that he appreciated greatly.
One day, he decided to go visit her and took another friend along. He hadn’t been there five minutes when the girl’s father returned and met them all seated. The girl introduced them and then went on an errand for her father. Soji said the father looked at he and his friend for a while and then asked, “what do you do?” Soji and his friend were in the same boat at that time, a state that might have made them appear like low-lives and lacking any kind of ambition. The girl’s father asked Soji, “look around this living room. Is your father’s house like this?” The man continued, “You see that girl, you will never be like her”
When they were “released”, Soji and his friend stumbled out of the apartment, his friend so confused, climbing over the balcony guard.
That tirade by the girl’s father inspired Soji to study law and that day as we sat and laughed about the story, he spoke of returning to the man’s home in his wig and gown and telling him how far he had come.
We understand that with almost everything, humanity is selective, and we sometimes sub-consciously choose partners for the size of their hips so they can find child-bearing easy and for what they can bring to the dinner table.
However it may be, let it never be said that we have forgotten that most fundamental of things, the reason the very world goes round and why the earth is filled with beauty. Love will always be the message of this Whisperer.

laspapi@yahoo.com

A whisperer’s monologue

BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
I HAD the opportunity to spend time in a conversation with a good-looking young woman a few days ago.
As I looked at her, I thought of the ways men and women undo themselves, caring (and loving?) for the sake of what is on the outside, the beauty, the articulation, the poise, seldom the character or the staying power.
The Whisperer does not say this because he lacks poise or articulation or good looks. Quite the opposite, he might add, as even his detractors must admit.
But still, as humans, we seem pre-programmed only to look skin-deep, never below the surface, where true beauty lies, and sometimes danger.
Danger, because it is only when you go down and under that you are able to tell if the person you are with, will make or mar your future.
It’s just a relationship, the less-sceptical will say. What’s just having a relationship got to do with your future?
Everything, The Whisperer submits. We meet people all the time and they are either adding to us or removing from us.
Look to those who will radiate heat back to you the same way you give off heat, never look to the person who will be a drain, and they are many out there.
So, The Whisperer sat studying the young woman and discovered she was a serious painter as well, and that scored her well in his books.
We meet many people who exist only on their looks like the ex-beauty queen who once told me she expected to be taken care of by men. Her philosophy was simple. ‘I am beautiful so you will pay to have the pleasure of my companionship.’
Extra-ordinary way of thinking. But not this beautiful painter, apparently, and The Whisperer was suitably impressed.

THE Whisperer is at crossroads in his life at the moment, in so many areas. Often, these days, he sits and thinks of love, of beauty that has come and that has gone, of family, of true friends and the lack of that and the true meaning of life.
He understands like Shakespeare wrote that there is a tide in the affairs of men, a tide you must catch and if you lose that wave as it comes surging in, you will forever be trapped in shallow waters.
He is fairly certain that he has caught his tide and he has escaped shallow waters in many areas of his life but still he cannot help but feel pain for those who still flounder.
As I stood to purchase a box of weetabix last night, I looked at the tall gangling young man attending to me, aged maybe a little over twenty.
The sadness seemed to radiate from somewhere deep within this young man and I winced as if struck with a blow. That was how palpable it was. I wanted to show him sunny fields and tell him, ‘the world is yours, use it as you will, learn to laugh and shake of this thing that seems to bow your shoulders’.
His father sat to one side in a distant part of the ‘chemist’, reading some literature under a naked, dimly lit bulb in the semi-darkness while his younger sister sat nearby. She did not appear so sad but I could not take my eyes off the young man.
It is The Whisperer’s curse that he must feel extremes of pain and pleasure, and often, like a radio, he picks signals where others might not. The signals are not always pleasant and often, there is little one can do about the situation.
A while back, The Whisperer had a conversation with another young man who worked for him, good-looking by many standards but lacking in self-confidence.
I opened the pages of a glossy magazine and showed all the beautiful women there, then told him — ‘There isn’t one of these women who is better than you.’ Often, we are the ones who consider ourselves unworthy. Unworthy of attention, of love and of happiness.
They say, the problem is not that we ask for too much, but often, we are ready to settle for too little. We do not think we deserve good things, and there are many people who are not where they should be today because they do not believe they deserve to be there.
We pay lip-service saying we want these things, and make the proper ‘confessions as well, but deep down in our hearts, we really think we are unworthy.
It takes a mind-set; strength of purpose and a continuous declaration to yourself that you deserve the best in life and you intend to get and keep those trappings that constitute the best.
Never forget no one can make you feel inferior without your consent and like Lincoln once said, no one can write on your back unless you bend it.

SO, The Whisperer stands today and remembers the girl he used to know that has become a woman now but in so many ways still retains so many aspects of her childhood that makes her so endearing to him and he calls out to her and says, do not let any man short-change you. Let no one serve you your pounded yam in small portions.
You are a Queen, a true example that some are born great. Remember who you are if others around you forget, and do not settle for less than you deserve.
Let no man think he does you a favour by being with you, you are beautiful inside and out and The Whisperer will always be your friend.
And to all the women who are out there, remember that little girls will become lasses and they in turn will become young ladies confident of themselves.
And they will get older and become mothers and grandmothers as sure as day must turn to night, but the things that will stand the test of time are not the looks, or the clothes or the cut of hair.
The thing that will remain with you is the beauty you have on the inside, the goodness that radiates from you, and the happiness you are able to share. And to all of you too, I say, let no one serve you your pounded yam in small portions.
laspapi@yahoo.com

The broken mould

BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
WE’LL start this ‘story’ properly by defining what a mould is for those who might not know. It’s what potters and people of similar professions make their casts, shapes, patterns and forms from.
You make the mould then pour in the plaster, the clay, molten gold or whatever else you might use to make your shapes and it brings an exact replica of the form of the mould. In that case, you might call the mould the master-copy.
One day, a while back, Sherri, a female who stays continents away and whom I consider very pleasant, wrote of me, “they broke the mould after laspapi” and that set me thinking.
What happens when we find the perfect person, that person who meets almost all of our needs and expectations in a partner and we get on like a house on fire, but then someday, for whatever reason, we have to part ways permanently with that person, road leading onto road? What happens if the perfect mould is broken?
Let’s be truthful, the world has basic types of people. Even the Whisperer has categorized women into four main groupings, the Jerry Springer, the Free Spirit, The Girl Next Door and the Thorough Bred. However, these are broad generalisations and even within groups, there is massive individuality. So you meet the perfect partner, the one who laughs at your jokes, who looks at you from across the room and you know without an exchange of words that it is time for you to leave the horrible party both of you made the mistake of attending.
What happens to your world if this person leaves, if the mould is broken and cannot be replaced? One might create another mould, some would say. That might be true but it would never be the same. It might be better ...or it might be worse.
The idiosyncrasies that come with one partner are rarely duplicated in another. The laughter, the friendship, the way people respond when upset or annoyed, the intimacy; all these things are peculiar to individuals and you cannot teach another to be like the one that went before.
It is disrespectful , as a matter of fact, to even try. There are no two people that have the same kind of dentition, not even twins. You find someone who’s like your mould and yet, there’s something missing. Maybe laughter that goes on a bit too long or is a little bit too loud or just has a grating quality that sets your teeth on edge.

THE Whisperer asks again, “what do you do when the mould is gone for whatever reason?” The separation might be your fault, the fault of the mould or circumstances beyond your control. Yes, life isn’t always fair, so get ready for the curve balls. By an accident of fate, the ‘perfect partner’ has walked out of the door and you know, you just know with a sinking of the heart, ‘he ain’t coming back this time’.
In retrospect, The Whisperer believes that quite a number of his relationships were with people who looked like a master copy since long gone.
It appeared it was a subconscious thing not done with any afore-thought malice. It just happened that a number of subsequent partners looked like a certain female the Whisperer once cared greatly about and who also cared about him.
Some would argue that men and women have certain specifications, standards they want partners to meet, whether physical, emotional or intellectual so that might be the reason your partners seem to look the same way. It isn’t always so.
It might just be because somewhere deep in your heart, you’re looking to replace the person who rocked your world, anyhow you can.
If the mould is broken, is life over? It would be foolish to set out thinking that life has ended because you cannot continue a relationship. The world as you know it might have entered a new phase but you must look on this as an opportunity to improve the prototype...if you’re lucky.
The world is full of beautiful people and you cannot lie down and die because the pain in your heart is unlike any other that you have felt. An amount of philosophical thinking is needed here and it is that if it was meant to be, it would have been.
The Whisperer, once or twice, has lost out on lucrative-appearing contracts unlike any in his profession but he learnt one must have the ability to turn one’s back on these disappointments and move on. Pain paralyses and will make nonsense of your future if you do not let go.
Travel the world, take up new hobbies, and meet interesting people from the North, from Kenya, from Tibet, anywhere. Win a Grammy like Tina Turner after managing to escape from the abusive Ike, be like Cher, who continues to re-invent herself generation after generation even though Sonny’s long gone, or like Halle Berry and win an Oscar after your man rejects you in public.
It doesn’t matter how you do it, but like the Nike advert goes, “just do it”. Do your best to make a much better mould than what you had before and improve your art.

AS an aside, I receive mail from strange men who believe the pictures that accompany the “whispering page” are pictures of the writer.
The pictures of the usually attractive women (there have been a few lapses of judgment) on the page are chosen by the staff of The Guardian and not by The Whisperer, who is a male. And anyway, except you’re brain-dead, just reading a few lines would let you know it was a man writing. So, here goes to the men who have offered me homes in Abuja and in Calabar; those pictures are not of the writer.
But I digress. If the mould is broken, you can make a new one, an improved one, cast in stainless steel or made with flawless titanium.
The world is a beautiful place and The Whisperer has met many, many beautiful people; women with great hearts and great, great minds, and he faces the future with a huge smile on his face and a jaunty spring in his step and he tells you, as one friend to the other, that you should too.

laspapi@yahoo.com

The many shades of grey

BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
THE Whisperer strolled into a bank today and met a young woman seated around a desk where he wanted confirmation on a few issues.
It wasn’t their first meeting; she had been to The Whisperer’s office known as the play-station, once before in the company of another colleague of hers on a marketing drive engineered by the bank; a self-assured very-good looking young woman who appeared totally unmoved by his self-claimed larger-than-life persona.
Today, she again ignored (or pretended to ignore) The Whisperer as she went about her work, busying herself with documents and all the other paraphernalia that make up banking.
After a while, she melted and said hello properly and we spoke about many things.
The prevailing impression one got from her was that she was a lady who loved exact things. She asked The Whisperer — even though he has three accounts in the bank and she has been to his place of ‘play’— “what is it that you do exactly?”
That was an odd one, I thought as I deliberated the question. I finally replied, “I’m a media practitioner.”
She asked again, “what does that mean?” I again replied, “a person who practices media things... writing, producing, directing etc.”
To her clinical mind, those terms were too hazy to be called a vocation. You had to have concrete terms... Lawyer, doctor, engineer.
She told me, “long ago if you’d gone to ask for a woman’s hand in marriage and had said ‘media practitioner’ as a job, you’d have been chased out by the girl’s father.”
Personally, The Whisperer, even though a trained lawyer, is glad we are now in the 21st century, where ‘hazy’ concepts can earn you a living, where you can buy land and build houses by being a ‘Stand-Up’ comedian.
I told of her of the impression she had created at our very first meeting- That of a girl who was very good-looking and knew it.
She looked you in the eye and dared you to try the come-on lines that men throw at girls in those moments; those tentative, often weak lines, the unsure groping men do when they are trying to feel their way.
She was a girl who understood how attractive she was and felt there was nothing new a man could show her.

BUT she was in the presence of The Whisperer and he found her self-assurance and apparent cynicism interesting.
Her demeanour at our first meeting and the reason for it was the subject of debate when we met again. She disagreed with The Whisperer’s surmising, saying she had intended and meant nothing.
Her world-view particularly in relation to men was mind-blowing. All men are a$%^-h&^%s whether or not they have fulfilled their potential in that regard or not.
According to her, a nice man is an accident waiting to happen, just biding his time until when the passion burns out and he can say he’s off through the door again.
The Whisperer disagrees with the lovely lady on some of these issues. The world is not a picture painted in stark colours.
It is not divided into black and white (what a boring place it would be if that was so), there are many, many shades of grey in every relationship, in every friendship platonic and otherwise and sometimes things are not always as they seem.
It is true that men will give anything in the pursuit of a woman. They will stand out in the rain, sing under the stars and cross continents to find the woman that is the subject of their affections.
They will take whatever insults come with their desire (at those times, men can be surprisingly mule-headed). When the objective is attained and the female has been made to see things their way, loving them for who they are, the men suddenly lose the drive that made that woman the sole focus of their desires.
They begin to look for ways to walk away and some day, they find that way. That is the black and white of the story.
However, even in these cases of “man loves woman, woman spurns man, man pursues woman across the world, woman finally succumbs and falls in love, man falls out of love”, there are exceptions.
Those are the shades of grey. It is not every man that walks away from the love he has found.
Women must remember that love (and relationships of any kind) must be worked at. You cannot attain the goal and give up on it.
You have to keep the relationship alive even after you have achieved a state of bliss. It is true that many men have the hunter’s instincts that drives them in pursuit of other partners after succeeding with one but who has ever seen a well-fed lion (or lioness) make a kill and go off immediately in search of other prey? The trick then might be to keep the hunter sated, well-satisfied, having no need to hunt down another.

THERE are some who will say “men will be men”, no matter what- That they will fall in and out of love at the drop of a hat. We must remember that to every rule, there are exceptions. There are men who do not follow the norm (as there are women).
Some men walk that grey realm, a place where the general rules do not apply. For every man that has ever walked away from a woman who gave her all so they could be together, there is another who came to his senses and returned to that woman.
Sometimes, not closing our minds to the chance that there are ‘good’ men out there will open us up to immense possibilities. We must not believe that all men are stereotypes and no good can come of trusting them.
The Whisperer believes in love and its lasting qualities. He is sure that for every woman, there is a good man. You just have to be careful in your searching.
If you choose a man for all the wrong qualities; his home, his job, his bank account, it doesn’t make for long-lasting relationships. The world of superficiality is also the world of black and white, a world in which you can know the end from the very beginning. As the Resident said to Mr. Pilkings in ‘Death and the King’s Horseman’, “keep your nose to the ground”.

laspapi@yahoo.com

Love made easy

BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
THE Whisperer has been writing these articles for more than two years now, close to twenty-six months of telling and learning how it is.
Some of the things written have been from experience, the Whisperer’s and others; some from intuition and a number from “worst case scenarios” or what he likes to call, the ‘what ifs?’
The columns have brought new friends into his life (and probably new enemies). Some men have taken umbrage at The Whisperer’s advice to females accusing him of ‘teaching them to be wayward’.
Some women have just been miffed at the very idea of a man thinking he knows so much. For those in the latter category, believe The Whisperer, he does know.
The Whisperer, on this journey, has met females who liked him for a myriad of reasons, the feeling not always being reciprocated, and others in whom the feeling was mutual, friends he wishes to keep for always.
But life being what it is, you have to make do with the cards you’re dealt and play with them as if you held four aces. (In that last statement, might lie the secret to true happiness).
Many good songs have philosophies. It is rare for a song that has no sound reasoning in its lyrics to stay on as a perennial, evergreen tune, playable from generation to generation.
Why do Nat King Cole songs still have meaning after all these decades? Because they are beautiful, well thought out, well arranged songs for posterity.
Your children on a day they are feeling bored, come across your collection, play a song and sit mesmerized, unbelieving that the song was done decades before they were a glint in their parents’ eyes. Nat King Cole did that to me as a child, as did Harry Belafonte. Great songs, great people, that showed another world I had no idea existed.

AS I ponder on life and love in the early hours of this morning, I remember the song by the group known as ‘Native’. The title of their song was simple — Love ain’t no holiday.
They sang, as did half the world with them, “you’re my shadow’s own reflection, you’re what gets me through the day, you’re my source of inspiration, everything I have to say... and if that’s not enough, then there’s nothing left to say, but it’s sure gonna be rough, cos love ain’t no holiday”.
I agree in totality with the words of this song. We fall in love, expecting it will work itself out. It rarely does. You meet someone who plays the tune of your heart, with whom you can be silent and be at peace with the world; who, well, makes you happy. And isn’t that what life is really about, to be as happy as often as you can be?
We will not at this point have a conversation with the crew always ready to pick out and lecture on the differences between happiness and joy. The Whisperer is declaring that the reason we do the things we do, is to be in a state of happiness as often as we can be. The reason you eat chocolates; go out for dinner with friends; go the movies, sit in darkened halls and enter the world of make-believe; always call up certain people you know are always there for you; take long walks across quiet fields with someone special; put certain songs on replay in your car...
All these things are done to continue and to improve our states of happiness. So you meet this wonderful person and you fall in love and for a period in time, everything is perfect. Everything. The sun warms you on the face in the mornings, the cool breezes of the night are perfect for your outings or the times you choose to stay in. And then from nowhere, the resistance comes. Your friends are in opposition; your parents don’t approve, your religion won’t approve, your economic backgrounds are totally different... human beings have a million things that war against them and their happiness.

HOW do you get out of a bind like this? Only children should be surprised when they meet with resistance on life’s journey. Isn’t it a law that ‘for every action, there is an opposite reaction’?
The very fact that you’ve found happiness means that in some way you can expect some situation will try to take it from you. So the group called “Native” sang, ‘love ain’t no holiday’.
Sometimes, we ourselves are the obstructions to our own sunshine. Like many people who have death wishes, we chip away at the beauty we have found, because maybe deep down in our hearts, we think we’re not really meant to be that happy.
There is no situation on the face of the earth that is a new one. People come and they go, they meet someone, fall in love, find happiness. Sometimes they allow it to be taken from them, sometimes, they themselves smash up their happiness for obscure reasons they might never be able to figure.
The Whisperer, like many, many others, has felt what happiness can be like. For those who are worried about the situations they are in, he advises that they hold onto love and to what feels true to them.
It is important though, that when the ship you and your true love sail on is torpedoed, and the lifeboat you are on, has capsized and all you have left as you both swim for survival, are each other’s hands to hold on to... it is important that the person you are with, is someone you trust and someone who believes in you completely.
The person you may enter the water with is one who will not let go off your hand when the waves come to test your resolve.
On a holiday a short while ago, I saw a small marker, which was a monument to that great ship, ‘The Titanic’.
I stood quietly for a short while and remembered that great, great love story and the young man who froze to death in the sea so his true love could remain on the lifeboat. May we all be guided to those, who would give up all they have for us. May they never have cause to do so.

laspapi@yahoo.com

Whispering for Dummies

BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
AFTER receiving plenty of mail in that regard, The Whisperer realises how difficult it must be for some men to communicate with females they want to be friends with as well as potential partners.
As suitors, they are clumsy, they say things that make onlookers cringe, and they ignore the cardinal rule: when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
I stood in the company of a lady many would regard as a diva in the entertainment industry, whatever that word means.
She is unmarried but doesn’t seem to be dying from this condition many people ordinarily consider an ailment. As we stood talking, a male acquaintance sidled up to her and commended her for great work done. No problem so far.
Then he said, “I guess to do this kind of work; it’s convenient to remain single.” Foot in the mouth.
And like most amateurs, even though he knew he said something not quite right, he couldn’t keep quiet. He kept digging and floundering until he was way in over his head. I could see him frantically attempting to stop but his mouth betrayed him. The Whisperer in me looked at him and told him to shut up. It was a mercy killing, because I had seen the smouldering in my friend being addressed and knew there would have been an outburst of sorts soon if I hadn’t intervened.
This therefore is an open instruction book to all men who might want to do some amateur whispering, and desperately need to be seen by all and sundry as suave and smooth. It’s in line with all the books that say computers for dummies and astronomy for dummies.
Whispering itself, being an exact science, the ability to say what is right at the appropriate time and when to shut your mouth is as technical as the engine of a brand new car.

THE first lesson is absolutely free of charge and is meant to help the lines of communication. I’ll say something odd here to the men. Check to see that your male friends like hearing you talk.
If you can’t interest your beer buddies and they groan in despair when they hear you attempting to join a conversation, chances are it will be an uphill task trying to get a woman to listen to you for more than a couple of minutes.
If you are unnecessarily loud, and given to yelling when you are with the boys, temper it down for the ladies. No female wants you shouting at her because you are trying to be warm and outgoing.
Respect the personal space. There is an invisible circle around every human that must not be crossed except you are invited into it.
That space is the one that might make a difference in people being uneasy about you or being absolutely free. If you lean close to whisper into the ears of a female you’ve set your eyes on, be careful how you do it.
Unwanted lips touching the ear, standing so close you are breathing in each other’s carbon monoxide is a no-no. Keep your distance and err on the side of caution. If she likes you enough, one day she will stand so close; you will see the light, just like a lamp coming on in a dark room. Don’t ask me how you will know, just believe that you will.
Less is more. It’s as simple as I just wrote it. The attention you give her, the conversations you make.... Be careful that you are seen as a reservoir of knowledge and not as a fountain of information.
There is no female that likes a clinging man. For some men, the penny just dropped at that last line. If you are overly effusive with your love and affection, it will not be appreciated. I shall ignore the females protesting at the point I just made now.
If you pour it on, always sounding like an Indian lover in a Bollywood flick, the full impact of your personality will be lost on her. It’s the same way people generally do not appreciate free things; whether it is free tickets to the theatre or freebies of any sort.
They think there must be some defect in the design so they look down on it. Turn it down a bit, learn to relax. Always remember, what will be yours will be yours.
A female saying no to you is no indictment of your character or person. If she asks you to be more open, more loving, tune the dial to match what she wants, but be careful about being overly effusive. Women do not like gushing men no matter what they say to the contrary.

THERE will always be someone better looking than you. Don’t go around trying to match up with the brawny fellow on the front cover of that magazine, just be yourself in every way you can. If there is a possibility you can firm up your body, why not?
But if you do not have the time or inclination, ensure that something else has muscles; your personality, your kindness, your humour, your bank account...something has to have muscles. Women are far more practical than they are given credit for.
If you’ve met a girl that has a roving eye and speculatively inspects every man she meets, ditch her. The regular female however, will take you, as you are if you can find her emotional dashboard. Once you have the emotions, you have the woman.
Though females appear to be the same all over the world, there are slight variations from area to area, depending on environmental backgrounds, culture, DNA and up-bringing.
A modern woman might have a problem ironing your shirt because she feels it makes her subservient to you, but if you show it is something you would do for her without thought, it balances her perspective. Learn to delay gratification.
There are too many men who would try to jump the bones of any female on the first night they meet them.
No woman wants to be treated like meat. And believe me; they know what’s on your mind when you start breathing heavily and getting cross-eyed.
Free your mind; enjoy her person, the smiles she brings so easily to your face. In many ways, relationships do not differ from the way they were when we were fifteen years old apart from the heavy emphasis on physical intimacy, the older we get.
Find the joys and sheer pleasure you had in relationships when you were a teen. And for those who would say, “I’m not a child anymore,” hear The Whisperer. When you lose your childhood, you’ve lost everything.

laspapi@yahoo.com

Que Sera Sera

BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
TAKE a moment with me to hum that old, familiar tune, Que Sera Sera, which has delighted families for countless generations. The Whisperer learnt it from his mother and older sisters around candle-lit tables in the early days.
Call to mind the second stanza, “When I grew up and fell in love, I asked my sweetheart ‘what lies ahead? Will there be rainbows day after day?’ Here’s what my sweetheart said- ‘Que Sera Sera, whatever will be, will be, the future’s not ours to see, Que Sera Sera’.”
From childhood friendships and puppy love, The Whisperer has wondered about the difficulty in predicting the outcome of relationships. As a 17-year-old, I could have sworn that I had found the perfect girl.
She would work through my school with confidence as all eyes would follow her; she had eyes with an oriental slant, said she loved me and made me feel like a king, right up until the time she left me for an undergraduate. I found out the hard way that except you’re like the writer, Alexander Pope, who peaked very early, teenagers do not often end up in long-term situations with their ‘true-loves’. We met as adults and I couldn’t believe how little I felt. That wasn’t the real thing.

THE song, Que Sera Sera is not for those who have doubts about their relationships from the onset. Often, many start relationships knowing they will crash into the abyss before half a year runs out.
If you suddenly decide after a month from the kick-off of your relationship that the musk of your partner would be better if masked by a very powerful deodorant, this song is not for you. If you can’t walk at the same pace as your partner, you walk a little in front or a little behind so they don’t realise you’re the beauty walking with the beast, it’s not a Que Sera Sera moment. If you find yourself staring after your partner’s friends, unable to tear your eyes off a particularly scrumptious one, you know you’re in for the short haul.
Que Sera Sera is for those who have found true beauty, who have stumbled like Ali Baba, upon that cave which holds magical properties that can change lives forever.
Yet they know deep down, that life being what it is, sometimes curve balls will come at the very moments when you are least expecting surprises. So one lover in the song asks the other, ‘will there be rainbows day after day?’

THERE are relationships people enter knowing they would never exchange it for all the oil in Siberia. You find someone who calls out to your heart even without words.
Your eyes speak volumes across rooms even when many others are present. He (or she) knows exactly when you are silent because you hurt, and this person will swallow pride repeatedly, to make up with you so you both do not lose what you have found.
The Whisperer has seen and experienced this, as many others have too. There really is true beauty in the world.
But one day, life intervenes, the ‘reality’ of the situation hits you in the face, the next work transfer comes in, the next job offer across the Atlantic, the parent who says you are of different religions, the guardian who says you are of varying economic backgrounds, and suddenly, the pot of gold at the bottom of the rainbow is not as attainable as it once was.
There are countless ‘perfect’ relationships broken and scattered across the continents because they couldn’t stand the complications of life, ‘perfect’ couples who ended up in the arms of others for the long run.
Now this will open up a new debate. Is there only one perfect mate for you in the two and half billion potential partners that exist on this planet? Won’t there be people as nice if not better than the one you have lost or might lose? That is not the subject of my discourse.
My point is that when you find this person, who makes you see the world through new eyes, there is no one else anywhere on the planet at that particular point in your life.
The most generous, best-looking, suave people will not do it for you at that point because you have found that one who helps make time stand still as you two move alone through the earth, at peace with the world, loving each other, looking, savouring, basking in the sun and being in harmony with the universe.
There are moments when we wish the world would remain still, that we are forced to move, to continue with life, as we know it.
Still, there are ways one can beat life at its own game. If you follow your heart (and be sure it is your heart you follow, not some hazy concept you have of love) you can build a new reality.
But there is no one who has fought a duel with life that has not paid a price. Not one person. The dancer or actor, on any continent who decides there is only one profession for him must be prepared to starve for a while, that ‘while’ being relative. It may last for a few weeks or many years.
However, if he decides he will go for it at any cost, he must ready himself for the worst life can throw at him and have faith it will all turn out right. There are many bankers who have not found fulfilment at work and many actors who have.

IT is the same with affairs of the heart. If you find the relationship, you must be prepared to look life full in the face and stare life down (and that is a very, very hard thing to do). You must be prepared to create your own future so you have space for this one thing.
If the circumstances all just fall in place for you, you are indeed a blessed person; if they don’t, help the situation. “Not only strike while the iron is hot, you must make it hot by striking”.
If one is not prepared to do this, and then you must be ready to sing, “Whatever will be, will be”. The wind does not blow for those who have no destination to sail to. Amor Vincit Omar, the Latin maxim says. Love conquers all.

laspapi@yahoo.com

Culture Club

BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
FOR a few days now, The Whisperer has had a song playing in his head. It is that one written by Boy George, and his band, Culture Club, the massive musical entity that reigned years ago.
What to remember about the androgynous musician who dressed in that inimitable way? The lyrics of his most famous song, ‘Karma Chameleon’, “…and you used to be so sweet I heard you say; when we cling, our love is strong; when you go, you’re gone forever…”
For the past few weeks, I have wandered through some of the most famous theatre halls in the world, meeting people from different parts of the earth, listening to other people tell their own stories, in their own ways, and I have been reminded again that the world is like a large painting on canvas.
I have listened to practitioners of the art I love so much show me that the earth is full of masters of the trade and specialists in the craft.
In this field, there are many layers of paint, many shades, many hues that you might not notice if you do not look carefully or pay attention to the painter.
Time after time, I have been reminded of how similar we all are, and yet in the similarities, how very different at times.
There are things we take for granted in the little worlds we have built for ourselves, for our families, our loved ones and our friends at the points of the earth we reside in; we take for granted the responses of partners and friends who know our local ways, the reactions of those who love us and ‘understand’ our every whim and caprice...
We imagine that everyone should be able to comprehend the way we think, the reason for our silences and our actions.
Yet in the multi-national world the earth has become, we have to be careful when we meet with other cultures that we are not misjudged by our ways. Those who love us, will love us, but still we should not give them a hard job of it.
I have seen every kind of relationship and friendship in this land, relationships inconceivable just a century ago; Asians and Africans, Asians and Caucasians, Caucasians and Africans.
Do these relationships exist just because all these races live in the same country, or is it as a result of these people having learnt to be more tolerant of each other?

AS I stood in the sun completely surrounded by tourists a few days ago, waiting for a friend by one of the most famous columns in the world, I felt the eyes of three people, one male and two females, on me.
At first I thought it was because they needed someone to help them with their camera as they posed by the lions beneath Admiral Nelson’s vantage point.
I finished my conversation on the phone and turned to them with a smile, stretching my hand for their camera so as to help them take the group picture I imagined they wanted.
But the man in their midst shook his head and said no, one of the females wanted to take a picture with me and would I please give her the pleasure. The Whisperer agreed and posed with the lovely lady in question who was on holiday from the Czech Republic, and then handed over his own camera so he could have a copy for himself.
After the picture was taken, Kristina, that was her name, kept looking at the picture on her camera and smiling. I asked the fellow who was interpreting why this was so.
He said simply, “She’s very happy with the photograph”. That made me quite happy too, two strangers trying to catch the sun in one of the most popular capitals of the world and crossing cultures to hold hands.
Why did she want her picture taken with me? There were many Africans who were wandering around, purposefully and otherwise.
Was she smitten by my very good looks? Did she intuitively know she stood in the presence of a Whisperer (Even I have to smile at these thoughts)?

HOWEVER, it was, Kristina who was in London on holiday, had stretched her hand to hold mine across cultural divides and had trapped that moment in time through a photograph.
“When we cling, our love is strong”
If we stay behind cultural walls and divides, we will miss out on the grand experience called life, an experience made up of meeting others, sharing, learning and growing.
I sat in ‘The Century’, a members-only club in the heart of Soho, three days ago with friends, listening to Javier De Frutos, the member who had invited me in, reminisce about his work and the things he had done.
I smiled as he spoke, experiencing the ‘Culture Club’. He was born in Venezuela, had schooled and worked in Britain and America and had just concluded work on a play from the heart of Yoruba land. Dream-like? In some ways maybe, but a truly remarkable experience.
I have listened to other not-so-mature people tell of their biases and prejudices in respect of other nations.
The entire painting on any piece of canvass cannot be painted in one colour. There are always tones and undertones, dark colours, to make a complete picture but the bright colours are the most attractive.
Rufus Norris, the British theatre director of Death and The King’s Horseman and also one of my favourite people, put me in a taxi and took me to see “Don John” in another theatre.
It was an adaptation of the story of the irresponsible lover, “Don Juan”, the lead-role played by a gentleman from Iceland, and the cast made up of people from all over the world.
I thought to myself, “the world itself is one big Culture Club and its members-only status is for those who choose to be open to others”.
Even within borders, people of the same nation but of different cultures sometimes refuse to open themselves to the immense possibilities of being friends or partners with other tribes.
A major uplifting experience in life is to the ability to enjoy and celebrate other cultures. The world is a beautiful place if you have the right perspective and Hakuna Matata should be our problem-free philosophy.

laspapi@yahoo.com

The Players Club

BY WOLE OGUNTOKUN
IN affairs of the heart, there are many people all over the world, who play and have been played.
For the uninitiated, we shall define the player as a person who speaks of, and does loving things to his or her partner, whether prospective or substantive, without serious intentions.
That last line means ‘whether the player has acquired the target or otherwise’. Pardon me, but the lawyer in me breaks out from time to time.
Players can be of either gender and of any age. The young male player may be a college student or a working professional.
To this one, the world is his oyster. He is awakened to the immense possibilities females have to offer and he takes this opportunity with open arms. Excuse the pun. He may be brash or quiet, gentle or aggressive in his approach to life.
This young male is the least skilled in the cadre of players but this is on account of age. There are some things that can only be learnt through experience.
The female equivalent of this player might be good at ‘multi-tasking’ too. The Whisperer has met young women who have more than one partner and are able to keep the different parts of their lives separate.
The undergraduate who has a boyfriend in school and is also dating a ‘man from town’ is a perfect example of this.
Each partner hears her say ‘I love you’ and in some deep recess of her mind, she might mean it but her aim is to keep juggling for as long as she can, until the house of cards falls, if ever.

I ONCE knew a girl, whose boyfriend used to be a friend of mine. She was the one who first approached him, a fact The Whisperer has no problems with.
There’s no problem with being direct if you want something. He was rather well known then and she picked her target well and they started a relationship, which appeared to be going along well but there was this little problem.
She was a student and he worked. He would say goodbye to her in her hostel at night; the ever-conscientious boyfriend and she would hit the nightclubs a few hours after.
As an aside, the nightclub frequenters get there well after midnight. Even if you laid siege till midnight, you would never catch a partner, who is inclined that way.
He later found she was running other relationships simultaneously with his. He would go home and she would get into the car of another fellow and park in some quiet corner of the school.
If you have a playing partner and you know in your heart (we always do but refuse to face up to it) that the stories you are told, don’t fit together; take a long walk away from the relationship. We make excuses all the time for those we think we love.
My friend found out of how he had been deceived when his girlfriend fell out with a female friend of hers. That female told him things about his girlfriend that made him physically ill. It is important we choose the right partners.

Just in case there are men reading this article who think females are the only ones capable of deceit, the field is an open one in this matter.
A female undergraduate (It’s undergraduate day today) met this nice young man, who was home on holiday from England where he lived. He told her he loved her and all the other things men say to women.
On one of his visits to the country, he told the girl, who loved to boast of their relationship, that he had to go to his hometown.
Loving girl accepted his story and sent him along his way with flowery kisses. The next Saturday, as she and her friends sat in her room listening to the radio, they heard someone call into the radio station to wish a couple getting married that day, congratulations.
It was her boyfriend’s name that was called. He had come into the country to marry and the undergraduate was a plaything for him.
The girl who had been played, fainted, and her friends had to revive her. But they say ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’
The scorned girl and her friends plotted against the day the fellow might return to see her. He must have had some kind of active sixth sense because he never showed up again.
But a close friend of his, who was married, did. And the girls exacted their vengeance on that one.
There are few things more dangerous than a cloud of girls in their hostel. They are in their element and you might lose your dignity if you fall into the wrong hands.
So, they cornered the friend of the player, who swore he knew nothing of the evils his mate had committed. The girls slapped him around a bit, swore they would openly disgrace him and then made him pay a ransom for his release after detaining him for more than four hours.
He staggered out of the female hostel at about midnight, his wallet considerably lighter. And then remembered he had another hurdle to face, his wife waiting at home, wondering where he was.
So, he rubbed his hands on the earth around him to give a dirt, soiled look, deflated his own spare tire and when he got home, told his wife he had lost a tire on a bridge and had not been able to replace it for a long while.
There are times when a player gets played. When a person who feels he has life exactly where he wants it, underestimates a partner.
I had a relative, who felt he’d found a girl he could walk all over. She was about two decades younger and professed her love and her willingness to serve him forever.
So, he invited her to England where she was meant to be his wife and she took off once she landed on those shores.
Apparently she had been biding her time. I felt pain on his behalf too and wondered why he didn’t see it coming.
The Whisperer assures you that if you look closely, you will know if a person truly loves you. The eyes never lie.

laspapi@yahoo.com