The Relationship Hotbeds That Social Media Groups Have Turned To

So less than a month ago, a group on Facebook for some community was formed. The group, christened ‘Amachuma na Amasase’ (loosely translated to ‘the iron men and the stars) has become a hit and in less than three weeks it has more than a hundred thousand members.  What was the main agenda of the group? Nobody knows. But when one joined the group, he or she uploaded a photo, wrote a brief information about themselves and at the end of it mentioned whether he or she was seeing someone. The most used phrase was ‘Tindi Pipo’, which means ‘I don’t have someone’.

While this might seem peculiar, it is not the funniest part. The funniest part of it is when a lady joined the group and scrolling down, her hubby was there two days earlier and had happily written ‘Tindi Pipo’. A friend intimated to me that in a week, he had tied down three ladies in his inbox since he’d written ‘Tindi Pipo’ while he, in fact, has a chick from another community (who also have no business joining that group!)

Such is what dating has become nowadays. Aren’t we in Whatsapp groups where a new member joins and we want to see their faces and full body photographs then we reply with cute love emojis before we rush to their inbox DMing them stuff? Or in a facebook group where someone posts, “Comment uko wapi tujuane” and chap chap somebody comments your hood, you like the comment and the rest happens in the inbox.

Social media groups have become the modern-day marketplace, where you take a walk to see who the best is, who is rolling with who while trying to slice each other spouses. Our inboxes are the new shambas where we drag new catches virtually before planning for a finaI meet-up. We sext, we may send each other nudes and might even break up before we physically meet, but our dating list is still increasing like Snake Xenzia. I am tempted to believe that close to a quarter of relationships nowadays started in a social media group. And the relationships are kept lowkey because players wanna play, we are DMing more lasses, more guys are DMing us and we have to hide each of them and keep our options open.

In most cases, these relationships do not last. It’s a hit and run affair, puff puff pass but we’re okay with that because, options otas.

Have you ever asked yourself what those chats in the group lead to (if you are in the same group with bae)? What if you got him/her through a WhatsApp group, does it hit you that also somebody is in his/her inbox from a group as well? Best way to look at it, once you inboxed him/her and pinned her down, did it end there or you went ahead to do the same with others?

However, this is not to say that all social media groups are dating hotbeds, nope. Some are serious, with the admin kicking you out at the slightest show of mischief. Or a workplace Whatsapp group, for instance, you do not want to be known as the Fisi or the Fissete but once you guys decide to create a different group without the boss, then it’s all letting go.