I can’t remember the first Mexican soap I watched religiously but I was hooked on that stuff for years. From La Revancha(The revenge) to Lorenzo’s Wife and Cuando seas mia (When you are mine), the list is endless. They all had a common thread running through them- Love. In the Revenge there a woman falls in love with the son of the man who killed her family. In Lorenzo’s wife a bitter ex-wife makes the life of her husband’s new love a living hell or something like that. The details are all woozy in my head, because you see, I stopped watching them a long time ago but I’m still fascinated with the prospect of living somewhere where the only issues available for artistic expressions are all related to romantic love
I know you’ve seen the recent Telemundo commercial on DSTV. “Telemundo. One look and you’re hooked” as hilarious as it looks, a lot of people actually forget that they have their boss’s shirt on the ironing board with the iron pressed to it or that the customer’s hair is burning to a crisp while they watch a sizzling scene of one of those soaps. There was even the story of a woman who forgot to pick up her kids from school because she was so engrossed in other people’s love that she forgot hers. As expected, her husband came home at night and casually inquired about the kids and the woman went crazy with shock and the rest is history.
Zee world on the other hand is terrible by my own estimation- anything more horrible than Nollywood is not worthwhile jor but people love it as much as they love Telemundo and I can’t complain. We all need love or at least we all need to see love and imagine being in love with the person of our dreams. But how exactly do these unrealistic portrayals of love affect our expectations of what our partners should be?
- Realistic love does not have a formula
I read a post on RantHQ where a woman was asking for advice because her husband, whom she described as being caring and faithful, is not romantic enough. The comments were mostly hilarious while some were downright sarcastic. “Madam so you need small bobo to play love with you without money abi?” one said, “Nawa o zee world at work” another said. I think the anonymous advice seeker is a victim of Telemundo love expectations. According to her, she is married to an older man who is the picture of care and faithfulness and they have a great sex life but she feels that something is missing- the romantic side. The side that sends flowers and writes love notes and plays by running in circles under a tree like we see in Nollywood love. This woman was clearly expecting love to follow the formula she has imbibed for years by internalizing these unrealistic portrayals of romantic love. You see, you can’t read about love in a book and no matter how many conferences on love and marriage you attend, there is no universal standard for love. Every marriage is unique, every partner is unique and if you apply what worked in your previous relationship to the present one it might not work because people are different and you only need to understand your partner and their specific quirks.
You might find a man or woman who is very romantic-flowers, poems, the whole works but they might be lacking in all the other departments that matter to you. What if they don’t want kids and you do? What if they are lazy or they have a mouth on them like our girl CeeC? Nobody is perfect so the only thing you can do is find someone who makes you happy the way they are and stay with them instead of trying to change a Nigerian man or woman into your unrealistic Latin or Indian man based on your favourite Telemundo or Zeeworld character. The truth is, even women in Mexico, the Philippines, India and all the other places where those movies come from, have real issues with men and life in general that cannot be kissed away.
- In realistic love, you don’t always have to fight
And no, I’m not using fight as code for the arguments that lovers have occasionally. I mean the grueling, often protracted battles to keep the one you love or to get them to love you back. In some of the soaps, there is always some triangle- two lovers and one other person pining for one of them, or two lovers who must be apart because a family arrangement has made it imperative for one of them to marry someone else or even, the more ridiculous instance of unrequited love between people of two different backgrounds and the subsequent struggle to gain and keep love. It’s all so painful to live like that, to expect that there are no easy or realistic ways to find love or to enjoy a fulfilling relationship where one is not pining away or victimized. Painful love is not always love and we need to teach that to our girls. It is often rooted in some sort of psychological imbalance or self-loathing and we should know when to draw the line between real love and wild imagination. In one episode of Scandal, Olivia Pope tells her Senator suitor that she won’t marry him because she wants difficult love, to which the guy responds, “that is not love”.
Be wide-eyed in your search for love. Don’t hurt yourself. Think with the head sometimes but always know that there is no shame in loving who you love.
Take care of each other.
