‘Wop3 serious relationship nanso first date woa winam 80gh’ is a guy’s status update and this message was meant for one innocent lady and padiman has posted it on his status for all of us to see. Oh Bra!

I still don’t understand why people do whatsapp statuses and expect that nobody views them. Some feel good and proud when someone views their statuses.

Me, when I’m feeling bored I go on people’s whatsapp statuses and watch short short videos o but I do well not to view some people’s statuses. They are the people who feel too important when you view their statuses and knowing them, I wont even go there.

I recently accidentally flipped into somone’s space and I know the peron’s mind will be like: ‘who asked me to view my status’? So in order to avoid such My senior friend, Issa Money has such interesting status updates that I love watching a lot. There is so much to learn from his updates. Some are educative as well as informative.

Others are simply pure humour. I have personally not started doing status updates and I still don’t know why I should. It’s the best way to expose one to the world, positively or negatively. If it is positive, you are likely to make some frenemies sad with your updates and they will devise ways and means to ‘drop’ you from your joy.

If it’s negative, they rejoice. Update your status with filthy things about yourself and you will not be a target and they would have no plans to harm your future. At best stop insinuating by not updating at all.

I have observed that many of the lady friends on my whatsapp contacts who activate their statuses are those who are unfortunately having relationship challenges.

Ablavi, my ex-side eyi is the one whose updates on her status I watch a lot because it’s a whole industry. She can actually post: ‘I am going to take my bath’. If she is in high spirits, she will post things like: ‘It’s been God since day one’. It’s a lie. A married man, Mr Mensah is her side-man who is also her god! But anyway, if Mr Mensah is not blessed by God, he cannot take care of Ablavi, so that’s fine.

Ablavi is such that from the day she enters a new relationship, everyone must know what is happening. It’s like a product life cycle. From the beginning she would post things like: ‘my heavenly better half’, ‘my Baby’ even if this baby is her grandfather’s classmate at Ashalley Botwe HSH. Hahahahaha!

So Klabotwe lost the NSMQ er. They are too red! Better luck next time when you lose again to Osramany SHS. I’m glad Achimota made it to the semi-finals. That school er, ooo…great great great! I nearly posted it on my status. Hahahaha! Engineer Ben Ahuno of GRIDDCo will not stop teasing his Klabotwe friends on his whatapp status. Akora, I greet you o. Ha!

When the relationship is growing and the problems start, you are likely to see on her status: ‘I love the woman I am becoming’, ‘if you don’t treat people well, karma will judge you’, ‘people will hurt you and then act like you hurt them’.

After that, she would put a candle celebrating a friend’s birthday with the caption: ‘the love is deep; my fighting girlfriend, have a blast on your birthday’. Time dey!

After a while, the status goes blank. Wait for another two days and the status bounces back and reads: ‘self-love’. At this stage when you call her to advise her against such posts as people will read meanings into such posts, she will often sound indifferent and defensive: ‘but it’s nothing o; I just saw it somewhere and felt like posting it’. It’s another lie. She has communicated what exactly she wants to say.

Next moment. The post is often short: ‘the woman in me; you will regret the day you treated me like this’. ‘when people treat you like you’ve got no value, act as if they don’t even exist’. My dear Ablavi, if they don’t exist, why would you post something and expect a non-existing person to read and be advised? Hmmm!

Next will be: ‘all men are the same’. Then you should know that the product’s life cycle is plateauing. And often, for the unlucky ones, the product life cycle takes another cycle and comes back after the initial excitement.

This time, Ablavi is in a new relationship and, you are likely to see posts such as: ‘all this while I’ve been wasting my time on pepper (referring to me). Welcome on board, my tiger-nut; you are God sent’.

‘God clears the id*ot for the angel who has just arrived’. (The id*ot she is referring to is me, I know)

Time still dey. Then the next moment, the post will change to: ‘So e bi so you dey?’ or: ‘Fake guy’. ‘I thought love is blind but as for this one di33333, thank God I can see creary’.

‘After all, you are even mormorni. You know yourself…U U U…I mean U’. Ablavi, why don’t you just call the person and give it to him well well and stop this mass attack of only one person?

The next moment is an update that will blow your mind: ‘hand bags for sale; dm me for cool deal’. The next post after this one is almost automatic: ‘free delivery available. Call dispatch on 052….’! here, you may be angry at the several images of handbags on display in her status. Give her two weeks. It will change to: ‘Status closed for repairs’.

It is very easy to tell if the new person in Ablavi’s life is an ex simply by just seeing the following status update: ‘Sometimes God sends an ex back into your life to see if you are still a st*pid!’ You would know Ablavi is in trouble again.

Ablavi is a very pretty lady o but she is unable to tell a man what she does not lie in the face but would prefer to make it public on status updates.

‘Life is short, spend it with people who make you laugh and feel loved’. Really? I believe this applies to only 2 week old relationships. When you see a status update like this, you can be sure someone is making Ablavi unhappy again and instead of her telling the person in the face, she would rather use it to author a book on status for everyone to read!

When the man in the relationship is stingy, trust me, the following post is most likely: ‘the best exercise for women is counting money as it relieves them of joint pains headaches and blood pressure including stroke’. Ablavi, stroke is not a subset of blood pressure o; it is a condition precipitated by high blood pressure. You are always rushing to do harm to grammar. Haaba! Ablavi.

Ablavi’s 8 year old girl’s picture is often displayed with the caption: ‘God’s gift from above’ and this message is often done with the hope that the ‘irresponsible’ father of the girl will read it. So Ablavi on her own gave birth to God’s gift and would not give credit to the father of the girl but she is ready to take pride in her child. Hmmm!

Abeg, status video producers and status hungry friends, we have seen enough of what is happening to you at any given time. If all of us want to share what is happening in our lives, some of us need facebook live broadcast! Everyone has one thig or the other going for him or not going for her. Keep quiet on your status small wae.

I am often put off anytime I see statuses displaying excessive gospel videos. They are often long and eat data roff roff as if tithe is being paid indirectly. If the gospel music is of Ghanaian origin and it is not Jo Mettl or Bethel Revival or Daughters of Gloroius Jesus, I will skip to where I will see interesting videos like Issa Money’s interesting ones.

‘If you are too good, it’s a shame; if you are too bad, it’s also a shame’.

I can assure you that somebody will pick this to update his or her status without understanding indepth what I mean here. Ao! Hmmmm!

The Writer, Mawuli Zogbenu, is an Insurance Practitioner, Communicator and the Weekly Author of the INSURANCE BAKERY Column in the Graphic Business Newspaper. He is also the weekly Author of the humorous page ‘USELESS COLUMN’ published in the Business & Financial Times newspaper and on myjoyonline.com.