Love is overrated

There is nothing wrong with a woman wanting to be with a rich man, a white one or an American one.

Joyce Akinyi, a 25-year-old Kenyan woman, is starring in the current season of 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 days, an American reality TV show.

On the show, Americans are partnered with foreigners who are given a temporary visa and 90 days during which they are to date, marry and apply for a green card. If this doesn't happen, then the foreigner has to go home.

Joyce has coupled up with Benjamin, a 33-year-old divorced father from Phoenix, Arizona. This week, he packed up his bags and travelled into the country to ask her parents for her hand in marriage.

As soon as a video of him at the airport surfaced on social media, the internet stirred. Netizens were not having it.

The problem? The assumption was that Akinyi went on the show just for the American dream. Get the green card, sis! Just do not fall pregnant, she has been told, sarcastically, of course.

ASSUMPTION

We are riding on the strongest sugar daddy, sugar baby wave, yet we are still a long way from viewing a woman in an interracial relationship as being in it for anything other than the money.

This assumption, I understand. What I do not get is why people would then use this against her. What if she got on the show just for the American dream? What is your problem?

If you had asked me six or seven years ago, I would have told you that love is all you need. That as long as you get with the person that makes you feel all the right things, all the other little pieces of life will fall in place.

Now that I know better, I know that while love is a beautiful thing, it just isn't enough to sustain a relationship as strong as marriage.

I remember sitting open-mouthed five years ago when my friend who had been the love attraction of two men decided to let go of the hot one, the one who still gave her butterflies four years in.

TRANSACTIONAL

The other guy, the one she eventually married, was dull but she reasoned that when the topic of business and investments was raised, like her, something would stir within him.

I have not seen a happier couple. You should hear her gushing about their weekend trips to Naivasha and Matuu to buy land. She made the right choice.

In a perfect world, we would all marry our one true love who would wish away all our problems. In this world though, relationships are transactional.

You get on with someone because they are meeting a need in you. It may be a physical need, he may be good for the gramme; maybe he is fatherly unlike your absent father, or he is the man that makes you want to be a better woman.

He meets a need. When this need stops being met, that is when problems begin.

INDIVIDUAL ISSUE

I do not know why it becomes an issue when this need is money or material. Why isn't it a problem when a man's need in a woman is cooking skills or big boobs, or her ability to stay quiet and worship him?

There is nothing wrong with a woman wanting to be with a rich man, or a white one or an American one for that matter.

A woman who will go on a television show to get him or who will publicly say what she wants is to be admired, not ridiculed.

She knows exactly what she wants and is willing to go after it, something that most of us women do not have guts for.

So, go Sis! Get that visa.