Before the Chaos

Chapter Seven: Love In The Time Of Survival

You don’t really understand the weight of love until it’s measured against scarcity.

It wasn’t flowers and late-night calls anymore. It was “Have you eaten?” in place of “I miss you.” It was sending airtime instead of sweet texts. Love didn’t walk into the room wearing perfume and promises — it showed up with bags under its eyes, a calculator in hand, and questions like “Can we afford to dream together?”

By the time adulthood really began, love had become both a luxury and a lifeline. We weren’t just falling for people — we were falling through cracks in a system that didn’t care whether we rose or shattered. The economy was bad, the politics worse, and everyone was trying to survive. In that chaos, romance didn’t die — it just changed.

Our parents’ generation dated with stability in the background — steady jobs, predictable calendars, food that didn’t fluctuate like stocks. We, on the other hand, had instability woven into every corner of our lives. Strike today, subsidy tomorrow. Fuel queues. Rent hikes. Relationship advice became: “Pick someone you can suffer with and still laugh.”

And that’s what we did. We started looking for resilience in our lovers. A soft place to fall that wasn’t already sinking.

When I was younger, I thought relationships would be about flowers, shared playlists, and maybe a cute couple name. But the older I got, the more love looked like teamwork. The kind of love where you split a plate of food not because it’s romantic, but because it’s all you have. The kind where data subscription is a love language and N1,000 airtime is the equivalent of a handwritten poem.

People were no longer looking for soulmates. We were looking for sanity-mates — someone who wouldn’t lose it when rent was due and your account balance had only N547 left.

I’ve seen relationships break not because the love wasn’t strong, but because reality hit harder. You want to take her out, but transport fare has doubled. You want to plan a future together, but your future feels stuck in traffic. And yet, somehow, love finds its way through the cracks. It shows up in the unlikeliest places — a smile after a bad day, a partner who reminds you why you're fighting to build something, even if the world is burning around you.

After 2015, things shifted. For everyone. But especially for relationships.

I remember sitting with a friend one evening, both of us drinking pure water like it was wine, talking about how love had changed. “You can’t even afford to fight in a relationship these days,” he said. “You’ll just be like, ‘Are we even fighting over anything real? Or is it just hunger?’”

We laughed. But it wasn’t really funny.

Relationships became practical. You don’t just ask, “Do you love me?” You ask, “Can we survive together?” Plans became less dreamy. We stopped fantasizing about destination weddings. Now it was: Let’s do registry, get some small drinks and rice, and use the rest to buy a mattress.

It’s not that the romance died — we just recalibrated. We now knew that love wasn’t about luxury; it was about loyalty. Could you hold my hand when everything else was falling apart?

Trying to find love in this system is like trying to light a candle in the wind. Sometimes the spark catches, sometimes it doesn't. You meet someone amazing, you connect, but then the real villains show up: NEPA, inflation, long-distance caused by fuel price hikes, and the worst of them all — uncertainty.

You begin to ask yourself: “Can I even start a family here?”

You picture it — kids, school fees, rent, generator noise, another ASUU strike waiting for them years from now. You wonder if you’re being selfish to even dream of bringing a child into this mess.

So the dream starts to shift: “Let me japa first. Maybe I’ll get married there.” Then it changes again: “Maybe we’ll both japa — together.” And finally, “Maybe we’ll figure it out from here, or just pray we survive long enough to build something.”

But love? It never left. It just adapted.

I still believe in love. Deeply. I still want the simple things — someone to call home, someone to laugh with when NEPA takes light mid-movie, someone to plan life with, even if life isn’t making it easy.

But I’m also scared. Scared of trying to raise a child in a system that constantly tests your resilience. Scared of making the wrong choice and waking up one day wondering if love is enough when everything else feels like war.

Yet, in all this — I’m not hopeless.

I’ve seen couples who still dance in their one-room apartment. I’ve seen two people sharing one plate of food with joy. I’ve seen love outlast the chaos. So I believe it still exists — strong, quiet, and stubborn enough to survive anything.

Maybe that’s what makes love here so powerful. It isn’t perfect. But it’s real.