Dating and Lying

I write with pleasure on a game as passion-filled and as tantalizing as the game of politics itself. At first, my readers may be wont to assume that I am carried away with the time, the tide and the gale surrounding the waters of the present World Cup tournament (I used to wonder as a kid why people did not compete for the bigger kitchen utensils like the pots and pans and the stove but had to fight for an ordinary cup). Not so now. As I am an enthusiastic soccer fan as well as an active participant, words have not come in handy for me to express the depth of annoyance most of us feel here in Nigeria at not being in Germany, either just to baffle with our bullshit or dazzle the world with another famous upset.

My subject is the subject of romance and the one important game involved. Let me let you in on it at this first juncture that this is one game a lot of us are not a master of, very unlike the game of football (why didn't they call it 'feetball', as it is played with both feet even though not in a simultaneous manner?). My interest here is mostly to x-ray one shibboleth associated with the events leading to a relationship with the opposite members of our sex. A friend's encounter and the ones we encounter each and every other day should suffice. But first, I hope you do not mind if I strike a pose and try to establish certain observations I made when I juxtaposed this one game of the heart with that of the mind and matter popularly known as politics. Believe it or not, both games are first cousins in terms of the dirt and slime associated with the Nigerian brand of politicking, especially when considered from the sometimes egressing, holier-than-you standpoint I write from.