Ozonḓu Chronicles: The Relationships We Fake and the Lives We Settle For

Once you reach a certain age, people stop asking how you are and start asking what is wrong with you. No partner yet? No wedding plans? No baby on the way? Suddenly your life is viewed as incomplete, as if happiness only arrives with a relationship status.

Yet often the people who choose to stand in their sovereignty instead of entertaining flaky connections are the ones who look the most at peace.

But peace does not trend.

Chaos does.

We live in a culture where relationships have become performances. The ring must show. The couple pictures must drop. The anniversary captions must be long and emotional. Love is no longer something you live, it is something you prove online.

Meanwhile, behind closed doors, many homes are cold.

Women are staying with men who hardly come home, men who sit in their cars for an hour outside the gate, gathering the strength to walk inside.

And one has to ask, why are you not excited to go home? At the same time, these same men are funding households while maintaining full relationships in other towns. Long-distance love has quietly become code for “I’ll see you when it suits me,” and side partners are no longer scandals, they are almost part of the arrangement.

And still, everyone is posting happiness.

I have seen women go to extreme lengths to keep men. Some turning to witchcraft. Some intentionally falling pregnant hoping a baby will secure commitment. Some enduring cheating, insults and neglect just to say “my man is home.” Then they flood social media with smiles and hearts, as if pain disappears once it is filtered.

But what good is public validation when the soul is rotting in private?

We are not fighting for love anymore.

We are fighting to not be alone.

Lobola has also shifted from a cultural union of families to a pressure point. Some couples rush into marriage because cows must be paid, parents are waiting, age is catching up, church is asking questions. So people marry before they even know each other properly.

And when reality hits, the fighting begins.

Men are not innocent in this mess.

Many men admit they choose the easier woman, not the one who challenges them emotionally or intellectually. The quiet one. The one who asks less. The one who tolerates more. It feels peaceful at first, but it is often built on avoidance.

Then, later, they cheat.

They spend years chasing the woman who made them feel something deeper. The one who demanded growth. The one who got away. So the wife becomes stability while other women become excitement.

And society shrugs.

“Better he cheats but provides.”

“At least he comes home.”

As if faithfulness is a luxury.

In all this chaos, being single is treated like failure. Family members whisper. Friends pressure you to “just give him a chance.” Strangers ask why you’re too picky.

But is it really better to be in a relationship that drains you than to be alone with your peace?

The first question people ask single women is never about happiness. It is always about sex. As if connection is only physical. As if compromising your standards is worth not sleeping alone.

Perhaps that messy conversation belongs to another column, because mjolo streets are wild even when you are minding your business.

But what is clear is this, people who refuse to settle for half love, half effort and half honesty often end up winning long term.

They choose alignment over desperation.

They choose peace over pressure.

They choose real connection over public performance.

Maybe the problem is not that people are single.

Maybe the problem is that too many people are in relationships for survival rather than love.

Fear of being alone.

Pressure from family.

Financial security.

Social image.

Habit.

We call all of that love.

So when the bills are paid, the kids are asleep, the phones are down and the house is quiet, ask yourself honestly, is this life you are living what you truly want, or simply what society applauds?

Because applause fades.

But the person you lie next to every night remains.

In the madness of modern dating, maybe being single is not a curse.

Maybe the bravest thing you can do in the mjolo streets is choosing not to settle.

Until next time, this is Ozonḓu Chronicles.