Friend of a Friend is a short series exploring modern and evolving concepts of love and relationships as uniquely defined by members of the FEMME MAG community. Compassing the voices of this collective, we sat down with some FEMME MAG friends to bring this collection of conversations on dating, relationships and love in our modern world, from a friend to a friend.
“People put too much pressure on themselves that there’s just a one of one [soulmate] and if I don’t find that one of one then that’s it for me, I don’t have the fairy-tale,” says Iggie Aikhomu. The Sickle Cell Anaemia advocate and founder of The Ehime Aikhomu Foundation defies societal stereotypes of a fairy-tale ending that at times can feel restrictive to the femme experience. The irony of Iggie’s year of bold and unapologetically raw advocacy on social media, she tells me, is that “I’m kind of shy”. A somewhat shocking admission considering her almost open-book approach to sharing the trials of her journey. “I don’t know how to actually speak around people I’m not comfortable with,” she adds, which makes her willingness to share that more revolutionary.
So, can you tell us a little bit about your experience with dating?
I’m currently in my first serious relationship but I would say that dating’s been weird. That’s the best word I can think of. Weird because I think the generation I was born in… Everyone’s thoughts towards dating just wasn’t the kind of thing I was into. I wasn’t really into casual relationships and casual dating.
How about now, what has your first relationship been like?
It’s quite crazy the way my relationship started, and luckily enough it was with a long-time friend, but at the same time, I was ill when I got into it. I was at a bad point with my health and I was in hospitals a lot. For me, it was very much as soon as I was in my relationship, I had to be dependent on him because I was ill. So, you’re having to be dependent on someone but when you look at society if you’re being that dependent early in your relationship then you’re obviously stupid. Looking at society, my relationship just seemed weird . I already live alone, and I do a lot of things for myself but considering I’m going through this health issue and my family lives in another country, if I needed to stay somewhere, I’d stay with my boyfriend. If I was ill, he’d come stay with me. And then in a Nigerian household there are a lot of raised eyebrows but still everybody understood because it’s like, “she’s ill, she needs all the help she can get.” It was really very in the middle. Starting off I just thought, “wow this is odd, I don’t even know where this falls in.”
Is there any relationship advice or rules on love that have been passed down to you that you completely disagree with?
That you can love once, and that also ties into getting divorced. How we’ve been brought up to think that that’s a bad thing. Oh, you have one true love and that’s kind of that, but I disagree. Completely disagree. You know, because people [can] get married again and it’s better than before. People get married again by circumstance and it works out for them and I just think we just think about it too much.
Knowing that there are certain things that you don’t accept as whole truths, how have you managed to land where you have on your thoughts on relationships?
I definitely learnt that around my family because I basically grew up with single mums around me, but by circumstance. So, my mum, for example, I lost my dad, so she got remarried. Just kind of looking at stuff like that, especially as her child, I kind of thought, “oh so you can fall in love again, that’s crazy.” I think being able to see both sides of it, both marriages, has just really taught me a lot.
Would you say you’ve had an unconventional upbringing from people you know then?
Yeah, definitely quite unconventional. Even with my mum, you got the comments from other people feeling like “oh is that the right thing to do?” And that’s another thing because Nigerians – and I hate that it’s me just having to say Nigerians – but there’s this thing we do where we police people that have lost their spouses sometimes. So that’s why I would definitely feel I’ve grown up in this unconventional setting because having to have been in that circumstance and watching people’s reactions, it just feels so mean and so different [for me].
Can you maybe talk more about that? How does that affect you and how you view love from people, assuming that the people that police you can sometimes be the people that are closest to you.
Yes, of course. With my mum, because at first even for me, of course, it was weird. She was married to my dad and then she’s trying to marry someone else. I asked myself, “how do I feel?” But I just kind of looked at the bigger picture and it’s her happiness and what she wants to do. And then, growing up in Nigeria there’s this… It’s just… I don’t know the word for it, but she’s lost her husband, and everyone’s thinking, “ok she shouldn’t be looking at anyone else, that’s the love of her life gone. Don’t look anywhere else, you don’t need that.” And then she wants to get married and there are the people thinking “Hmm, already?” So, is it better for her to just be alone and unhappy and that’s what you guys think that love is? I think just kind of growing up around that and moving on into my relationship, it just made me secure my relationships more.
How so?
I just tend not to ask for opinions unless I really need one because I feel like you never know what you’re walking into or what mindset you’re walking into. I like to make sure I have my own footing where I’m making a decision, even though I need help from friends. I never want to feel like I’m not making a decision for myself, especially when it comes to relationships.
