LETTER TO THE FUTURE

 Back in the day when we used to write love letters and exchange greeting cards or flowers to symbolize our commitment to a person of interest - we didn't register so much chaos in relationships.😌

I remember being the go-to guy when friends wanted to impress their girlfriends with the grammatical brouhaha that wowed ladies in the 90s. I had mastered the art of letter-writing to the extent that it became a business venture during our Post Office days until e-mail and GSM crashed the business. 😢

I even began to sell SMSs also before those Aba boys started printing and selling booklets containing every kind of SMS unimaginable. Wicked people. 😡

With GSM, communication became frequent and easier. Made relationships fun and enjoyable. We could contact our loved ones without having to queue up at a phone booth with a Nipost card in hand, waiting for our turn to call someone that may not even be available to answer the "landline" at that time. 

GSM made everything easy, including lying. 🙃

Back in the university, my girlfriend visited my Oga Hotel "palace" and dialed my GSM number, and since I didn't know she was by the door, I answered and lied that I was out at a friend's. Damn, those Motorola phones could ring for Africa. We set our phones to ring loudest so everyone in the area would know we had one. It was a rarity in the early 2000s. 😎

Well, she tapped on the window and told me she was by my door. It's not like I was cheating or anything, I was only trying to teach one dull female course-mate Accounting before NEPA took the bloody light and tried to make it look like I was tilling the soil to sow some seeds. 😒 

I remember when MTN introduced those free midnight calls. (Story for another day)

The introduction of Smartphones with internet access spelt doomsday to the peaceful relationships/marriages we enjoyed when we only sent letters and postcards across the world to express our emotions, without emoticons. 😐

With the internet, we started having access to a variety of choices to pick from. I could hide in Wukari and be in a relationship with an Ibo girl from Awka without meeting her physically. 🤔

I can now see photos of ladies who seem to have everything that my girlfriend doesn't have. We can connect on social media, later exchange numbers, arrange a meet-up, have sex and go back home to our lovers like nothing happened. Our lovers could do the same and we wouldn't know. 🤷🏾‍♂️

Spouses now want to have access to their partners' phones because trust has completely eroded since it has become possible to be in bed with your lover and still casually communicate with another love interest. 🙄

It is now easy to keep many virtual relationships and still pledge loyalty to one lover.👌🏽

My ex once said, "as long as I'm not sleeping with them, I've not cheated". Idiot. 😡

With the damage GSM/Social media has done to trust, people now want to keep a tab on their lovers/spouses by calling or chatting often to make sure nobody is "pounding yam" anywhere, while away from them. 

This became worse with the introduction of video calls. "Pa'abu, let's do a video call so I can see your fine hotel room or, let me see how the meeting hall looks or I miss your face". 😐

In conclusion, I think these things were invented to ease communication stress. But since we have been wired to hack everything including God's plan, we've succeeded in finding other uses for these things in order not to waste the monthly data subscription.🤜🏾

Girls would advertise their fake beauty to attract men who advertise their fake wealth. And in the end, both get disappointed and move to the next available fool that is busy saying" HI" in their inbox. 

Sometimes I wished there'd be a systems crash and we go back to writing letters and talking with each other face to face again. I miss the intimacy and genuineness of our intentions. 😢

Friendships lasted, relationships lasted, and marriages lasted. 💪🏾

Happy New Year, guys. With or without resolutions, you're still going to die. So enjoy 2023 since you're here. 🤗

©JBZ_2023