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Should a man pay for a woman's transport fare?

Expecting a man to pay for a woman's transport fare after visiting him should not be encouraged.

This was the raging question on Nigerian Twitter on Tuesday, May 2, 2017.  As much as Twitter and the 140 character limit would allow, transport fare or tfare sparked a conversation.  There were passionate tweets from both sides of the fence. Sadly, it ended up as a shouting match with little progress made on the topic.

When the topic was raging on your time line, the general consensus among women was that a man should pay for a woman's tfare when she comes to visit him. Most guys were shocked by this.

First of all, the nature of the relationship between a man and a woman who comes visiting wasn't clearly stated in the general discourse. Let's imagine that the relationship hasn't reached the serious and exclusive stage. I dare say that within this context, a man should not pay for a woman's tfare.

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Paying for a woman's tfare implies that she is doing you a favour and she isn't feeling you or attracted to you. If feelings are mutual, then nobody is doing anybody a favour. She likes your company and she is down to spend time with you and probably have sex.

If you both enjoyed each other's company then I am sorry, paying for her tfare shows you might be in a customer pseudo-prostitute relationship.

You can pay for her tfare once or twice but when it becomes obligatory then it is messed up. You are under no obligation to pay for a woman's tfare because she came to your house. She willingly came to your house. She enjoyed spending time with you and if sex was involved she properly enjoyed it too.

Paying her transport fare indicates that she is doing you a favour. This is a wrong notion. A lot of Nigerian women believe sex is a gift and men should be grateful for giving them this gift. This is a wrong notion to have. Sex is enjoyed by both parties. No one is doing anyone a favour and no one should be grateful over an activity you both agreed to.

Another notion that encourages the tfare policy is that men are the ones who want attention and sex. Nigerian women, no fault of theirs, have over the years shied away from the fact that they love sex.

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So, when a woman comes over, it is seen that the man is one enjoying this and she is not. To compensate her for her time and lack of pleasure (which we know is a lie) you have to pay her. Yeah, she did you a favour and now you have to pay up. You see how messed up this tfare policy is.

Although if the relationship is exclusive and well established a guy could pay for his girlfriend's tfare every time she comes. This, however, feels odd in this time of gender equality when traditional roles are being shattered.

If we are in an era where roles are fluid, why should a boyfriend pay for his partner's transport fare all the time? If the answer is yes, does this mean that when a guy visits his babe and shows her a nice time, she has to pay for his tfare? I guess we might know the answer to that. When roles are reversed, double standards arise for both parties.

Funmi Iyanda yesterday broke down why Yoruba demons exist and I think this can be applied to Nigerian women to an extent. While an increasing number of our ladies latch on to feminism principles they still struggle with traditional African female roles.

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On one hand they want to be independent and on the other hand, they still want to lean on the old way of doing things e.g my man must pay for my hair and tfare.

Paying for a woman's tfare isn't compulsory. If you want to do it, do it but I think it is odd that men are expected to foot the financial bill on dates and home visits. This is what we should be talking about.

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