The unofficial national weddings weekend has made people think that maybe we should cancel dating completely. It has left some happy and many others heartbroken.
We take people for granted when they trust us with their feelings and commit to build romantic relationships with us. Our attitude will continuously leave us in a bad state of mind as far as relationships are concerned. We turn everything into a joke, and it is worrisome. This past long weekend was full of gaslighting.
For those that don’t know what gaslighting means, a quick search on Google will give you this simple explanation: “It is a form of emotional abuse that’s seen in abusive relationships. It’s the act of manipulating a person by forcing them to question their thoughts, memories, and the events occurring around them.”
We get involved with people who are not trustworthy. People are in relationships with partners who would not hesitate to lie, cheat and play victim. I guess there are people who are still trying to understand where their lovers were over the weekend. It must be an emotionally exacerbating exercise to try and make sense of a story by someone who always has their phone on, and suddenly they forgot their charger in Gauteng when they left for the long weekend.
I mean, in today’s world, every third house in the villages and townships has someone who owns an iPhone. Ten years ago, it used to be a rare charger to find. So, the battery story won’t fly. Unfortunately, other people were told that gibberish.
Even worse, others go as far as telling their partners that they forgot their phones in GP, while they swapped sim-cards and continued to be connected. They claim to have left their phones in the city, and evidently, they leave their humility too. But for someone that is your boyfriend or girlfriend, you should know their number by heart. You should use anyone’s phone to let them know that you arrived home safely. To go mute is another form of abuse.
It begs the question, what kind of a person are you dating? I don’t think a normal person would look you in the eye to declare their undying love for you, and then lock eyes with you and lie with a straight face.
Being in a relationship does not mean one forfeits their right to privacy and freedom of movement. However, it does come with the responsibility to account to your partner and inform them that you had a safe trip home.
Sadly, in many instances that is not what happened and upon coming back on Sunday or Monday, some people got a million and one excuses from their beloved. They were made to feel bad for asking valid questions and for interrogating a sequence of events that made absolutely no sense.
From last week Wednesday, social media platforms started buzzing with commentary about “traditional wedding” celebrations that occur over weekends.
People were giving each other tips on how to deal with their partners who will be heading home to places such as Limpopo to see 'bomma'. Their suspicion was that, these men might be getting married to their secret sweethearts in the villages .
Others went as far as advising their friends and followers to ensure that they actually go home with their boyfriends to ensure that they were really just visiting their parents and relatives.
What is really frustrating in all this is how society enables and celebrates lying and cheating. We glamorise gaslighting. We don’t pay attention to people who cry out for help as victims of emotional abuse. We make it trivial.
We need a society of men and women of integrity. We need to be honest, faithful ad trustworthy if we harbour thoughts of living in
“Love Lives Here.”
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