Adolescence and Those Randy Guys

YOUNG BREATH
  By Rugba Erhurhu
                                     
  Adolescence and Those Randy Guys
                                                   

Recall the first year at secondary school when your integrated science teacher rapped off about puberty and human reproductive system? Like they always do, mine told us that as we grew up, physical changes would occur in both females and males, and that these changes should be expected. Forgotten the changes? Of course, you haven’t. Don’t play stuffy! Teachers often start off with the female. Those almost-bare chests would begin to develop a pair of mounds around the nipples we were already used to: they are a pair of breasts. Then the hips would begin to broaden and, more than any other part of the body, the flat bum-bum we were used to, would suddenly grow rotund, with more flesh from no one knows where.

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Integrated science teachers never fail to mention menstruation and its burden and necessity. And when it would come to the growing of hair in the armpits and, especially, on the pubic section, the girls would become shy while the boys would chuckle and make faces at us, wishing the teacher would go on and on about female changes.
Then it would come to the turn of the male. They would begin to grow beard on their faces, develop muscles and strong features, and then also grow pubic hair. And when it would come to wet dreams, which some of them experience due to sexual fantasies and which could also serve to offload excess unused sperms, we too would boo at the boys. And, you know, female boos are often the longest and loudest. But our teacher would snap us to silence. Teachers always do, whether male or female. It is lesson and its purpose must be adhered to: to teach and make us learn.
Teachers sometimes add that at adolescence, males tend to go out in search of female partners to explore those changes they have noticed in themselves. And some females are anxious for exploratory partners. Therefore, the need to educate and guide us. But what teachers seldom tell female students is that there are much older randy guys out there ogling at us. And these guys are even keener than the teenage guys. They observe every single change in us as much as we do.

My first and only encounter with one of such older randy guys was, to say the least, most frightening. To me, the guy was really a bros, say about 26 and in his final year at the university, while I was only 16, though looking much older than my age, but my brain still full of my studies, extra-mural classes, WAEC, credit passes and JAMB. He was living with his parents and two younger siblings in our neighbourhood.
Returning home from school late one Friday afternoon, I saw him come out through the gates to their house and we walked into each other. He paused and we greeted. Then he asked about school and casually asked if I could come help him out at home with a minor chore the next day, Saturday. I agreed and didn’t give it a second thought, as there seemed to be nothing to it. Those days, I really cherished being around guys, especially undergraduates, and I craved to learn about campus life.
          I innocently and excitedly went to see him the next day at 2p.m. sharp, as promised. Finding him alone at home in the three bedroom flat didn’t raise any alarm in me. He had actually wanted me to help him iron, he explained, as he wasn’t feeling too fine and his younger siblings were out of town. But he had managed to iron the clothes himself. He asked if I wanted drink and I requested soft. We had been sitting far apart. When he returned and offered the drink, he then came to sit close to me and we started talking as I drank.

He talked and dazzled me with campus stories and I asked countless questions and he gave exciting explanations. Later, we talked about movies and music and novels, my other favourite subjects. Then casually, his hand reached for my palm and he started commenting on my nails, stretching out my fingers. I was shocked beyond reaction. My rigid body seemed to encourage him. And he started caressing my arm and commenting on my skin.

My immediate reaction was more due to fear than anger. I screamed: ‘What? What’s it? He instantly withdrew his hands. He was scared himself. The fear in his eyes seemed to encourage me and I stood up in a rage and glared at him, pointing at his shocked face: ‘You’re mad!’ I screamed. ‘You’re insane!’ Sincerely, I couldn’t find the right words. And I stormed out of the sitting room, banging the door behind me. From that day till they moved from the neighbourhood, I never greeted him again. And he became so shy he avoided me like hell. That one experience was enough for me. I don’t give older randy guys such opportunities any longer, not even now that I am in my early 20s. I have come to understand their psychology. These guys don’t scare me. Don’t let them scare you, too, no matter how older. Believe me, these randy older guys are characteristically timid. Some have this habit of talking to teenagers and young women disparagingly, as if they are not interested or keen. Others will

just act bigheaded and speak to innocent girls with fatherly calmness, whereas all they are after is an easy catch. Many of us know their tricks. When they act smug like that to me, I often tell them to ‘go make a hole in the river’ or to ‘fly off and go perch in the sky’. And, know what? They get off my back most often than not.
Truthfully, I’m not really a tough woman. And every teenage or young woman doesn’t have to be one to shoo off those guys who want to take advantage of our innocence, thinking we are pushover, instead of going in search of their age. Besides, guys are not really tough either, age group or older. A friend who is equally shy like me, has this habit of scowling whenever such older guys come around. Her only response to ‘Hello,fine girl? or ‘Hi, beauty’ is just to scowl and walk pass, and the guys would become discouraged and just back off.
But this isn’t to say that teenage girls or young women can’t start genuine and serious relationship with much older guys, or one that can possibly lead to marriage, after all, we were all living witnesses to the recent marriage between 21-year-old Nafisat, daughter of our President, and much older Isa Yuguda, Governor of Bauchi State as his wife number four. Of course, their relationship didn’t start yesterday. The gist here is that many older guys, especially those who talk about ‘sweet sixteen’, are only in hunt for sexual escapades. And because men can be very mischievous and unpredictable, it’s difficult to tell a serious guy from a randy and adventurous one. But the first step for a young woman who is interested in an older guy, in determining a serious one from the other, is to maintain a long platonic relationship.
But for the teeny or young woman like me who believes in close age partners, don’t let those much older randy guys scare you. It’s not easy but they can be stopped. There is never any man taller than a woman, except perhaps the man who will never get married, because when they come asking our hand in marriage, they go down on their knees, making us taller and superior.