Hakim lays on the couch, his head resting on the handle and one leg hung over the headrest, tapping his screen as his hairy chest pumped up and down. He chews a gum irritably loudly while humming an inaudible tune to himself. We have been quiet for the past few minutes and an air of awkwardness have started sweeping across the living room, so I decide to break the mound of silence. What other topic was there to introduce if not women?
"Guy, come find me Lokoja babe nau", I say. He looks away from his phone to me briefly, a smug smile lighting up his face and then he looks back to his phone.
"You wey na you get all the girls for Facebook?" He says, still absent-mindedly chewing his gum nonchalantly.
"All those Facebook girls dey far jor. Most of them dey Lagos and Portharcourt dem. I need Lokoja babe", I retort. "All the Lokoja girls for my list no dey give me face. E just be like say I no get luck for their side", I add.
He laughs briefly and in a moment, his expression arranges back to normal. "Na because you no dey the circle na", he says.
"What circle?"
"Lokoja girls are a bit different from your usual Lagos catches. They are not moved by the things that moves your Lagos conquest. They are not concerned with the brilliance of your Facebook updates or your social media popularity. They are more interested in non-virtual indulgences. And like I said, you are not part of the circle."
I still don't understand him. "Na English you dey speak. All these talks about circles abi wetin, I don't get o." I say.
"OK, what's your Facebook name?"
"Victor Daniel."
"That's my point. Your name doesn't even portray you as a Lokoja boy. My name is Abdulmalik Bako. An average Lokoja girl, with her beautiful hijab wrapped around her head and some Muhammed or Ibrahim as her surname, will easily give me more attention than she gives to you," He says.
"But why is it that way?"
"Because Lokoja girls like this sense of association. Lokoja is a tiny place where everyone knows everyone. All the happening Lokoja guys on Facebook seem to belong to a huge clique. Something, like a string, joins them together. That's why they all have the same mutual friends. OK look at this, you have Abdullahi Abu, Wahab Slimkid, Ashraph Ibrahim, Jamal Maiyaki. I could go on and on. Somehow, all of these guys are connected. Then there is Victor Daniel. Does your name even sound like any of the names I mentioned above? With your name, it doesn't even seem like you are from Lokoja. These Lokoja girls don't fuck with foreigners fam.
"Moreover", he continued, "your whole Facebook activity, both with posts and friends, do not reflect anything that suggests you are a proper Lokoja boy. To get a Lokoja chic, you have to be friends with her friend. How many of these happening Lokoja guys do you roll with?"
"Very few. Almost none. I hardly go out."
"You see? That's what I mean. You are disconnected from this place and somehow it affects your chances of scoring a chic here. That is why you only attract chics from Lagos and Portharcourt. See me na, I no be fine boy, I no popular like you for Facebook, but any time any day..." he adjusts his voice to a whisper, "I go score Lokoja babe before you."
We both laugh. I get his point, and for the first time I realise how disconnected I am from the social life of a town I have inhibited for the past seven years. I have never had a Lokoja girlfriend, which by implication means that I have never had any sexual intimacy or connections with a girl here. For a guy who has a pretty active sexual life, it was not a good record.
Abdulmalik, who had resumed tapping the screen of his phone and humming a new tune to himself, had a girl he had spent the night with bathing in his bathroom. Amina, she introduced herself as. She was the third girl he brought home in a week.
"Where you dey meet all these girls?" I had asked him.
"For Facebook na."
"The same Facebook wey I dey?" I asked, wondering what he had that I didn't that made him so lucky with Lokoja girls while I always met a dead end every time I tried to create an intimacy with a Lokoja girl. They either did not reply my messages or when they did I found them either too boring or uninterested in the conversation or straight out unintelligent enough to have a conversation with. Sometimes, I'm tempted to think my standards are too high to keep a regular conversation with them. I had relayed this problem to Malik and he explained:
"Lokoja girls don't have time for your big big English or how funny or creative you are. Dem no dey for time wasting. Message them, set a date immediately, take them out on that date, buy them Ice cream, bring them home. Finish. They don't have time for depth abi intellectual discourse."
I'm two months out of my last relationship. As it usually is with my previous relationships, it was a long distance relationship. Meaning I had to travel every time I seek sexual relief. I needed to, for a change, try something close. For once, I wanted a girl I could easily reach out to. The type I could just call like 'hello? Are you free? I kinda want my dick sucked in an hour.' Just kidding. But you get the drill right? But here I am having problems with even maintaining the slightest emotional connection with a girl from my town. Half the Lokoja girls on Facebook are donned in their hijab. And hijab girls, beautiful as they are, don't want to mess with a relative stranger with two English names.
However, Malik has decided to help me. He is the only Lokoja friend I have. We were lodge mates back in Kogi State University and he became my flatmate in Lokoja. He has invited me to a party where he will introduce me in person to a couple of his girls. Most likely girls he had slid his 7 inch pole into their honeypots, but who cares? Beggar get choice?
Want to know how the party went down? Keep tabs on this space for the episode two. Take care.
