The Market has Changed

My mother called on a Tuesday.

She does not call on Tuesdays. She calls on Sundays, after church, when she has the full energy of the Holy Spirit and approximately forty-five minutes of things to say. A Tuesday call means something specific. It means she has been thinking. It means someone's child just got married. It means the conversation is going to end with her saying "I'm not getting any younger" even though it is me who is not getting any younger.

I have been in Canada for three years. I left Abuja at thirty-four with a plan, a Confirmation of Permanent Residence document, and the quiet confidence of a man who has never had trouble meeting women. I was not worried about this particular area of life. I had other things to worry about. The winters. The job. Building something. The women would sort themselves out.

They have not sorted themselves out.

Let me explain the market as I have come to understand it.

First, there is a category of women who are very clear about what they want. They want stability. They want someone who will handle things. This is understandable. Everyone in this country is working hard and life is expensive and wanting a solid partner is not a crime. The issue is when this reasonable desire arrives in the form of a woman who mentions within the first twenty minutes of meeting you that her car needs servicing, that her phone contract is expiring, and that she has been meaning to do something about her rent situation. Not as a conversation. As a brief. You are not on a date. You are in a procurement meeting.

I have attended several of these meetings.

Then there is another category entirely, and this one requires a moment of honest reflection because I genuinely did not see it coming.

These are women who, by every observable measure, are also in the trenches. Hustling. Figuring it out. Surviving the same cold, the same expensive rent, the same Canadian bureaucracy that humbles everyone equally. Nothing wrong with any of that. We are all building. But somewhere along the line, a conversation was had, a memo was circulated, and it was collectively decided that despite the circumstances, they are the prize. Not a potential partner. Not someone navigating this thing together with you. The prize. The destination. The reward at the end of your effort.

You will meet her and within two conversations understand that she is looking for a host. Someone to carry the load she has not been able to carry herself, while she provides the honour of her company. She brings to the table the certainty that she deserves better, and the expectation that better is you, and that you will figure out the details.

I respect confidence. I do not always understand its source.

Then there is the second category, and this one I genuinely did not anticipate. I did not come to Canada prepared to compete with married men. In Abuja I understood the competition. You knew who you were up against. Here, I have discovered that a significant portion of the available women that I have seen have decided that the most attractive quality a man can have is a wife. I do not know who started this trend. I do not know what meeting was called or what was decided, but at some point it was agreed that the presence of a wife is not a disqualifier but in fact a recommendation. A review. A signal that someone already did the assessment and found the product worth keeping.

I am unreviewed product. I have been on the shelf for three years with my full integrity intact and apparently this is less compelling than it sounds.

My competition has a mortgage, joint accounts, a family group chat, and a woman at home he is building with. And yet.

I am not bitter. I am simply observing.

The third thing I have noticed is the expectations. And I want to be precise here because I think expectations are reasonable and good. The problem is not that women have standards. The problem is when the standards appear to have been assembled from three different people and applied to one. She wants someone ambitious but also present. Successful but also humble. Built but also soft. Established but also still growing. Funny but also serious. In touch with his emotions but not too much, not weeping at films, just enough to confirm he has a soul.

I have a soul. I have seen Coco twice and I cried both times. I do not think this is the problem.

The problem is I am thirty-seven now and I have been in this country long enough to know that what I am looking for exists but finding her requires a patience I am still developing, in a city I am still learning, in a social landscape that operates on rules I did not grow up with.

Which brings me to the other option. Going home.

My mother, who called on a Tuesday, would like me to come home and marry a proper Abuja girl. She has three candidates. She has sent their photos twice. They are lovely women, I have no doubt about this, but I do not know them. I have been gone for three years and I have changed in ways I cannot fully explain over the phone. The person who left Abuja at thirty-four is not exactly the person typing these words. I have been through Canadian winters. I have learned what loneliness in winter is. I have learned to cook because there was no other option. I have sat alone in an apartment on a Saturday in January and had to be okay with that. That changes a person.

I worry that going home to marry someone would be doing her a disservice. She would be marrying a man she does not know, who will take her somewhere cold and unfamiliar, who has already been reshaped by experiences she was not present for. That does not seem fair to her.

So I stay. I keep meeting people. I keep attending the procurement meetings. I keep watching the reviewed competition make their moves.

My mother called on a Tuesday. I let it ring twice, breathed, and picked up.

She said: have you been praying about this?

I said yes.

She said: pray harder.

I am praying harder.