[SISI WENDY] The curse of being a single lady

A friend of mine recently complained about her woes being a single lady in the society full of wolves. She was trying to have munch. Apparently, she and her friends walked into a restaurant in Abuja and were refused service from the management. She was told it’s because she and her friends are single ladies who visited their restaurant without a male. They were later asked to leave which she obliged to but not without a fight with the manager.

A similar case with another friend in Lagos when she mistakenly entered a shop to ask for directions only to be mistaken to be a guest and was immediately sent off. They claimed they don’t attend to single ladies. On hearing that, I thought the world had gone belatedly mad. Or Nigeria perhaps. What has gone wrong? Why the sudden inhumanity and hatred for the female ‘single’ folk?

What finally pulls the trigger is the fact that houses aren’t been leased to single ladies without a ‘man’ in the picture. Uche, a single mother, had an emergency to get an apartment. She approached a vacant house owned by an older woman. She applied for the apartment but was turned down because she didn’t include being married. She later reapplied lying that she had omitted that little piece of information but was still refused as the landlady claimed she could see through her lies. Now the irony of that is she, a woman, couldn’t lease her apartment to a fellow woman. How ironic.

Another case scenario is that of Chioma who is also a single mother (don’t judge me) and who took heed of the information much earlier and practically hired a man to pose as her boyfriend and it got her the apartment. And I’m sure there are many more stories out there of how the single folks are trying to survive.

The single curse is an epitome that is fast wide-spreading. Now I know the single female reputation must have been tarnished in the past due to the callous atrocities they engage in such as prostitution, husband snatching and the likes and perhaps gives these judges the right to their act but the question is why now? Why do establishments suddenly feel the need to banish the single female folk forever?

Or did it happen to a particular married woman and she decided to unleash her venom via her business on all single women thereby creating a trend for the rest to follow? I totally agree. The married woman has a right to her actions but is it the fault of these women that they are single? Single women do not just want to linger about on the streets. Some of them (the good ones I mean that are currently taking the brunt for the ‘guilty’ ones) actually stay single for a lot of reasons. There are different kinds of single ladies who are single not for these accusations but because they, unlike the others, do not see it as a crime to humanity.

Take for instance, The Patient Single lady. Sometimes a lady just wants to take her time in choosing her Mr. Right. These categories of ladies do not intend to rush into a relationship just so that they can visit a restaurant. They would rather test the waters to see if it’s warm or cold or lukewarm, however the case may be for them, and when it’s appropriate they would dive in. For now they just want to have fun hanging out with their girlfriends wherever possible to drown their worries with a drink or two.

A single lady can and is also an Independent lady. She has a good paying job or runs her own business, a flashy car, can afford her rent all alone or better still owns her own apartment but probably has a tradition of meeting up with the ladies once or twice a week after work just to catch up on what they’ve missed in their lives and amidst their busy schedule during the week. They date once in a while but do not solely depend on it.

There is also the single lady who in fact remains single out of circumstances. Now most women in this group have either gone through tough emotional breakdown due to mishaps such as molestation, domestic violence, rape or a bad breakup/ marriage and took up the decision to remain single no matter what even if they date a couple of times. Most celebrities fall in this group such as Oprah Winfery. Now imagine Oprah came to Nigeria and wanted to visit one of these ‘restaurants’ or perhaps wanted an apartment, would she be refused because she is single?

I’m not trying to refute what is being said or practised neither am I choosing a side. Maybe I might be choosing a side considering the fact that I am single and I don’t know what these women are going through but all I’m saying is sometimes girls just want to have fun without being reminded they are single (trust me they know, their parents are making sure of that) or without having to walk up to a store or an apartment for lease with an overhead sign saying ‘Single Ladies aren’t allowed’. They just want to spread their wings and fly without having to worry about it being sabotaged by an angry non-single lady who runs an establishment and probably live life to the fullest before the say the two letter words, ‘I Do’ that would put them in a solitary purgatory for the rest of their lives called marriage, if at all they decide to venture. I for one am looking forward to getting my own apartment while single and like to hang out with friends wherever possible and can only hope the world would be safe by the time I’m ready.