Identifying Poverty

Growing up in poverty and surrounded by poverty skews your understanding of the proper way to live a decent life. It is among the poor folks that statements like "You don't ask a sixteen year old son or daughter where he or she got money from" became a culture. It is among the poor folk that a fifteen-year-old boy or girl would not sleep at home, and nobody would bother to ask where he or she was all night. It is among the poor folks that daughters would have friends who would cover for them when they have to spend the night away from home. One quick text saying "I am out, I have told my mother I am with you. If she calls, tell her I am with you but asleep at the moment." Is all it usually takes. It is poverty that turns young women into unofficial sex workers in the name of attending parties organized by the rich, just to be part of the aesthetics and provide free sexual services for anyone who would ask for it for a price.

Poverty is the reason you bill any man who asks you out in the name of knowing if he has the capacity to meet your needs. You are poor and you grew up among poor people; for this reason, the only litmus test you came up with so that you don't end up with another poor person like you is to demand gifts and money from such a person. Poverty is the reason you say, "The man must make money before marrying any woman so that the woman will not disrespect him." Money should not be the reason a husband and wife respect each other, but it is so in your case because you are poor, and the only thing that wins your respect is money. Poverty is the reason you can buy an expensive car, park it in your compound, and your parents will lack the courage to ask you where you got the money to buy it. Poverty is the reason you are encouraged by your mother to date a fraudster as long as he is meeting all your needs. Poverty is the reason someone will come to you on the street, offer you a small amount of money in exchange for sex, and you will follow the person without a second thought. Poverty is the reason you turn yourself into an emergency masseuse who goes into men's rooms offering massage services with happy endings. Poverty is the reason you wake up in strange beds and have conversations like "How much for the night?" Poverty is the reason you are having conversations like "What do you bring to the table?" You won't have that conversation if the lady is a well-educated and industrious individual who has done well for herself financially.

You, however, will have that conversation if the lady you are talking to about marriage has nothing but her body to offer you in exchange for food, boarding, clothing, family responsibilities, and so on. It is poverty that makes you say, "I am the table" If a man has to ask you what you are bringing to the table, it means he couldn't see the industriousness in you beyond your make-up and looks. There are questions you don't ask because the answers are obvious. A woman who is dating a man of substance does not wonder what he is bringing to the table; neither would a man wonder what a woman of substance is bringing to the table. It is poverty that made it the duty of your boyfriend to "hustle" to buy you things because you are his babe. When you are in a relationship, exchanging gifts is permitted, but it is not a duty or something done out of leisure and desire. If he has to buy you things to prove he loves you, you are poor.

In a normal relationship, giving and receiving gifts are a mutual and natural act. One side does not give in perpetuity, while the other collects continuously like the grave. If your man has to ask you for a gift before you buy him things, you are poor. The quality and value of the things you bought for him must seriously match the quality and value of the things you get from him. You shouldn't get hair worth 1 million and buy his singlet and boxers worth five thousand. Acts of kindness are an expression of a rich mindset. If all you have to offer are excuses and "I cannot" or "I will not" ideologies, you are only disguising your poverty under feminism or misorgyny. Two people who love and care for each other will do things in common without either party thinking such actions depreciate his or her value in the relationship.

If you trade sex for anything more than sex in itself, you are poor A man and a woman engage in sexual intercourse because they love each other and desire to be with each other that way If he or she has to give you money or any other gift, for you to feel inclined to sleep with him or her, you are poor. If your mind is always thinking about all the things you don't have and fixated on how to acquire them by any means necessary, you are poor. If your mind is always thinking about all the things you do have and blooming with gratitude for them to God, you are rich. There are certain levels of conversation that betray the presence and predominance of poverty in the mindset of a person.

Anyone who expects you to do for him or her what he or she cannot afford to do for himself or herself is poor. If she orders food that she cannot afford to pay for because you are the one paying for it, she is poor. If he orders a game console that he cannot afford simply because you are the one paying for it, he is poor. The poor always feel entitled to other people's money. They always tell a sob story to elicit undue advantage on their target emotionally. When you go out on a date, listen with your ears and heart open If he or she starts off on sob stories of how his or her mother is sick and hospitalised, needs to raise funds for school fees, needs to make her hair and make her nails, needs to pay the school fees of her siblings, has a leaking roof or a mechanical issue that has to be resolved immediately... That is the stench of poverty. A man or woman who is out to keep you company and enjoy a nice time with you will never dump their unresolved challenges on you. You didn't come to them claiming to be the messiah; all you wanted was to spend some time with such a person in order to get to know each other some more.

We have allowed poor people with phones and data to dominate the discussions on love and relationships for far too long on social media. Some of the things we watch and see as content all over social media have made poverty-driven narratives the norm around relationships nowadays. It is time for parents to teach their sons and daughters what it really means to fall in love and walk in love as it ought to be, and not according to all the lies we read every day. Of course, the poor cannot help behaving according to the dictates of their circumstances. The best thing we can do is identify poverty and walk away from it before we get infected by its venom. Poor people are masters at emotional manipulation and all forms of devilish blackmail schemes. They get pregnant just to gain access to your money, go diabolical so that you can give them whatever they ask for without asking questions. Those born into poverty are always looking for a way to climb out of the trenches. Most of them use others to climb out of it, while some of them use other means, like education, creating value in society, and developing themselves to climb out of it. The former never really gets out of poverty. They are the ones who justify crime by claiming they were only taking back what someone stole from their forefathers. No matter how much they manage to acquire in a lifetime, they are and will always be poor

-GSW-