Dear Serwaa,

I don’t think I should be talking about what I’m about to tell you at this stage in our relationship. After all these years, the last thing I should be worrying about in this relationship is fidelity and trust. But you’ve given me enough reason to still doubt you.

If you can recall the first meeting we had after you accepted my proposal, you’ll remember I said I was a jealous lover. In fact, I still am. If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend who tells you they are not jealous, then you must know that they’re not afraid to lose you.

If you’re seriously in love with a lady, any guy around her is a potential threat. At least, that’s how I feel. It is for this reason that I do not feel comfortable and secure about your unusual closeness with that man who has made it part of his biblical duty to always drive you home. The last time I mentioned it, you dismissed it sharply, saying there was nothing wrong with someone offering you a ride to and from work. Actually there’s nothing wrong with that. But the handshake seems to be extending beyond the elbow and I must be worried except that I’m either a fool or I not afraid to lose you.

Serwaa, your excuse that the man is married does not make sense either. Marriage cannot restrain debauched men. In fact, some men wear rings but there’s no difference between them and the players you see around. If that man, for instance, were a responsible husband with conscience, he would know that it is not right to do what he’s doing.

I’m aware of how some of you ladies are so infatuated with cars. Here on Legon campus, I see it all the time. Some ladies would follow any nonentity just because the bloke owns a car. I don’t know what is in a car or how someone’s car enhances their personality, but some of these ladies actually enact drama to show the rest of the world that they are dating guys with cars.

When her guy pulls up with her in front of her hall of residence, she would roll down the window or sometimes open it and wait for as long as she can so that passers-by would notice her. When she is done with that, she would come down and move to the guy’s side of the window and spend eternity, pretending to be chatting while proudly clutching a pack of fried rice from Papaye Restaurant.

Serwaa, fried rice with chicken has suddenly become a status symbol among some ladies here. Strange, isn’t it? But she’s not done yet.

While at it, she will be raising her head and looking round boastfully to see who is watching. When the guy is finally leaving she will give him a peck or a kiss, if she is the hard-core type.

After that she’ll stand in front of the car, and waive until the car is out of sight. But she will not move immediately into her room. She must fidget with her phone for a while, just to make sure that at least one more person knows she alighted from the car that has just pulled away.

Those who usually don’t have the leisure and pleasure for this kind of drama are those who date sugar daddies. For them, they often end their ride as if they were disembarking from a military vehicle. They jump out quickly while the bald-headed or pot-bellied man, who is sometimes as old as the girl’s grandfather, speeds off.

People’s fathers and people’s daughters! Sometimes I don’t know where to place the blame.

One evening, I intentionally asked a lady from Volta Hall, the all-female hall of residence in the University of Ghana, why their car park was always replete with some of the plushest vehicles in town, even though very few of them actually own cars. “We have the most beautiful car park,” she told me and laughed. But you and I know the answer. Ladies and cars!

Serwaa, when I proposed love to you, the fear I nursed and for which reason I thought you would turn down my proposal was the fact that I didn’t own a car. Fortunately you turned out to be one of those reasonable ladies who see beyond what one has today. I think ladies like you are in the minority. They are endangered species.

Most ladies of today are the “aben wo ha” type. They want already-made guys to date, and perhaps, to marry. While it is natural to feel attracted to someone who appears successful, I think the primary goal for going out with someone should be love. Does he value you? Or he thinks you’re just one of those who will fall for him because of his Coke, cash or car?

 I have stated somewhere that those who fall in love that way often regret, even in rare cases when such relationships result in marriage.

After giving birth to two or three children, such ladies, whose beauty in their prime could cause a man to revoke a celibacy vow, become housemaids. When a colleague asks, “How’s your husband doing?” their hearts begin to throb at the mention of the word husband.

“Our husband or my husband?” she would ask in her mind and go ahead to say, “Hmmm, he’s fine.”

“Why? Is there any problem at home?”

“You know men and their thing,” would come the reply. “They are all the same. I don’t know how God created them.”

How did God create them?

You went after the cash and he gave you the cash. You wanted to ride in a plush car and he was one of the few guys in town who owned that latest class of Benz. You’re now his incubator and his cook. That’s how useful you are to him now. You should have asked what he wanted before running after him.

He saw your bewitching beauty and, like a butterfly, he wanted to perch on it. Those firm breasts that once stood at an angle of 90 degrees tempted him. They teased the hell out of him. They tickled him. And those looks he gave you were not looks of admiration. They were lascivious looks, how-I-wish-I-had-her-in-bed looks.

He wanted to see what lay between those enticing thighs you proudly displayed, thanks to that skirt they call “mini”. And generously, you gave everything to him, in exchange for what you lusted after. Cash. Cars.

Serwaa, this is what many ladies have reduced themselves to. I used to think that all of you were the same until I met you. I did not pretend to be what I was not when I met you. And you loved me for who I was, with or without a car. I therefore find it both very unfortunate and strange that, today, a car is beginning to threaten our relationship.

Since you started working, that so-called married man has never failed to bring you home. I was shocked to know that he lives in Nungua but will drop you in Dansoman every evening before struggling home in that thick traffic.

Serwaa, no sensible guy will sit and watch this unless he doesn’t love you. The first time I told you I was uncomfortable with what was happening, you retorted sharply, “Then will you come and pick me after work?”

That was an insult to me. If I had a car I would pick you up. But I don’t. And you know it, but you still asked, perhaps, in an attempt to deflate my ego. Maybe, you achieved that aim. But I can’t live with this any longer.

Even if he lived in Dansoman, I would have had the cause to be worried because he picks you every day. It is not a good idea. And I don’t want it to get to a point where you’ll find it impossible to resist any advances from him. He’s a man. And you two are not pieces of dry wood. You have feelings.

Serwaa, don’t think that I don’t trust you. I do, but I’m talking from experience. My last relationship was ruined by a man who owned a car and generously offered my ex a ride when she was doing her industrial attachment. And I know of many such relationships that have landed on rocks because of the intrusion of guys who owned cars and started giving “lifts” until the lifts developed into something else.

You’re not superhuman. If things go on this way, it will get to a point where your emotional attachment to this “good Samaritan” of yours will reel out of control. And that’s what I can’t bear. That’s what I fear will tear us apart. I dread losing you. And you know it.

I don’t own a car and I surely do not envy anyone who owns one. Life is a competition but it isn’t a race. If the right time comes – and I know it will come pretty soon – I won’t mind buying you any car of your choice.

Let me emphasise that I don’t have anything against you being offered a ride by a guy. But your penchant for jumping into a guy’s car at the least opportunity is the source of my headache and heartache.

If I buy a car, I cannot say I will I won’t offer anybody a ride. But as someone who is married or is in a relationship, it will be wrong to go home every day with a particular lady in my car even if we live in the same area. That closeness has the potential of developing into attraction with time, especially if she is the seductive type.

Serwaa, cheating does not start when the two go to bed. It starts when, due to one’s sweet conversation, the other party is looking forward to a ride to or from work following day. It starts with the closeness and attraction. It starts with the chemistry which is not communicated with words.

The time spent on the way to or from work is great time. In future, I will insist we go to work together and come home together in the same car when we are married and work close to each other. It will be healthy for our marriage.

This is the last time I’m complaining about this. Let that man know that your fiancé is not comfortable with his “generosity.” And it must cease with immediate effect, otherwise,  you will have to choose between your love for cars and your love for me.

I still remain your love,

Manasseh.

The Writer, Manasseh Azure Awuni, is a Senior Broadcast Journalist with Joy 99.7 FM. His email address is azureachebe2@yahoo.com.