Do Nigerian men cheat more than women? Ask 10 adults this question and eight of them will say yes.
But do they really?
After Twitter user, Nimah A. [@MsNemah] shared an engaging tweet and many guys sent in their responses, it became apparent that there might be an alternative truth on this issue that many might not be ready to face, let alone accept.
The tweet, posted on June 5, 2016, asked guys to tweet about how they found out that their partners were cheating on them and as guys dropped comments and shared their stories in that long thread, it became quite apparent that maybe… just maybe women are worse and more frequent at cheating than we think.
Up till the moment of writing this article, the prevalent idea is that men are more unfaithful than women.
This narrative has been relentlessly driven by all the stories we keep hearing of men hiding their wives and kids to start other families and keeping up both lives for decades and in some really extreme cases, till their deaths.
We also hear of men having girlfriends who know nothing about their marital status, guys who date two or more sisters at the same time, guys whose girlfriends only get to see on social media that they married other women, and so on and so forth.
This is not to say these things do not happen or to justify them, but the question remains; aren’t there women who do some of the things listed above or worse?
Take for example this story anonymously shared in response to that tweet by Nimah; “Dated right from university for almost five years, first girlfriend and all. I gave her almost everything I could and even showed her a house I needed to put down payment of #1.8m for.
ALSO READ: The type of man women like to cheat with
Instead, she told me there’s good land for 800K & I should send the cash. Something (instinct) made me delay and a week later, her invite was out on social media with no name so I kept getting congratulatory calls [from people who thought I was the one marrying her whereas it was someone else].
One of the worst days EVER…. still don’t trust any female till this day.”
Another one heartbreakingly says: “I met her through her sister. She needed a job at the time and I knew some people who were hiring. Things took off from there, and it was great.
“Never in a million years did I know I was just a placeholder for her ‘friend’.
“I knew this guy, we all used to hang out together, go to church and stuff.
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You that guy she calls bestie, be scared of him (Alamy)
“Well, how did I find out? She was using an old phone of mine, so I borrowed (mine was stolen at the time) it briefly. You know what thing they say about ‘what you don’t know, won’t kill you’… let’s just say I stumbled on their chats.
“I was at work that morning and people were asking if I’d lost someone that day. I was the butt of several jokes, I was their meal ticket. They were even willing to try out each time I wasn’t around.
“This was someone I’d gone to see her folks, to make my intentions known.
“I don’t think I’ve fully recovered from it. The messages I read destroyed me. I have very little trust in people these days. I mean, he was someone I called ‘brother’.
“Ate from the same plate, carried each other along. We were doing the whole outfit thing together, we were always in public together. Members in church were even asking how far proposal. I was already shopping for a wedding ring.
“Till this day, she doesn’t know the reason I ended things with her. I just told her she was too good for me.
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Sneaky woman (Tell you all)
“That was three years of my life down the drain.”
And there was also this other story anonymously sent in: “I met this babe in 2014, was just absolutely in love with her, I mean pure genuine love.
“She knew this, but in December of 2014, she got married and didn’t tell me. I spent the whole of 2015 confessing to her how much I love her and want her in my life, I really meant it.
“She kept on giving mixed signals, [and] about twice she was very clear we were gonna be a thing, but will tell me she wasn’t serious later. I was naive, very naive, however I was blinded by the love I had for her…
“Long story short, December 2015 I’m on Instagram randomly looking at pictures… then I stumble on her friend’s page, I had met the guy before.
“For whatever reason, I just couldn’t stop scrolling down this guy’s page… then bam! I see the ‘love of my life’ and her husband’s wedding pictures.
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Is your boo really your boo? (Pinterest)
“I called her and was like ‘are you married?’
“And then came this 40 second pause after which she hung up and blocked my lines.”
Of course, you guessed right, the babe was friggin’ married!
Though they never “dated but it was like we were a thing,” the anonymous twitter user writes, and what hurt him the most was that “she didn’t tell me she got married, I had to find out myself.”
Of course, if he did not find out, she probably would have dragged out that situation longer even though she was obviously married already.
That’s just three out of the endless list of touching stories in that thread.
If that tweet had not triggered them, you’d hardly see these guys narrating such stories and as a matter of fact, some guys commented, saying they would rather not narrate their own stories because it would be too embarrassing and they’d rather take their L’s in silence.
Apparently, that’s one of the reasons why this cheating narrative favours women more. Men are from a young age taught to hold in their feelings, to act ‘like a man’ and not cry.
To let out those painful emotions would be tantamount to behaving like a woman.
So they bottle in all of these things, because, I mean, how do you tell your guys that you caught the gateman at your babe’s house hotly giving her the lamba? [oh yeah, someone shared that story, too.]
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The guy in the second story above also speaks of how he could not tell his cheating babe the real reason why he broke up with her. Why? Because it hurts enough to internalize the pain without broadcasting it and getting laughed at.
This is pretty much unlike women, who express such huge disappointments by talking about them and letting out steam in many ways possible. The numerous stories shared on social media about philandering men attest to this.
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A woman could return from just cheating on you and you wouldn’t suspect a thing (Pinterest)
Another probable reason why women are seen as less cheats than men is because of their legendary abilities to hide these things.
A woman could return to you from a date with another man and all it takes is just a kiss and gentle touch in some strategic spots of your body and you’ll never suspect a thing.
You’ll even pick up your phone few minutes after that to post on social media about how proud you are to have her as bae. Women are almost never caught when they cheat.
Recall the story of the Nigerian man in UK who found out that his 32-year-old-son was not his.
And frankly, if every kid was taken for a paternity test in Nigeria today, we really, really might be shocked shitless at the things that’d be unraveled.
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If a paternity test was taken, will your dad still be your dad? (Warwick Blogs)
So do men cheat more, or is it women who are more guilty of unfaithfulness?
There isn’t really a statistically-certain way of finding out.
Maybe we might settle this issue once and for all if we provided a totally safe haven, maybe a wide-reaching national poll, for individual men and women to tell whether they have ever cheated on any of their partners.
If every single person would really be honest in that poll, I think we [will surely] just might find out that more Nigerian women cheat than men.
Source: Lifestyle.NG