You go around asking people when they are getting married. You go around pocking your nose into married people’s business asking them when they are planning to have (more) children. You ignore the way they laugh to conceal embarrassment and discomfort. You ignore the way their body language clearly says they would rather be swallowed whole by the ground than have that conversation with you. You ignore the subtle ways they beg you to change the topic. You ask and you prod and you pester. You tell them “Eh! We are getting old my dear. When are we having a party?” You insistently ask: “But why have you delayed to give Junior a little sister?” But why do you want to know? Why are you so obsessed with other people’s timelines? Are you planning to fully fund the wedding so you need to know in time to organize your finances? Are you planning to move into the marital home to fully partake of all the joy and suffering that their union to another person will bring? Are you are a co-wife so that you need to start preparing to share your husband’s time and affection? Perhaps all your life plans depend on whether or not the person gets married? Or God told you that you will get an extra mansion in heaven when you nag people about getting married. No? Then why do you want to know? What are you going to do with the information? How is it going to improve your life? How does knowing if/when someone is going to have children affect your life? Are you going to be a surrogate so that you carry that child in your womb? Are you going to feed the child and dress him and pay school fees? What’s that information worth to you that you must lecture someone about how to plan out their life? Have you stopped to think about the cost of your nosiness? Do you know how much damage a simple question like “when are you getting married?” is likely to cause? Young women who would have otherwise taken their time and chosen someone worthy succumb to the pressure to be married and end up with men who have no business being in anyone’s life. Married couples who would have otherwise been fine to wait as long as it took to get a child start to panic and fight over childlessness or worse, get divorced. The cost of nosiness is happiness and peace. People lie awake at night feeling like failures because of the expectations that society has placed on them. Parents feel the need to live vicariously through their children. So they ridicule the small rental house even though they are not contributing to rent. Or they tell their children: “Eh. You board a bus to come and see us and we feel ashamed. When are you buying a car?” Before you know it, the children up to their neck in debt. This is what nosiness does to people. It’s unpleasant. It’s hurtful. Think about before you press for answers about something that doesn’t entirely concern you.
