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One day, my father invited me to a wedding. Whose wedding? A cousin’s. Didn’t I remember her? We were inseparable when we were 3. I should try to make it. She would be thrilled to see me.

I’m old enough to know that when your father invites you to a wedding, it’s not because he wants to see you. He wants you to see other people, young people (like you), who have their lives figured out (unlike you), taking important life decisions. The most important life decision I’ve ever taken is to stop pretending I enjoyed spaghetti bolognese.

Like all young people my age, I hate weddings. Marriage isn’t exactly a fantasy amongst many heterosexual, educated, upwardly mobile men in their 20s. To us, weddings are a stunning reminder of our lack of personal responsibility, loss of personal freedom, and the dread of commitment ahead.

So I decided that hell would have to freeze over before I would attend that wedding. Turns out that on that Saturday morning, hell did indeed freeze over; so I attended the wedding. As you might have guessed, the motivation for attending the wedding was the food. Wedding food slaps different from any other type of food and is second only to funeral food. I’ll explain later. Just walk with me.

Inside the banquet hall, the extravagant decorations and the sheer volume of food quickly remind me that I need to be closer to my family because there’s no way I’ll pay for all those myself. Jesus. Why do people even get married when they could just run away to Port-Novo with their sweethearts and start a little farm there?

Anyway. I’m at this wedding, sitting on a roundtable while watching the stewards waltz past me with food trays — over and over again. I’m getting impatient because I’m here for the food, as you may have already figured out. I look over to the other end of the hall, where my dad sits at a table with more significant family members. There’s an entire banquet laid before them. I figure that my surest chance of getting food is to make him notice that I’m starving so he can, at least, invite me to his table.

I try to get his attention by vigorously waving at him whenever he looks in my direction. At some point, our eyes meet, and then he quickly looks away. Someone leans towards him and asks a question, to which my father replies, shaking his head. Leaning into my childhood trauma, I have deduced that the person asked him, “Isn’t that your son, Vaami?”

To which Mr Daniel would have responded, “I have never met that person in my life.”

I wasn’t even hungry. It’s just that there’s a psychological angle to wedding meals. It’s not about the food itself but its significance of it. See, I’ve gotten to the age where lying on the couch throughout the weekend counts for a great weekend. I’m taking time off from enjoying my weekend to be at your wedding, which I don’t care about. The least you could do is give me food — an acknowledgement of my sacrifice. It’s also an acknowledgement of our relationship; our familial bond.

Remember how close we used to be? Remember all those times we shared two halves of oranges? Or when I gave you a finger of tangerine? Now I have to hustle food at your wedding? Why do you have to do me like that, man?

Ok, I was hungry, too.

At the end of the day sha, I didn’t get food. I was probably adopted. I felt a dip in my self-esteem because not getting food while watching your other family members eat does that to you. Nothing is more satisfying than watching your neighbours and family suffer from the same bad luck as you are. It hits differently when you’re not the only one complaining about not getting food. You can even form a bond and repair old relationships based on the solidarity shared from the lack of food.

But I was the only one who didn’t get food, and that was when I first noticed that I didn’t look like my father. Maybe, just maybe, that’s the explanation.

I have decided that I will no longer honour a wedding invite unless the invitation states that I will see food. I believe that this is only fair considering what my family just put me through. I now know my worth, and nothing will take that away from me.

I do this for the young people reading this newsletter who have had to suffer such a terrible fate before. We shall overcome. Thank you for reading today’s rant. If you have your wedding coming up and you don’t want to disappoint people like my cousin did, you could order in bulk from Vendease through our app.

Served with love,
Vaami from Deliciously.