by Yeshi M.

I’m a reasonably attractive female, educated, intelligent, funny, kind, interesting .... and single. Any number of my Ethiopian female friends and relatives could use these words to describe themselves. If it were in a want add for singles, it would probably read like this:

SEF - attractive, educated, intelligent, funny, kind, interesting - seeking same in a Single Ethiopian Male. If you’re out there, let me know. We could meet for coffee and take it from there...

Of course, none of us would ever dream of putting in a want add. Just thinking about the possible social fallout in the community makes me shudder. If you were ever ferenge enough to contemplate - and then take - such a route, and if by some miracle you found your soul mate dangling after those ellipses, your ethio-psychosis would probably kick right in and you’d find yourself wondering why, if he were indeed such a gem, he was reading the want-ads for singles in the first place. God only knows what he would be coolly contemplating about your values as you both silently sipped your overpriced lattes wondering who was going to pay for this semi-date. And let’s not even mention the gossiping hordes who would incessantly tweeter about how Abebe and Abebech met via the want ads. Your children would be teased. Your children’s children would bear the stigma. Ethiopians everywhere would form support groups such as EASDVWA (Ethiopians Against Soliciting for Dates Via the Want-Ads). Charter members will have monthly meetings on how to avoid such traumas in their own lives. Some lucky souls will meet at these sibsebas and get married. Your effigies, however, will continue to burn at the Ethiopian alubalta-stake.

So, okay, want-ads are out.

The thing is, we really don’t have an avenue - outside of the tired bar scene - whereby we could meet, socialize without having to feel like meats on a hook, and perhaps meet again and again, get to know each other until we felt comfortable enough to ask or be asked out on a date. Our parents - yebarkachew - are for the most part so out of the loop that they can’t arrange for us to casually meet an eligible partner. Then there are the old ferenge standbys - the funeral or wedding scene. Uh, yeah! We have a looong way to go there.

In my experience, weddings are what I would call the ogling-opportunity scene where most eligibles have perfected and successfully practice the art of ogle but don’t touch, don’t talk, don’t look interested...wezete. And leqsos? If I need to mabrarat, we live in parallel universes. Oh, sure, there are those few stalwart females who get gussied up to go to a leqso, foregoing the traditional lean towards austerity-in-black to slather on their lipstick and deck themselves out in their complete 30-year collection of gold jewelry. But they still end up hugging the “girls’” corner while the men peer at them through a smoky haze hoping that the next bottle of free beer will give them the courage to break formation and actually cross that invisible gender line and make contact with a female of the Ethiopian species.

So, scratch out want-ads and leqsos and weddings on that mental list of yours. What’s left? Church, of course.

I’ve heard that church is one of the best places to meet and greet. Still, I remain skeptical. I have yet to meet a single person who is currently married to, dating or planning to marry someone they met during qidase. Again, this brings into question your respective moral fibers, doesn’t it? Wey ida!

So...

Want-ads(moche-igegnalehu)
Weddings
Leqsos
Church

What’s left…?

Ooh, yeah, I forgot one! The agerbet lij. Yes, there are those who go home and lasso back a bride/groom to sport proudly around. I know of three cases. Two are divorced. Not a thrilling ratio of success here. For me, merely contemplating the notion leaves me fighting off hives. Too many issues here for me to deal with. Too many variables, his real motivations topping the list.

So, perhaps you’re beginning to understand why, much like fish out of water, my current social life could be accurately described as limp and gasping for breath. Just two years ago, I was sitting squarely on the dating shelf (shoulder to shoulder with Andy Warhol’s soup cans), actively waiting for some age-appropriate, like-minded single-Ethiopian-male-seeking-same kinda’ dude to pick me out of the crowd and, after several dates, announce his undying love for me. What I got was secondary smoke and a flat butt (Okay, okay, a flatter butt).

Let me elaborate...

To be quite honest about this whole thing, I’m not much of a hunter in the fields of dating. I don’t know how to play the games, say the right thing in just the right way or bat my overly-mascaraed eyelashes. I don’t know how to perfectly impersonate the angelic-slut or simper enough so that the Mr. Possibly (could he be?) Right will not be offended by my intelligence. I say what I mean. I don’t flatter without cause and I don’t ask for phone numbers. In fact, were all of this up to me, I would be quite happy in my singledom, presiding over my bachelorette pad, dispensing good taste and freedom wherever I stepped. But it’s really not all up to me. I have a sense of obligation, one moreover that is continuously being reinforced by this short, loveable but demanding woman in my life. Like a good Ethiopian girl, I feel that I owe my mother a grandchild.

And then, of course, there are those natural urges. I used to say, “My clock isn’t ticking. It’s GONGING!” Still, I’ve managed to put those biological urges to the backburner for the time being. Mind you, my clock is still ticking, but I’ve upgraded to a digital so it’s not quite so tiresomely loud and demanding. Oh, but for the pesky presence of my ovaries, I’d be a free soul indeed. But there you are, biology is the final cruel joke on my sex. Still, I’ve tried shifting the focus of my biological imperative from child-bearing to attracting the right lifetime partner. I use this term reluctantly, but given the ever nebulous waters of dating these days, you really have to be careful what terminology you put out there for fear of scaring away a particularly good catch. (Lifetime partner leaves the door wide-open for those commitment-phobic, emotionally unavailable men to zoom right out or in. Some men, you see, are afraid of only the “M” word. They can live with you, share your bed, leave the cap off your toothpaste tube which they have taken great care to squeeze from the middle, hold your hand in public and refer to you as “misté ” - a tragic misuse of a word that connotes more than a temporary, commitment-free alliance - but they cannot [will not! must not! insist their inner voices] claim you as a legally wedded wife before God and man for reasons that are crystal clear only to them and their personal demons).

But let’s go back to “good catches” for a minute. There’s a catch-all phrase if ever there was one! Of late, my female friends have taken to asking me what my ideal man would be like. Ideal man? Is there any such thing? But hope burns brightest in the single female’s heart so you dutifully put your list out there. You want to forego tall, dark and handsome, for kind, fun and intelligent, but dammit all, what good are wish lists if you can’t put the moon in there, too. “I need a man who reads,” pipes up a friend. Then quickly amends that all too ambiguous wish to “…I mean reads literature, not the sports pages.” So would I, ihit, but in certain circles, I’ve learnt that’s just too much to ask for. “I want a man that is confident enough to handle my intelligence without morphing into a snuffling male chauvinist pig,” puts in another. Amen, sistah!

“He has to like kids...”
“He has to want kids!”
“He must respect his mother and sisters…”
“He has to believe in God…”

But, Dear Reader: You may have noticed by now that no one has mentioned the old standards: Job, Car, Money, Education, and Ambition. Let me elucidate: this is because for this particular group of women, myself included, it goes without saying. None of us is really looking for a meal-ticket, least of all me. You see, we all have the job, the car, the money, the education, and a healthy amount of ambition. We look forward to playing on a level field. We’re not looking for someone to make us a housewife, or conversely, someone who’s going to ask us to put him through school. As my sister used to say: “I don’t have time to play the struggling couple. I’m there. And I want my man to meet me there.”

Oh, okay, this all sounds very elitist and snobbish and blah, blah, blah…, but may I remind you, we were rattling off our wish list. In most cases, experience has already taught us that the right partner is fashioned out of a healthy bit of compromising. Granted, some women for whom the bell tolls loudest compromise just a tad too much away, but there you have it. Reality bites. Then you divorce him. But not before you squeeze out the requisite number of sim terafis and progenitor pleasers. Thereafter, you reside in the realm of How did I get here? while you turn petty custody battles into an art form. The moral of this paragraph is: Be careful what you’re willing to compromise away. Certainly, my worst nightmare would be where my son grows up, writes a biography and titles it: Yeshi’s Amed (after a certain, currently popular Irish tragicomedy).

Ah, let me go on. Where was I? Oh, yes, on why I’m no longer sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with the other soup cans….

The reason is as complicated as it is simple. I’m afraid of landing Mr. Right only to find out three years and two kids later that he’s turning into Mr. Oh-My-God-What-Was-I-Thinking!? To my way of reasoning, there is no excuse – indeed, no room - for that kind of conjugal mistake. After surveying the bodies and spirits littering the Ethiopian Divorce Field (EDF), I’ve come to the conclusion that Mr. Right-for-me is worth waiting for. So, left with nothing to occupy my weekends, I’ve turned to the much neglected job of self-betterment with the mentality that if/when Mr. Right-for-me comes sailing by, he would consider me Ms. Just-Right and invite me on-board. Until then, I’ll bide my time, I suppose. Learn about how to best avoid ending up elbow to elbow with an EDF veteran and ruminate over whether my expectations are realistic or if they will leave me alone, lonely, and suddenly cognizant of my age when I turn 40 (ten or fifteen years from now).

To tell you the ugly truth, some terrified part of me fantasizes about skipping over this entire dating-to-marry, crappy dance and running straight to a sperm bank (Do not pass Go! Do not collect the wedding band!). Only thing leashing me back right now is having to face my kid with the truth someday. If I could ever formulate the words adequate enough to pacify my child (and my mother), well… .

I’m sure by now, a whole bunch of you are shaking your heads at me and saying, This girl couldn’t possibly be Ethiopian. Wey agul ferenginet! Uh, reality check! I am Ethiopian. And, oh – news flash – I’m not alone!

So my God, I’ve brought you all the way from summarily dismissing dabbling in the singles’ want-ads to contemplating a sperm bank instead of a husband. Some of you are agreeing and saying, Well, what’s a girl to do? But most of you are probably saying: Not this! That’s expected. This is nothing but a brief verbal mosaic of Love, Ethiopian Style. Sometimes sadly, and sometimes happily, it happens to be true (or will be true) for some of us.

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