You can’t change someone. But you will anyway.
Not through arguments or ultimatums or that thing you do where you get really quiet and hope they’ll notice you’re upset. (They never do, by the way. They just think you’re tired.) You’ll change them the way water changes stone, by being around them long enough that they start to see themselves through your eyes.
I dated someone who interrupted everyone. Constantly. Mid-sentence, mid-thought, didn’t matter. It drove me insane for months. Then one night at dinner with friends, I watched her do it again, and this time she caught herself. She looked at me, then back at the person she’d cut off, and said, “Sorry, keep going.” Nobody else even noticed. But I knew: she’d started hearing herself the way I heard her.
That’s the thing they don’t mention when they say “accept people as they are.” You do accept them. And then they feel that acceptance so deeply that they finally have enough safety to look at the parts of themselves they’ve been running from their whole lives. Not because you demanded it. Because you made space for it.
But here’s the trap: if you’re asking “can I change her” with a specific outcome in mind, you’ve already lost. You’re not in a relationship anymore. You’re in a renovation project. And people can smell that a mile away. They can feel when your love has conditions attached. It makes them smaller, more defended, and less likely to grow into anything you’d actually want. Honestly, it usually just makes them better at hiding.
The real question isn’t whether you can change someone. It’s whether you can love someone enough that they feel free to change themselves. And whether the direction they’re growing is toward you or away from you.
Sometimes you date someone, and she becomes kinder, more thoughtful, and more herself. Sometimes she becomes exactly who she’s always been, just louder. And sometimes, this is the one that hurts; she grows into someone beautiful. Just not someone beautiful for you.
You can’t control which one happens. You can only decide how long you’re willing to wait to find out.
I shall forever appreciate those who gave me a chance. I know what it feels to have talent without opportunity, and to experience great admiration but with neglect. Whatever I become for the better, would be ruthlessly and selfishly guarded for me and my people.
Not at all. Re-reading a book years later and realising you missed 70% of what the author was actually saying the first time hits different. Growth is humbling like that.
Am I the only one that gets angry at myself when re-reading a book with a broader perspective and deeper understanding than the first time I read it?
It’s same book, but the understanding is on a different level and application too.
True. And I think it's not just about choosing the right words. It's about choosing the right person to say them to. Some people will take your clearest sentence and find a way to make it mean something else entirely. Whether that's a comprehension issue or just an agenda, the result is the same. Your words, your intention, now completely out of your hands.
When you’re young, you could sleep in the most ridiculous position and wake up perfectly fine. As you get older, one wrong angle and you’re limping to work like you accidentally dropped a dumbbell on your own leg at the gym.
Last week that was literally me. Bad sleeping position, woke up, could barely walk. A colleague offered a massage and I was screaming like a baby at work.
And any man who does snooze, she unconsciously registers it as the norm. Once it becomes the norm, it becomes her default and she will carry it into every interaction with every man she meets after that, weak or not. She will front-load you with the same behavior regardless of who you actually are.
Love tweets like this that are rooted in lived experience rather than the wishful, theoretical, idealistic slop that dominates this app these days.
That said, permit me to add that without them not understanding boundaries, or more precisely, distinguishing between a favour and an obligation (do something once for them and they expect it indefinitely) they are also highly impressionable and so have a tendency to import behaviours, expectations and standards from their environment (Nolly/Hollywood, social media, podcasts, pop culture, friends) directly into their relationships and marriages.
And this tendency is remarkably universal. So it makes little difference whether she is "good" or bad, a virgin or not, nor does it matter whether you are highly masculine or emasculated. She will *ATTEMPT* to import them regardless.
For example, your woman may watch a brain rotting youtube Nollywood movie on post partum depression, get emotionally invested in it and then attempt to make it a 'conversation' with you.
'Conversation' in quotes because it isn't really dialogue she seeks but confirmation from you of what her idea of PPD is and what you will do if it happens to you and she begins acting like what she saw in the Nollywood slop that has fried her brain.
Completely ignore her because attempting to engage will be a waste of time at that point. Make that occassion a reminder that you do not take her seriously on serious matters. She will get angry momentarily and sulk. Allow her.
Another example is how she may watch a woman weaponise sex on TV and even if you've never begged for sex from her before, if you offend her, she may say something like "I regret giving you this bunda today. Come and ask for it again and see. You will beg and I will not give you"
It may sound like she's joking but all jokes reveal thinking and imagination so your response is what will determine whether or not that thought translates into action - so do not ignore it.
Without becoming defensive or emotional, remind her in definite unequivocal terms that you do not beg for pum and will never beg for pum.
Seeing that, unlike the dodoyos in the Nollywood slop she consumes, that threat will not work with you, she may then pivot from threatening to accusing: "Ehen now, that is because you have Cynthia and Amaka that you've been cheating on me with... no problem"
Essentially switching from one shit test to another
But that is the response you want, so neither deny nor affirm it. That is the impression of you you want her to *CONTINUOUSLY have; a man who has options - never a man who does not BECAUSE women treat men with options a billion times better than men without.
See, your woman will test your frame *CONSTANTLY* - sometimes consciously, most times unconcsciously - but everyday and twice on Sundays, she will test it. Whether or not you recognise these test when they come and are able to 'pass' them *EFFORTLESSLY* is the difference maker between whether you get the best version of her or the worst one.
There is no such thing as a 'good woman'. At best, what you can get is a woman you have *CONDITIONED* to be good to YOU.
And that conditioning does not end. The day you snooze, you will lose.
🚨💣 BREAKING: Éderson to Manchester United, here we go!
Deal done with Atalanta for €45m package with add-ons included, agreement now in place.
Medical and formal steps to follow but deal in place.
Éderson will sign a four year deal plus option, as @TheAthleticFC reports.
It’s crazy, honestly. Mentally exhausting too, trying to stay locked in long enough to finally climb out of the trenches.
On one side, you’re applying for jobs that could level you up financially and even secure your stay. You get shortlisted, and now it’s interview prep, proving you actually have the qualities, the mindset, the discipline they are looking for.
At the same time, you are still watching the charts, waiting for the right setup to execute. Still keeping up with memes, AI stocks, crypto, GPUs, DePIN, all of it, so that when you finally have enough capital, you are ready to diversify and not miss the wave.
It is a lot to juggle, Ckan. And in moments like that, it is hard not to wonder if a simple, ordinary life would just be easier.. Mma basi ehm.
All forms of writing are an act of conception; poetry or prose, writing must lead to creation of an idea or a thought. Each time we write, we create something. Writing allows us to bring to life the essential element of surprise, wonder, happiness, joy, anger, sadness, desire.
Does Adeyinka Alaseyori the gospel singer know that, our grandparents and our parents has been praying for Nigeria and about Nigeria long before we were even born?
Does she even know that at all??
It's good to pray o
And it's OK to pray
But not for certain national issues that is a direct result of incompetence of the very people at the helm of affairs.
It is well
Sigh 😮💨
"A lot of people in the UK right now, in 10 years time will have zero savings, zero pension and they won't have paid up their house..."
Keji Giwa has a message for Nigerians in diaspora who have failed to invest in Nigeria.