Love, Marriage and Babies

These are three very serious topics in Nigeria, ranked utmost in the cultures value system, as I was quick to learn when I underwent my security clearance.  My interviewer read over my application documents, peered at me over the rim of her glasses and exclaimed "You're 39 years old, not married and don't have any children - are you gay?"

Having negotiated my way successfully through an explanation about my career, travel and freedom priorities we moved straight onto a very common assumption in Nigeria.  I'm a "bature" or an "oyibo" meaning a white person which instantly equates me with being wealthy and a very good marriage catch.  The interviewer jumped at the chance to brief me on the finer qualities of her brothers who were both available.  Not wanting to offend I used my most favourite tactic to move the conversation along without any sort of commitment... laughter.

Later in the interview we came to the topic of my salary.  She reviewed my documents and inquired as to whether I'd inadvertently left off a couple of zeros in my yearly earnings.  When I explained that the figure was accurate and talked about my being in the country as a volunteer, she was very swift to withdraw the offer of her brothers as my potential husbands.  Somehow I'm confident that the last laugh was on me!

My unfounded status as the ideal marriage partner means I'm eternally bombarded with male attention and I've come to find the Nigerian approach to pick up lines most amusing although at times relentless, tiring and downright annoying.  There's two key messages; power (to evidence that they'll give you a good life) and friendship (to prove that they're not looking for a casual fling).

• "I earn more than your boyfriend."  Take a moment to think about how many wild assumptions are in that one; I have a boyfriend, you know how much he earns and I'd dump him in an instant for more wealth.
• "I'm a business man - I could meet you in London, America, anywhere you like."  Well, that's nice dear but quite frankly I'm planning on staying in Nigeria.
• Another favourite approach is to immediately present you with a list of names of all the powerful people that they know.  Not much use on a girl from out of town, even if she was stupid enough to believe it.
• And this weekend I was handed a serviette by a waitress with no indication of where it came from that simply read "I would really like to be friends with you and I think a call would be appreciated."  Absolutely, I'll call a random number in the hope that my ideal match just happens to answer (not)!