Four years ago, I came to Lagos with an innocent, youthfully exuberant mind, ready to face challenges not just the world would throw at me, but Lagos itself. I arrived in a well-buttoned long-sleeved and blue trousers that made me feel like Clark Kent in Metropolis. Ready for anything, or so I thought.
During my time here, I’ve realized only the insane find love in Lagos.
Lagos is a city that never sleeps; its streets are forever busy, the sun scorching like judgment, and buses are always on the brink of collapse. But this chaos is just the beginning.
When you face traffic at every turn, it drains you emotionally, and that exhaustion bleeds into everything else. It feels like the city itself is fighting you. Some things fight you to make you stronger; others fight you to break you. In such chaos, one who expects to find love is borderline insane.
And I’m not insane. How could I be? How could I try to date here, when the laws that govern the people seem written for a different world: a world I want no part of? I’ve watched from the sidelines, amazed at how people navigate romance in this madness. The risk-takers, the hopefuls, the ones who keep falling after their hundredth heartbreak: their resilience is awe-inspiring. Sometimes, it leaves me speechless. In a place filled with the truly insane, it hurts to stay sane.
Every workday feels like a battle between David and Goliath. And while the Bible says David triumphed, I’m not sure that’s true for Lagosians. Love here feels like a poisoned chalice: beautiful in theory, but bitter in reality. Forgive my rant.
There’s a speed to living in Lagos that’s unhealthy. It’s a fast-paced routine where every day blurs into the next, like an F1 race with everyone going 120 miles an hour. A mind consumed with outpacing the next person, what room does love have left?
And yet
Despite it all, I’ve seen lovers holding hands in traffic. I’ve watched couples share roasted corn on sidewalks. I’ve witnessed proposals in overcrowded malls and whispered "I love yous" in Danfos. Even amidst the harrowing depths of the city, beneath its crazy streets, lovers find time to steal hugs, share kisses, and carve out tiny spaces of tenderness.
Maybe love in Lagos isn’t for the sane. It’s for the stubborn. The romantics. The ones who dare to believe that even in a city that takes and takes, something tender can survive.
Maybe love in Lagos is madness. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the last kind of sanity left..