The Travails of a Working Single Girl (1)

Let us picture a scenario.

Bimbo an only child lives in Egbeda, Lagos with her parents but never schooled in Lagos. Her primary school education was in Kaduna where her parents previously lived, she then went to a boarding house in Kogi State for her secondary school education before gaining admission to study Petroleum Engineering at one of the Eastern Universities. Her youth service was in Bayelsa State and after she passed out, she luckily got a job with an oil firm in Victoria Island Lagos where she works from 8am to 6pm every day excluding weekends. Due to traffic issues in Lagos and because of the distance between where she lives and where she works, she wakes up by 4:30am so that she can leave the house by 5:30am and get to work before 8am each day. She closes by 6pm, and gets home no later than 9:30pm depending on the nature of the day's traffic. Some days are worse, she gets home at 10pm or later. On Saturdays, she does household chores(cook, clean, laundry etc), run domestic errands, make her hair and nails, (add the miscellaneous at this point). On Sunday, she'll go to church and sleep for the rest of the day. The next day is Monday, and the routine is the usual.

Bimbo meets the same set of people everyday; her family, her colleagues at the office and her church members on Sunday. Opari. She doesn't have the time to socialize or party at weekends. Infact, she'll rather sleep any time she gets during the weekends than go for that wedding, house warming or bridal shower she was invited to. It is that bad. Considering her schedule everyday, you wouldn't blame her much. Bimbo will be twenty eight in three months and her parents (and the WORLD) are already giving her the side eye, sometimes, they even tell her bluntly, that they need grandchildren and the house is too lonely for them now that they are retired.

None of these is her fault. She has no friends, talk less of a relationship. All the friends she has are either in the East or Bayelsa, where she schooled and served. She has tried being in a relationship several times, both the distance and close ones, they never just work out. She tried that Christian brother from Church, it never worked because she didn't have the time to invest in the relationship. Christian Brother complained that she was always too busy for him. Despite her several excuses of work and stress, he didn't understand why she was always so busy, he just didn't get it and she got tired of explaining so they called it quit.  Even when she found love with her colleague at the office, it didn't last or they were too scared, either way, she's not dating him again.

There has to be a way, there really has to be a way. She's losing it, she wants to get married but she cannot maintain a constant relationship which may in the long run lead to marriage. She still needs her job and the pay that comes with it, but she has gotten to the point where she knows that money cannot substitute for the joy of having a husband and children.

This is her predicament, and this is the predicament of an average single girl working in any of the mega cities in Nigeria.

Question 1A; Suggest a workable solution in this instance.

I'll be right back with the continuation, I don't want to overburden this post. There's a lot to discuss on this issue, trust me.


Barby.