One question
I always ask a particular ridiculous friend of mine is “who sets these
standards?” From the look of things, this write-up will be quite similar to
IT’S A GAY WORLD, because that’s what Nigerians say every time you do something
that is quite different from the “norm” and the crap everyone is used to.
A few days ago, I
tweeted “Taylor Swift’s new album is
amazing” and the loooooovely reply I got was, as usual, “YOU’RE GAY!”
*sighs* I thought to myself, does the music I listen to define my sexuality? I
was very confused so I decided to throw the question out to the general public
(just a few hundred followers actually) and the dude who commented on the
previous tweet replied again and said “yes, listening to Taylor Swift,
especially if it’s the whole album”.
My Subgroup head in
my fellowship wears these very skinny skinnies, he even has this very blue one
that’s brighter than the skies ۳( º̩̩́_º̩̩̀)۳ , he passed by me and a friend of mine
this fateful day and my sadly ignoramus of a friend asked if my oga was gay
(Oga Godson if you’re reading this, I’m really sorry, please don’t punish meL) (yayy! I didn’t know
Microsoft word had smileys J
L hehehe). Then the next
question my friend asked that why would a fellowship executive wear skinnies
not to talk of a colorful one, that what example is he setting for the members
of the fellowship?
A particular night,
a friend tweeted (yes, I have very ignorant friends :’[) something like how
guys shouldn’t be listening to slow songs, that songs like that are meant for
girls, so my humble self asked that does that mean we can’t listen to songs by
Adele, Usher, Rihanna or even Chris Brown. The reply I got, which was still
shocking despite the fact that I expected it, was “yes”.
One of the adults
at the church I attend at home asked what fellowship I was attending in school,
when I told her, she told me that I must leave my fellowship and that I should
attend the fellowship of our church, or I should attend TACSFON or Baptist
Student Fellowship. That my fellowship is a new generation church and that I
wasn’t going to grow spiritually.
It’s funny how people who do not matter tend
to have daunting influence on the day-to-day decisions we take, like, the way
we dress, our speech, and so many other things. How you are judged for not
being “current”, for not dressing fly and shii, by people who should not even
have a say in our lives, people who should be tied to a huge rock and thrown in
the ocean ( ˘˘̯) .
That’s where the
ultimate question comes in, WHO SETS THESE STANDARDS? Who says I should not
listen to Adele if I’m a guy? That my very straight, very diligent, and very
spiritual Oga shouldn’t put on very colorful and bright jeans? I’m very
confused.
I remember a day I
was reading an article online where they were asking musicians their favorite
album of the year 2011, and a very bad-boyish, straight head of a rock band
said Adele’s 21, that when he’s on his motorcycle, he plugs his earpiece in his
ears and just tunes out. If you dare say that in our dear country, they’ll call you gay for
the rest of your dear life. I admit, I’m not the ‘manliest’ of guys, but c’mon!
How does the kind of music I listen to determine if I like to dish it out to
guys??? Just how??? People, please, the way we dress or the music we listen to
doesn’t necessarily reflect our
sexuality!
And I may not be
the most spiritual person around, but telling me to leave my fellowship because
it’s new and automatically judging that I’d grow spiritually because a
fellowship says girls shouldn’t put on trousers is just plain wrong! Is it not
the same God? What’s the guarantee that I’ll even grow at all? Well, I’ll leave
with my three favorite words (no, not “are you retarded?”) IT IS WELL.
