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Image from here |
I was showing some friends around the VI/Ikoyi area in Lagos
the other day: a man, his wife and their two-year-old. We stopped at Silverbird Galleria on Ahmadu
Bello, to find something to eat. I hadn’t been there in ages, and so we paused at
the lobby while I tried to remember where the Barcelos restaurant was.
Out of nowhere, two young ladies materialised in front of us.
They were conducting an opinion poll on the recently passed anti-homosexuality
bill and wanted to know what we thought. I was casting my eyes around looking
for Barcelos, wondering if they’d moved and if we should leave the galleria, so
I wasn’t paying them too much attention. The couple explained that they were
only visiting Nigeria and weren’t aware of the bill.
One of the girls was gazing at the wife, an adoring look on
her face. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ she said. The wife replied with a polite thank
you, and I was about to suggest that we go upstairs when the same girl looked
at me and added, ‘Sorry, no offence.’
I took a moment to try and figure out the possible implications
of her ‘apology’: sorry that she’s so beautiful and you’re so not? Don’t be
offended that I have no compliments for you?
Yes, Person
That I’ve Never Met And Probably Won’t Ever See Again, I care whether you think
I’m pretty. I want you to like me, Stranger. When I woke up this morning, my
thoughts were on you. I prayed that when I ran into you today you’d look upon
me with eyes made of dreams and tell me that I am beautiful, and thereby
validate my existence. And now that you have not, my life means nothing. Excuse
me, for I will now rush on home and slit my wrists in the bathtub – or standing
in the shower, as I have no bathtub. Over my gravestone they will write, ‘She Who
Was Not Deemed Beautiful’.
This is what I might have said to her, if I were a different
kind of person. But I’m not. So I said, ‘I’m not offended’, and I herded my
people upstairs.
I’m learning to find silver linings in dark, ugly clouds, so
here’s one: if I hadn’t had this partly annoying, partly amusing encounter,
this blog post would not exist.
Still, it wouldn’t have hurt to have given her something to
think about; something like ‘You’re stupid, no offence.’