For most bachelors aged 28-36, dating can be like walking on a field full of landmines. You don’t know when next you will step on a live one. These explosives include women who want to trap you into a relationship or marriage through pregnancy.

Also, you realise soon enough the diminishing number of women who are willing to participate in a no-strings-attached arrangement.

You will note that majority women mostly want to walk you down the aisle quite forcefully. Those ready to play games come at a higher and unsustainable price. Now, I have noticed that the most dangerous group to date, if you are an eligible bachelor with disposable income, must be women who are just out of college and on their first job.

When younger and in college, such women were only occupied with trivial things in life; electronic gifts and vacations. Marriage is never on the cards - just a distant thought. That makes them ideal dates. However, college students rarely have the intellectual mettle to sustain a decent conversation with an adult.

Next, as soon as they step out of college, women nurse two things in their mind; to get their money that will make them independent or not overly dependent on a man, secondly, marriage becomes a main preoccupation, thus the casual lifestyle they led in college starts to dissipate as they become more and more responsible.

Thus, as soon as she gets her first job and her money, many women want to prove to a man that they can pay their bills and as a man, you cannot wield money or gifts as a way of enticing them.

Certainly, they are mature than that. Also, it is not a bad thing exactly; it is always good for a woman to have some money of her own, just in case a man becomes a jerk.

What’s the problem? The first thing she wants to prove to you is that she earns and she values her independence. When you want her over for a sleepover, some have the annoying habit of insisting that you also go to spend in their house. In her house, she will starve you with a meal of spaghetti and three pieces of beef. As usual, a man can only be comfortable in his castle. You will be mentally arrested as long as you are there. She knows that you hate it, but she will still be playing mind games, just to prove a point.

In case, you want to marry via cohabiting, she can be bureaucratic. It becomes impossible to agree on whose bed to sell, whose pet to keep, whose TV stand to use. While what she bought could be smaller or of poor quality, you will need all the aunts from her maternal side to convince her to part with her prized possessions.

Another danger of dating a woman aged 25-28, is that marriage is a big deal for her. They are at the most impressionable age, and some can be “hot for themselves”. Also, they have this undue pressure to look at every man who hits on them through the prism of a potential suitor. In the course of the four years from when she left college to her first job, there will be a time, she will be so desperate and that is the worst time to try and date her.

So navigating until you find one happy and free for a no-strings attached relationship, or one who marriage is not on top of her priorities and does not wield the independence card, can be a tough job. Next time, you go out, be careful, lest they entrap you or waste your precious time.

@nyanchwani

[email protected]