Madly in love: Crazy stuff people do when struck by cupid

 There are men busy taking Sacco or bank loans to spoil their women on Valentine’s Day!

This being the month of love, expect all kinds of madness as men and women try to impress each other.

There are men busy taking Sacco or bank loans to spoil their women on Valentine’s Day!

When people fall in love, they change virtually everything. From how they walk, talk and even eat. It is normal and okay to express deep fondness for each other, but we have some extreme cases where lovebirds go overboard.

One is often left wondering, what sort of ‘drug’ is this thing called love? So much so that it drives those in love literally insane? This sort of madness we are talking about is all over.

Take, for instance, in love songs. Look at some of the lyrics by the likes of Luther Vandross. “I’d rather have bad times with you, than good times with someone else,” he croons in one of his hit songs.

There is something insane about those lyrics. Needless to mention others like Bruno Mars: “I can catch a grenade for you.” Or the many who sing of how they are ready to die on behalf of their lovers! We have all seen how people run for dear life when a gunshot rings out.

We have also heard of extreme cases where people kill for love. The case of current Miss Lang’ata Prison comes to mind. She is serving time after stabbing her late boyfriend 22 times for allegedly flirting with a secret lover.

Before numerous courts across the country are cases of men and women accused of killing their lovers and spouses.

A painful love story is also told of a man — insanely in love — who donated a kidney to his girlfriend’s ‘brother’. This was after she sobbed and cried in his arms all day about how ill her ‘brother’ was. But guess what, he was later dumped following a disagreement.

Of course he never got back his organ! And what’s more, upon investigations, he discovered that the alleged ‘brother’ was actually her lover, whom she ended up marrying!

Dumped after educating lover

It gets even crazier. We all at least know a semi-illiterate wealthy businessman who can’t read and write properly, but has taken a woman through college, funded her Master’s degree, got in debt to sponsor her PhD, only for her, as it happens in many cases, dump him.

If you thought our kidney guy was the most retarded man you have ever heard about, wait until you hear what other gentlemen do for love. The story of a certain George and his girlfriend Winnie will get you rolling on the ground with laughter.

The two have been in a relationship for slightly over two years now. Let’s just say, to borrow street parlance, George amekaliwa chapati. The sacrifices George makes to please Winnie are mind boggling.

George, a struggling man, for instance, went out of his way to put Winnie through college. Once she was done, he slaved away and funded her stay (rent, food, pocket money and all) in another town where she was doing her internship.

Mark you Winnie was not his wife, neither had he officially introduced her to his people. However, Winnie had told some of her sisters and cousins about George.

See the way we take all our burdens to Jesus Christ? That is exactly what Winnie’s cunning sisters and cousins did to George; they took all their financial problems to him — their caring and loving in-law-to be.

George began sending money left right and centre, even before meeting the people he was sending money to. Which man doesn’t want to be in good books with his in-laws-to be, anyway?

As all this was going on, George’s younger sister was wallowing in poverty back in their rural home.

She had finished Form Four, but could not join college due to lack of fees. George, blinded by love (or is it stupidity?), kept supporting Winnie and her family, telling his parents that he was not financially stable yet  to sponsor his younger sibling.

After a short time, as Gorge was busy helping her get a job, the unthinkable happened. Winnie fell in love with a man old enough to be her father after getting a job. And that is how George was dumped.

So you think George is insane? Well, think again. Meet Chris. For lack of a better way of putting it, Chris is a man who is dead from the neck upwards. While Chris’ parents are still living in a mud hut they brought him up in, he is busy laying a foundation for a permanent house for his wife’s parents!

But Chris is not alone, tales have been told of many other men who have neglected their parents and siblings to please girlfriends or wives. To these folks, water is thicker than blood and nothing will convince them otherwise.

But experiencing temporary insanity because of love is not a malady that exclusively afflicts the male species. There are women who are so madly in love that they drop out of school to go get married.

“I know of a college girl who used to take school fees to her tout boyfriend before she dropped out of college and went to get married to the makanga,” reveals Sam, a friend to this writer.

Wackier tales have been told of men who, immediately they fall in love, cut off family members, friends and associates. They ignore calls from the aforementioned individuals, and claim to be busy. They completely dissociate from anyone who offers advice, criticises or tells them the truth about their ‘sweethearts’.

Mad love has made many others make rash decisions like marrying the wrong spouse.

We have heard stories of men who get so insanely in love with women that they marry in a huff, in say two or three months, without doing any background check on them.

Married a night runner in a hurry

By the time they sober up from slumber, then it’s of course too little too late (a couple of children down the line), they realise they married a night runner, a witch or a superstitious woman who consults witchdoctors.

They say love is blind and it can make one do a lot of things. We have witnessed people change religion just because of love.

“Many male Christians have changed to Islam because of women, but when was the last time you heard a Muslim woman changed her religion to Christianity because of a man?” asks Muiruri, who goes on to share a story of a friend who was forced to change religion to marry a Muslim woman.

When a man falls madly in love, he can do things that are shocking. Stories abound of men who take all their salary to wives, who in turn budget and ration to them pocket money.

Love is a beautiful thing, but do you have to lose your mind once you fall in love?