This Life

Is it me or has it become too expensive to date these days? Your crush is scouting for a rich lover, while statistics say you’re getting poorer by the day.

Money has become scarce, jobs are looking for the kind of experience you don’t have, and food prices are continuously on the rise.

While the rest of us are digging for dollars in our pockets, your crush is lusting over someone who has everything you don’t. So what is the point? Why should you even bother?

My advice: Get a new crush.

The truth is you’re only giving yourself chest pains when you compare yourself to wealthy people, especially when they’re in your age group. It’s like crying over a 14-year-old from Nigeria who’s got a PHD while you’re still working on your bachelors at 30.

I think it’s time to accept that we can’t afford to gift our baes with pricey prezzies or jet off to exotic locations whenever we want simply because the number of zeros in our bank accounts will not allow it.

I mean, life is so tough, some people can’t even afford to get married yet. Have you seen the costs of caterers, wedding dresses, venues and food? Even if you wanted to have a baby, you have to reconsider your life choices first because nappies are not a joke and if you wanted to take your child to the best private schools, you will cry over fees.

It’s really that bad.

At this stage, we can’t all have over a million dollars or buy the latest rose gold iPhone 128GB blah blah blah whenever we feel like it. There are some things we can’t do at this point, as much as it hurts.

I mean, who doesn’t want to walk into a shop without worrying about what an item costs? Who doesn’t want to spend a few nights at a five-star hotel wearing international brand names to your heart’s desire while taking poolside pictures? It’s a nice feeling, at least, that’s how people make it seem to be, but reality says that it’s not our time to enjoy those things.

Not all of us are even going to get married, least of all to a millionaire, even though we have dream boards and a million pins on Pinterest about our dream wedding. And not all of us will have the opportunity to flaunt money and scream ‘is Windhoek hierso’ from the comfort of a luxury BMW convertible at 19 because being born from rich families is not a thing for everyone.

If your crush wants someone with a car and you don’t have one yet, it shouldn’t be your life’s mission to own one because of them. Focus on your own hustle – drive because you want to drive. I keep asking this question: What if you put in all this work and this person doesn’t even care about you?

But back to the point, the stock exchange is messy which means we’re going to work extra hard to stack our money up. Also, I feel like we need to date within our means. Letting someone plunge you into debt because of their maintenance costs is only a recipe for disaster. This kind of thing is not a joke – people have set such high standards for themselves that they can buy their own material goods – but if you can’t do it for them too… well… do they even need you at all?

Like the First Lady said, live within your means and maybe you’ll see a world of change.

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