#chirpsing

Don't even ask ........ Maybe they will return the favour ..... most probably will not ... today's society is just too selfish.

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#ThatsAll

They say the only thing constant in life is change and change alone. How more so apparent than the paradigm shift between the ‘toasters’ and the ‘toastees’. For those that are not familiar with Nigerian colloquial parlance, let me elucidate.

‘Toasting’: the act of seeking someone’s affection or intimacy through the use of sweet words and sweeter gestures. It’s akin to the word ‘chirpsing’ in London parlance or ‘courting’ – well attempting to court – in our grandparent’s days. The ‘Toaster’ is more often than not the man while the ‘toastee’ is the woman. Got it?

So in reference to my previous point about the Toast paradigm shift. More and more I’ve noticed a trend occurring. Now what I’m about to say might sound a little bit ‘up myself’ but it’s just to illustrate a point so don’t burn me at the stake just yet.

In the past the situation would occur like this;

A guy would see me, think ‘See fine chick...I must to toast utunu!’ and straightaway (and I mean straightaway) the toasting process would commence. With all the ‘Hi I’m such and such, what’s your name etc etc’ This had two main effects 1) MASSIVE ego boost and 2) a reassurance that I’m not repulsive to the opposite sex (phew!). But then things changed and unfortunately, I along with many of my female peers didn’t get that memo.

Suddenly guys just aren’t toasting girls anymore. Well at least not my generation of guys. The ‘older’ (and I refer here to the late 30 something’s who are still clinging on to that fibre of youth they once had) generation still got the game on lockdown. Seriously those guys have an arms length of lyrics for days! Most famous for me?

A day after meeting me: “Baby I just can’t stop thinking about you. Like I should just marry you now now and open boutique for you in Palms. I’m very serious about you, please give me a chance”. The hilarity and sincerity with which he typed those words received both an ‘awww’ and ‘OMG who is this psycho!?’ from me. It turns out finding me on Facebook was not as difficult as I thought it was *edits Privacy settings!*

I digress....

I guess my point is that the change in dynamics between men toasting women and women receiving toasting with glee and a level of ‘one-upmanship’ has suddenly disappeared. And I found myself asking Why?

Why have men suddenly gone off the idea of See-Approach-Toast? Are they now expecting US to do it? Or have they just learnt newer stealthier ways to toast which we have yet to get accustomed to? The amount of indirect toasting has skyrocketed “Aisha help me talk to that your friend nau...that fine one...ehn the short Igbo one. Talk to her for me nau” << true story.

 Or could it be that like us, they’ve learnt (or at least I hope they have) that toasting should come secondary to friendship and hence they are less likely to lay all their cards on the table without a thorough assessment of whether the girl is even worth toasting. The focus has shifted from quantity to quality.

So what’s a girl to do? Am I supposed to be sitting here having ‘friendly’ conversations with him when I know he really wants to toast me but he’s just buying his time? Or better yet am I so full of myself that I think every guy that lays eyes on me or says “Hello” is trying to toast me? I learnt that that’s not always the case! I have some great male friends, all of which are great because it didn’t start with toasting (or I hope they weren’t trying to toast me!! LOL! How funny would that have been?). Even to the point that I’ve contemplated toasting the guy myself just to ‘speed things up’. #Teamnodulling! Lol

I say all this in jest but there is a more serious underlying concern among women I know. That we are left in a Catch 22 situation. Wait forever to be toasted or do the toasting yourself. How brave have we really become and how likely are we to even pursue the latter point. Have we been so cocky and complacent as the toastee that we’ve taken the efforts made by men in the past for granted and now that there’s a hiatus we truly realised what we’ve lost? I’m sure I’m not the only person thinking this. So men please....

Let the toasting re-commence! And ladies, stop the forming!