Ladies take note: Starting a relationship not all about wealth or popularity of a man

It’s quite funny how a lady accepts a man’s proposal after she must have hurled on insults at him. In fact, the essence of life has been gabled with loss and materialism. Some may even treat men like monkeys in the swamp, neglecting they were all created from a man’s ribs; embarrass you in public all because you don’t belong to the “upper class”. I was opportune to have such experience back then in school, but I was astonished with what happened in the end. My story begins!

It was a bright Saturday morning, when my dad made an astonishing statement saying, “Son, you will be resuming at a model college at Ikorodu’’. I became surprised because my dad never informed me about my switch to a new school since I was in a private school then.

Well, the much awaited day came for me to leave the house for my new school. Dad took me in his car and we arrived at Lagos State Model College Igbogbo, Ikorodu. It was this school that made me visible to my first ever girlfriend, but that will be at the climax.

The next day, dad came to visit me at the college to introduce me to a school guardian who will be keeping my money and my provisions to avoid it missing. I got to know my classroom, assembly ground, and other buildings in the environs so as to get myself familiar with everything in the college.

I resumed on a sunny Monday morning during the morning devotion at the assembly ground where we sang praises to God and recited the national anthem before marching to our various classes. My class, JSS 2 was not really attracting, but I was not surprised since it is a government school. Lecture periods commenced and ended in series till it was time for break. During the break, I decided to get something to eat at the cafeteria, after which I started to think about the boring atmosphere of the school.

As I was brooding, a tall, fair, voluptuous beauty walked past me with her friends. I became infatuated on seeing her while my mouth was wide opened all because of her dazzling beauty. Her smile could change a doleful countenance to a cheerful one. My new friends called on me, but I was deaf to their calls because of the hypnotizing sight of Elizabeth Akpan.

However, I didn’t have the courage to walk up to her. Reason being that I was not neat in appearance due to the fact that I wash my clothes without rinsing it. In fact, I always appeared tattered, calling me a pig would be an understatement.  I was not popular in school. Even in tutorials, she was always with my tutorial teacher and each time my teacher asked me any question, if I didn’t know it, she and her friends would begin to make jest of me, calling me an “olodo”, a Yoruba name for dullards. I became determined to win her heart despite my reputation in school.

That is a day I can never forget in my life because it was a day of embarrassment.  I made up my mind to try my luck by approaching her in a calm way as opposed to my reputation. I asked her to lend me her book to read which she gave me and a warm smile. After using the book, I put an inscription, “I love you” at the back of the book forgetting that the teacher for that subject detests extra jottings at the back of a note.

When we met after prep, she was mad at me and slapped me in the presence of my friends and juniors for writing such “rubbish” at the back of her note. I could not bear the embarrassment as I became ashamed. Out of shame, I ran fast to save my face. Later, my friends saw me and said, “Cruz, why are you looking devastated?” I replied saying, “My provisions were stolen and my parents won’t come to visit me”. I was called Don Cruz then as my alias.

After the incident, we were all promoted to the same class, JSS 3. I had become very neat, had a lot of school uniforms and house wears and was quite intelligent.  Added to my new profile, I became a renowned prefect and I started representing the school at various conferences and competitions. Due to all these sudden change in me, I noticed a positive change in Sandra’s behavior towards me.

On the other hand, I thought about how Elizabeth had embarrassed me in public and also her change of attitude towards me. All these gave me a leverage to try asking her out again. But at the same time I was cautious about everything as I wanted to curtail further embarrassment. Hence, dilemma started arising. Moreover, my friends advised me to try her out again; I jokingly told them that they will be the ones to laugh at me if she slapped me again.

To sum it up, I asked her out and to my surprise, she started blushing and she finally said “yes” to my proposal. She apologised for disgracing me publicly by kneeling down. Later on, we gave ourselves a couple name tagged “Don Cruz & Lizzy Cruz”. I urge all ladies not to embarrass men with lower class because they don’t know what might happen in posterity.