I had a sit-down with a lady.
We spoke for a while. She said she told her boyfriend that she was travelling to Botswana for a two-week holiday. I asked her why she made the plans, bought the tickets, and only informed him instead of going with him. She said she cannot spend her money on someone she was dating that way.
She said she can never sponsor him for a holiday
It just isn’t something she could do.
It has nothing to do with affordability or a lack of love. It just felt odd to her that as a woman, she was expected to sponsor the trip of her fiancé on such a trip simply because she had the money and he didn’t.
She said it felt odd.
I pointed out to her that if the genders were reversed and the man was the one with the money, he would have bought her tickets without a second thought. She said she knows, and that was how it has been ordained to be.
Men take women on trips and not the other way round.
I asked her how her fiancé took the news.
She said he asked her who she was travelling with to Botswana.
She said she told him she was going by herself
She said he was crestfallen, and his demeanour changed
Just before she travelled, he called off the engagement
She said she did not understand how he felt he was entitled to her money to that extent
I just smiled politely
There is something men have always done that women have to learn
Men don’t mind buying happiness with their money
They may not be able to buy love, but most men understood that happiness, no matter how fleeting and momentary it may be, can be purchased with their hard-earned money.
A man will sponsor the trip of a lady or ladies he does not know from Adams to another country just for his own happiness.
He will put her or them on a private jet, a yacht, and in a hot air balloon.
He would do so with an air of satisfaction because it gave him an experience that he had always craved.
Many women would rather be the man in the man’s story rather than be the man in the story.
Of what use then is money when it cannot buy you “a period of happiness”?
A man would work hard for years, save up his money, and use most of it to sponsor the wedding and the relocation of a woman he loves from any country in the world to the country where he is, so that they can be a family.
He knows the risks involved
The woman could arrive in that country and leave him for another man or to pursue another agenda
He will still take the risk and bear the cost with his full chest
Most women would find this sort of arrangement untenable.
Why will I spend my money to bring a man to Canada from Nigeria? He should find his way here and then come and marry me. Why should I be financially responsible for his relocation? I don’t understand.
Somewhere at the back of her mind, doing this makes her look desperate and cheap.
In all the stories she read as a child, the damsel was always the one in distress, and her saviour was always Prince Charming.
She never saw a Princess Charming before, and she never thought it would be her duty to rescue a prince in distress.
Davido flies Chioma all over the world, but if the roles were reversed and Chioma happened to be the one with the money and the fame, would she be flying a poor Davido all over the world?
Somewhere at the back of our minds, the first picture is correct, but there is something wrong with the second picture.
Happiness, no matter how momentary, is always for sale.
If you rate your life the right way and realise all the money you have has not given you the fulfilment you need or the happiness you need at that moment in time.
The right thing to do is to ask why you are unhappy, even with all your money.
If you discover that what you are missing is a human connection or company
You open your wallet, and you buy it.
Men have always done this from generation to generation.
Women must learn to do it too.
What most women describe as intentionality in men is actually the perfect description of how men open their wallets to do things for women to buy themselves happiness.
“He lodged me in a five-star hotel, he booked a spa session for me, he sent me breakfast in bed, he took me shopping, he flew me to the Maldives, he bought me a diamond ring, he sponsored my relocation, he sent me money for the wedding preparation, and so on are all examples of how men spend their hard-earned money to buy happiness and fulfilment.
Women often describe this as an expression of love and intentionality.
If this description is true, why can’t wealthy women express the same level of love and intentionality to the men (poorer than them) in their lives so that they can experience the happiness that men get from doing this for women in the name of gleaning some level of happiness, regardless of how fleeting it may turn out to be?