Happy 4th Birthday to “Finding Mr Huggie-Wuggie!”

Cupcakes with birthday candles
**********RELATIONSHIP RELEVANCE**********
This post is not specific to any relationship status, other than my own!

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This post is celebrating four years since I started this blog on relationships! (Feb 2011.) I actually started writing posts and ideas a little while earlier, and sharing these ideas on Facebook. What a leap it was to move from that to actually setting up a blog, and on this of all subjects! (It was initially under a different name before I eventually thought of the Huggie-Wuggie name and registered the domain name.)

I would actually have set this up earlier.  Back in 2008, I remember telling my sisters that I wanted to start something where I shared with the world what I wanted from relationships, and like all wise sisters they discouraged me, reminding me of the last time that I had not listened to them (related to this episode…!)  However, the thing was burning in my heart, and I did eventually just go for it. Well here we are four years later, and I can barely express how happy I am to be in the position of writing this blog.  I’m not sure whether I acknowledge this enough on this blog, but yes, my sisters were of course right; this is such a personal and private subject to be tackling and then on top of that I go into so much detail, possibly to the point of oversharing. Ordinarily speaking I don’t think I would have ever imagined that I would be sitting here spelling out how much I yearn to be hugged or any other of the deeply intimate things I have shared with readers. And yet this blog has been such a big blessing even to me.

What I have loved:
Interaction with guys
On one hand, writing this blog has definitely made my interaction with guys a lot more awkward!  I notice that, because I am so overtly single and looking, that makes male people wary of interacting with me, possibly for fear that their actions might be misconstrued. The only single men that I can confidently interact with are men with whom I have a very, very secure friendship, for instance where we have known one another for many many years, or decades.
That said, I still think that the issue of interaction with men is possibly the single best consequence of this blog, and to be honest it was a big part of the reason why I started writing this blog in the first place. This is why it is worth all the awkwardness:  because through this blog I can tell a guy exactly who I am, what I want from relationships, what I expect from my future husband, and whether or not I am likely to be attracted to to him in particular without having to directly address it to him as an individual, without needing to insinuate that he might be attracted to me, without needing to wait for him to actually express interest in me!  And then again there is so much in my mind!  Even if a suitable guy showed up, and we were able to sufficiently hit it off to quickly overcome the awkwardness issues to get talking frankly about these issues, I’m thinking that it would take hours and hours and hours to get through some of these issues. And my thoughts are constantly evolving so in an actual conversation my thoughts might be changing in real time, so what I actually express in a conversation might not be reliable.  Ideally with this blog, a guy can read though the posts, get an idea of who I am, then if necessary, quickly rule me out as a potential prospect from what I reveal about myself, without either of us having to waste much time.

Additionally, I have a theory that many people don’t actually listen when you are trying to communicate to them who you are. I think that many people see you and instantly form an impression about who you are, and then it is so difficult to break down that initial impression.  Apparently, I give off the impression of being a good (that is conformist) Nigerian girl. By the grace of God I am Nigerian, and I am good, in terms of being obedient to God, but I am definitely not a conformist! I question so many things that other people seem to take for granted, especially in the Church. I also do not subscribe to many ideas of male superiority that many men apparently take for granted. Well this blog gives a chance for many men to discover those surprising things about me and then to quickly and quietly discard the idea of “Tosin as a potential spouse”, without even having to reveal that they may have been considering me. Win-win I say!

Conversely it obviously also gives a chance for men who are on the same wavelength as me to discover this. Once again, this apparently often comes as a surprise to men, that I am extremely deep and poetic and romantic – and huggie, of course, – and looking for a relationship where my husband and I will be hopelessly (or rather hopefully!) in love with one another. At least one man has fallen for me specifically through this blog….but that one individual I know of was not a Christian!

The other big reason that I started writing this blog was for the sake of subtly sharing my opinions with people about the way they were approaching their relationships, but once again without having to directly say it to them. This has been less successful, in that I’ve seen individuals still go ahead and make what I feel are unwise choices. I mean really unwise choices that most people would agree were unwise. But you know what, at least I’ve helped out as much as I could.  Furthermore, many of these relationships which filled me with such dread have turned out to be…quite okay, actually!  It appears that I have been quite pessimistic…

Other things that have been great:
Really being able to express things, consider things, ask myself big questions, exercise candour, push myself to ever deeper depths of candour.

Knowing that people can relate to this! 
When I first realised that people were reading this blog (not loads…but some) I was just so surprised!  Initially I had assumed that I would be talking to myself but that has turned out not to be the case which I find to be very encouraging!

Learning to become comfortable with what I want in a relationship, not being ashamed of who I am – which is, playful!  For so long, I imagined that what I yearned for was somehow an expression of immaturity, that I had to “grow up” and become soberly focused on adult responsibilities like everyone else. Without doubt, marriage will have a place for those adult responsibilities.  However I am naturally a playful person. I make funny jokes!  I am looking forward to being able to giggle with my husband! It has been so good to be able to express that on this blog, deliberately using casual language at times, slang, “kinda”, emoticons…huge lashings of humour!   Ironically, my deep yearning for hugs, that I have spoken about at great length on this blog, has only struck or crystallised within the last few years.  I don’t know whether it is because I have become more comfortable with who I am, and I have been able to realise/acknowledge that I am a very tactile person.  I honestly don’t know.  However, now that it has struck, it has struck with a real vengeance. It has also been great to talk freely about these hugs on this blog, and say “This is who I am.  This is what I want”.

So those are all the good things.  However, with all that said: I’m still single!  I know so much more than I did four years ago.  However there are still so many things that I don’t understand. I will of course never understand everything, either before marriage or within marriage itself.  Even after trying my hardest to prepare there will of course be so many things that I have to discard, and so many painful lessons that I will have to learn within marriage itself; that he and I will both have to learn. And yet by the grace of God I am looking forward to exploring further questions on this blog.  I thank you so much dear readers for coming along with me on this journey. 

If you have also found this blog to be useful, why not talk about it in the comments below? I would greatly value your feedback and I hope that you would also be able to help me on these questions that I am greatly struggling with!

T 😉

Bible Verses:
Habakkuk 2v2-3:

“Write the vision
And make it plain on tablets,
That he may run who reads it.
For the vision is yet for an appointed time;
But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
Because it will surely come,
It will not tarry.

 
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PHOTO CREDITS
Photo of cupcakes and candles by CBaquiran on Pixabay
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