Maturing is knowing nobody has to choose you

…people don’t owe you the fairy tale you designed in your head

Photo by Jørgen Håland on Unsplash

Maturing is one of those things nobody warns you about. You just wake up one day, stare at your ceiling, and realize, “Wow, nobody owes me the life I conjured up in my head when I was 14, listening to love songs and watching rom-coms like it was homework.”

Maturity sneaks up on you like an unexpected debit alert does—swift, rude, and forcing you to reevaluate your existence.

There’s a painful but necessary moment when you realize that just because you saw yourself having the perfect family with someone—complete with matching Christmas pyjamas, two well-behaved kids, and a golden retriever named Ginger—does not mean the universe is obliged to make it happen.

No be by force.

Sometimes, you are the only one in that fantasy, and the person you imagined it with is out there living their best life, blissfully unaware that in your mind, you already picked out the curtains and rugs pattern for your future home together.

And that’s okay.

No, really, it’s okay.

Because maturing is not just realizing that people don’t owe you the fairy tale you designed in your head; it’s also realising that you don’t actually want that kind of love if it requires begging, grovelling, or performing emotional gymnastics just to keep someone interested.

If you have to drag, bribe, or threaten someone into loving you, my dear, that is not a relationship; that is a hostage situation. And we won’t do hostage situationships in 2025.

You see, love—real love—is meant to be reciprocated, natural, and dare I say, easy. Not "easy" in the sense that there won’t be challenges, but easy in the sense that you won’t need to submit a 10-slide presentation and a 500-word persuasive essay on WhatsApp every day just to prove you’re worthy of being chosen.

You are not applying for a job. You are not campaigning for a political position. If someone is "thinking about" whether they should love you or not, abeg, let them keep thinking while you move on.

Love no be calculus; e no suppose hard like that at all.

This is where we take a moment to appreciate the great wisdom in that Nigerian pidgin saying:

"Do as you want abeg, na me go fall in love with you, I go stand up."

If that is not the most profound, self-respecting thing you have ever heard, I don’t know what is. Translated into the Queen’s English, it means: "Feel free to do as you please. If I fall in love with you, I will simply stand up."

This is the energy we need in life. This is the energy that takes us from desperation to the mature self that realizes it is okay.

This means you are not about to lose sleep over someone who is treating you like an afterthought.

It means you are not waiting for someone to "choose" you like you are a stray puppy at an adoption shelter. It means that if you find yourself being the only one making effort, the only one investing in the relationship, the only one fighting to make things work, you will dust yourself off, remind yourself that your name is not

"Please Love Me," your mother gave you a sweet name when you were born and it is not “Please Love Me.” And you will keep it moving.

Because love is not a prize to be won by the most persistent contestant. This is not an endurance test. It is not a sport where the one who begs the hardest wins.

If someone cannot see your value unless you are constantly reminding them, then they don’t deserve a front-row seat in your life. Let them go. Na them go lose.

And let’s be honest, nobody wants to be with someone who is only there out of obligation. Imagine convincing a person to love you, only for them to wake up one day, look at you, sigh deeply, and say, "I guess I love you now." My dear, is that one love or community service?

Do you want to be cherished or do you want to be pitied?

The moment you internalize this truth, you will free yourself from unnecessary heartbreaks, and suddenly, the world will start to make sense.

You will start to see that half the people you were crying over were not even that special. You were simply attached to an idea, an illusion, a future that only existed in your mind.

And when reality finally slaps you awake, you will realize that it is better to be alone than to be with someone who is with you out of convenience rather than conviction.

Maturity is when you stop making excuses for people who treat you like an option. It is when you stop twisting yourself into an unrecognizable version of yourself just to be liked.

It is when you stop prioritizing people who would not cross the street for you. And most importantly, it is when you understand that love should never be begged for.

Carry yourself with the confidence of someone who knows that they are worthy. Let us adopt the philosophy of "Do as you want abeg, na me go fall in love with you, I go stand up."

Understand that rejection is not a reflection of your worth but simply redirection towards something better. And never, ever grovel for love, because your future self is already looking at you from a distance, shaking their heads, and saying,

"My dear, you deserve better. Now, act like it."

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This piece is inspired by a post I read in my email where the writer lamented over yet another unreciprocated love, I wanted to give her a big hug.

Thanks for reading I hope you're well.