I attended a wedding today. I find those very interesting. I usually sit in the back and curiously watch the interactions between the bride and groom after all the dancing and noise is done. I’m a people-watcher so there’s no surprise there but I am also an empath who strongly feels the feelings of others.
I can easily detect how a person feels in the moment and discern whether they are happy, uncomfortable or sad in the time being. I’m not only a people-gazer. I feel them too. I feel what they feel.
Watching these two today, the couple at the wedding I attended, had me thinking about a discussion I had with my sisters, something I’ve been thinking about for a while. PEOPLE ARE OUT THERE GETTING MARRIED TO PEOPLE THEY DO NOT LIKE.
And vice versa! Let’s silently sing this darling line from Betty Mpologoma’s song ‘Atakwagala oba omulaba.’ But why? Why would you do that? It is happening right in front of us. They get married for what they think are purposes of the ‘KINGDOM’ (when it comes to Christian marriages) and maybe ‘BUSINESS’ for worldly people.
For the love of God, business alone or even church ministry is a hustle if you don’t like the people you are working with. Now what about marriage? I wouldn’t advise a person to get into a lifelong commitment with a person that they do not like. Because at the end of the day, when the sun covers its head with a blanket, it’s just you two and the world is silent and away.
When it’s you and your partner in the house, in your bedroom, away from your children, a few moments before bedtime, all you have is each other. That must be very awkward for both parties involved if you cannot say a word to each other.
It is awkward silence when you cannot hold a decent informal conversation between the two of you. Imagine having a formal conversation with a person who’s yet to do child-bearing things with you. Imagine that for a second.
Imagine calling a person you are supposed to engage with intimately ‘sir’. Not for the fun of it but because with this person it’s like you are interacting with a boss, in and out of the bedroom. Boy o boy! I don’t think awkward begins to describe it. Why would you marry a person you cannot joke with? Why? Where do you find these people and why do you find yourself tied to them? You can say ‘no’, you know.
Why choose to live a life of misery for the rest of the time you are alive? You suffer. On purpose? Are you out of your mind? The principle or baseline of it all would be ‘MARRY A PERSON YOU LOVE’. But I thought to myself, why take you that far when something as simple as liking someone is so hard for some people? Simple liking, people are not doing. Then I come here and preach love? No way! That would be absurd. So, please marry a person you like.
A person you can chat and laugh with. A person who’s eager to listen to what you have to say, however goofy or serious it might be. A person who likes you back. Quit ‘tying’ yourself on people who don’t even like you. A person you can call ‘bae, babe, boo, hun, sweetheart…’ and all those other endearments that you tend to come up with when you’re in love.
Imagine having a partner you only refer to by ‘father of…’, ‘taata gundi’, ‘mama gundi’…I’ll let your mind think hard about what all those important moments between such a couple go. sigh I beg you in the name of our good Lord. Marry people that actually like you and you like back. Add a little spice and they love you back and if you return the favour, all the better.
