Dear Jil,
I want to tell you a story this morning!
A rather beautiful female executive was in Abuja on a business assignment. Her fiancé was coincidentally in Abuja and they arranged to meet at the end of workday. Because of problems with transportation she decided to hail a street cab. There was a young lady interested in the same cab and our female executive offered to give her a ride. Turned out they were going in the same direction. The cab could drop her at Hilton and then take the young woman to her destination. This is a true story by the way!
The young woman thanked the magnanimous female executive and that became an entrant into conversation. As ladies are wont to do she’d assessed our female executive. She was not just beautiful, she looked expensive. She had the accoutrements of status, sophistication and travel. There was the Louis Vuiton handbag. The monogram tattled. The clothes looked expensive. Her hair was Brazilian (or is it Peruvian, or Indian. I’ve lost track. Whatever it was, it cried significant dough). Her shoes had those buckles that come in meaningful combination of alphabets that signified the value of someone’s salary. The belt was an unfortunate snake’s involuntary contribution to fashion. It was a Cavalli. And the bangles jiggled like tambourines in a commercial temple of worship. In short, our executive looked like a Vogue editorial piece.
The young lady had a simple request: Could the female executive introduce her to men? Our executive was taken aback by both the request and the insinuation contained therein. “I’m going to see my fiancé!” she replied in a deliberately accentuated phonetical iteration for grand emphasis. “Okay, how about his friends? Can you introduce me to them? Me too, I want to dress like you!” WHAT does this young lady think I am, our executive wondered! I bought these things from my earnings! She obviously assumed, incorrectly, that our corporate exec was a sophisticated “senior babe.”
How does she tell this young woman that this type of thinking, the lifestyle lands young girls in trouble. She’s heard tales of obstreperous girls in search of filthy lucre who ended up as ritualistic offering to contumacious demons. She’s heard tales of young women disappearing after sexual liaison with civilianised psychopaths. Only last month, a headless body of a female city university undergraduate became a spectre on the highway. Be it occasioned by lust for money, peer pressure, the seeking of adventure or fantasizing, the life of a “runs girl” as it is euphemistically adjectivalised, is not the wise course of life to pursue. The romanticisation of that curious lifestyle hides gruesome truth: It pays but does not pay; it pays but in hard currency; it pays but you pay, with your life one way or the other! And you set a course for your destiny that only becomes apparent when its logic has played out. The lifestyle locks you in its grip. You’ll wake up one day and discover you’re now a “what” not a “who”! You’ll become a parable – a tale that is told. By the time you realise this, certain opportunities are irrevocably gone! You’re now consigned to a course you could never imagine a few years back!
The idea of sex with partial or complete strangers for money, clothes, jewelry and travel is not novel. The baptisimal name may change but it remains the same. Only a few years ago it was “Lagos Bigs Girls!” Sometimes you see senior “runs girls” on the pages of gossip magazines. They look wonderful and they seem to have it all! It worked out for some, you’ll say. Maybe! But you’re looking at pictures, not life! The pictures don’t tell half the story. Some are incredibly lonely! And they fear birthdays. Biological assets deteriorate with time you see! They are bio-degradable. But everyone maintains the lie. Everyone! And nobody will tell you about the regrets.
Only a fool believes all the tales of glamourous existence in glossy magazines. Reality is much starker! Whether it seemingly pays or not, it’s-just-not-the-kind-of-life-to-pursue! It creates a separation of self and body. In plain language “runs girl” is glorified prostitution.
And please don’t call it “survival”. That justification also works for the thief! And the fraudster, come to think of it! And don’t say you had to do it for “school fees”. The usage of the fund cannot sanitize the method of acquisition. That’s a philosophy of the end justifies the means – a rather dangerous philosophy if you take time to reason. Machiavellian. There are many poor students in school who rather chose to leverage their circumstances to start a business. Some labour. There is no shame in labour. It’s the price you pay for your future.
Arrive at your future with dignity and a good conscience. Don’t lay foundation for your past to haunt you. You’re young! And there are no shortcuts in life; just illusions of shortcuts. “Shortcuts” are invariably detours from destiny. If you pursue “runs girl” life, you will acquire an odiferous reputation that is malignant to wholesome propositions. And some day you’ll need your reputation. May it be able to stand up for you when you need it most! And may your potential father-in-law not oppose your matrimonial candidacy as an abomination.
Your mentor, LA.
NB. Share these thoughts with Labake. Tell her getting out of that life is easy. She just needs to make up her mind! When next the pimp comes to recruit girls for the “party,” she should just say NO! It’s all business for her and she’s conscienceless. She’s making money off everyone’s life!
©Leke Alder 2013