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CAN YOU PAY MY BILLS?

23/02/2019 08:32:00 By Nathi Gule

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We are still in the month of love and for a change let’s engage on the timeless topic today. As promised last week, I will share my experience as a presenter on the topic of love at an event I was invited to.
The event, organised by a new youth club, sought to gather young people to discuss the issues of love and money as well as self-worth. It is interesting that the event came just a few days after Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day is a very ambiguous event.

predominately

If you ‘google’ it on the web you will find varying origins of it.
In some definitions it is to commemorate the death of St Valentine killed on the day. Worse, if you ask a person on the street how this day started you will just be completely misguided. Be that as it may it has become a key part of our social and most predominately commercial calendar.

Researching about the topic of this day I was fascinated to learn that many people around the world propose marriage on this day, which is widely believed to signify love.
The day is second only to Christmas in terms of cards that are shared. Then again which other day on the calendar would one be sharing cards unless it’s a birthday or any other personal event?
My take home from the youth and love event was from a presentation by Sharon Maziya, who said that love should not be considered exclusively to mean relationships.
She encouraged the gathering to love themselves first, love family before now seeking to find a partner and to be loved. My summary on the day was that all love issues boil down to one famous quote, ‘to love is nothing, to be loved is something, to love and be loved is everything’.

It was also evident during the talk that money will always be a factor in relationship as pop culture also promotes this in their songs as was the case 20 years ago when Destiny’s Child sang ‘Bills, Bills, Bills’ with lyrics going something like, “Can you pay my bills? Can you pay my telephone bills, can you pay my automo bills. If you can maybe then we could chill.

communication

“I don’t think you do. So you and me are through.” So the issue of so called slay queens and materialistic relationships is nothing new. Its just migrated from ‘telephone bills’ to ‘data bills’ now among others. But in essence money does play a key role in the sustainability of many relationships and pop culture promotes that too,

Back to Valentine’s Day. The streets were not as red as in previous years but what did capture my eyes was that the local event organisers were very innovative with their offerings and packages for lovers. This is the only reason I support Valentine’s Day.
It is a good time I think, to get a good bargain for a very wide variety of love-related gifts. So the argument that Valentine’s Day is every day may be true but not every day do you have so many gift items to choose from that are specifically themed to celebrate your loved one.

That said there should be no pressure to spend on this day. The day can also be acknowledged by a simple text or a call reminding that partner you still love them. That is if you have a partner. It was sad to read of the story of a woman who allegedly burnt her lover with boiling water because he did not buy her a gift.
Reading the story, it is alleged that the woman suspected that the man may have diverted funds for her gift to other women as when he came home he did not have a Valentine’s Day gift.
Psychologists have long noted that expectation creates frustration and equally, a lack of communication and trust comes into play in this scenario. There is no one obligated to buy another a gift, whether it is Valentine’s Day or any other day. One buys a gift depending on whether they can afford and if they want to buy someone a gift. There is no written down contract that has Valentine’s Day in it.

Even marriage vows do not quote this commercialised day. So if legally binding unions do not force couples to honour this day it is sad to hear of a couple that was merely dating fighting over this day to the extent that one was even burnt.
But it happens and it happens each year. Statistics show that every year many couples break up after this day because one of the two then views a lack of effort to be a sign that they are unloved. Yet that is not the case.

empowerment

In the build-up to Valentine’s Day there was a great euphoria over the imaginary Men’s Conference. This was what men dubbed a protest against spending on their partners on Valentine’s Day and instead travelling to an unnamed imaginary venue to meet over male-related empowerment issues.
While this provided a good chuckle one cannot help but appreciate the really deeper underlying issues here. Men want to talk about these issues and perhaps one day a real Men’s Conference needs to be organised where men can gather to vent, have panelists and presenters to guide and empower them to be better men.

That many men were excited about the imaginary conference is proof that they want to engage on the topic of how to have more balanced roles in relationships and have their expectations met adequately in relationships.
With Eswatini experiencing a high rate of gender-based violence of late, perhaps it would also not be a bad idea for someone to organize such a real conference. As 2018 was drawing to a close, there were numerous women’s gatherings where they met to empower each other. Men also need to start speaking out and not only hiding behind imaginary conferences.