I’m a lover girl at heart, and as such, all things romance get to me. I’m the girl who still believes in the deep feel of a poem and the quiet gravity of a shared gaze. I recall my school days, a time when love was a simple, pedestrian affair. It consisted of long, aimless strolls on tarred paths that bordered the school’s sprawling green fields. It involved emails on important days and some handwritten notes on others. We didn’t dine in fancy restaurants with bills large enough to pay a semester’s tuition fee. Birthdays were special, though. They weren't the spectacles we see today; no bouquets of dollars, nor trumpeters singing amidst a sea of iPhones held up like torches.

There were gifts — simple gifts. A thoughtful, colourful pair of socks, a white shirt for classes, but nothing compared to the latest, flagship technology. Just simple reminders of the fact that someone thought of me and got something, with a belief that I’d like them. In retrospect, I wonder if the simplicity of these gifts had to do with our station in life as broke undergraduates from middle-class families or a matter of personal style.

I once heard a friend say that love was costly. I didn’t quite understand at the time what she meant, but I believe she spoke about the cost of oiling the wheels of romance. Now, as my partner and I dine in cozy restaurants, sharing Instagram-worthy photos that gather a flood of warm sentiment, I am forced to juxtapose those early experiences with the present. In today’s world, I cannot help but wonder if romance is still a simple affair, as mainstream media always favours the pomp and pageantry.

The economy of romance has evolved radically to become a territory guarded by class, gender, and, of course, the relentless gaze of social media. Modern-day romance holds different meanings to different people. For the upper class in big cities like Lagos or Abuja, romance has become a product of their curated lifestyle. A badge of social signalling. It is the weekend trip to Zanzibar, the VIP table reservations, the VIP reservation and the N200,000 platter. It’s not just about love; it’s about belonging to a certain tier. Their romance becomes the standard by which everyone else measures themselves or aspires to be. Our movies reflect the trend, and our artistes wax lyrical about it, as Davido famously sang, "Love is sweet, but when money enters, love is sweeter."

Compare this aesthetic with that of the average working class. The one with a quotidian experience that feels more like a marathon. Waking up early only to fight for a spot on a danfo or navigating a 14-hour workday on repeat, just to afford an ever-rising house rent. For them, achieving Instagram-worthy romance may feel like a chore, like something you don't have the bandwidth for. Time, after all, is the ultimate class privilege, and the wealthy have the luxury to be sentimental. Our culture has so commodified romance that we treat low-income gestures as undesirable. A couple sharing a bottle of cold zzobo and a meat pie at an eatery is romantic in its own right, yet gets dismissed as tacky, as if romance only counts when you can afford champagne instead of zobo, or a five-course meal instead of meat pie.

Unsurprisingly, this cultural gatekeeping is deeply rooted in our patriarchal values, with different expectations for men and women. Often, romance for men hinges on their economic leverage. At the centre of his romantic expression is a duty inextricably linked to his provider status. One where his worth collapses into what he can provide. If he is broke, he is denied the social permission to be romantic because he hasn't earned it through financial stability. From his perspective, romance is like a subscription service: the moment the payments stop, his validity is revoked by a society that views his affection as transactional.

We have built a culture where masculinity must be bought and paid for. We throw around titles like “Odogwu” to validate the men who can afford the grand gesture, while those with limited means become invisible in the hierarchy of love. Consequently, some men of means hide behind their wealth to mask behavioural flaws because money has become the shield against vulnerability. Meanwhile, the Nigerian woman is painted as materialistic, but the reality is that she is performing a scripted role. She is tasked with the performative gratitude that fuels social media romance. If her joy isn’t digitized, we suspect it doesn’t exist. If she doesn't post the proof, society wonders if she is truly loved. We have become so busy proving we are chosen that we’ve forgotten how it feels to actually be known. In this economy, romance isn't just an emotion; it is a gendered performance where men pay for the stage, and women are expected to provide the show.

In this system, women aspire to wealthy partners not out of greed, but out of a survivalist need to be seen and valued by a society that only recognizes expensive love. She isn't just looking for a lover; she is looking for a status that shields her from the indignities of average Nigerian life. When love becomes a credential for social standing, the man is no longer a partner; he becomes a vehicle.

But we must ask what happens to the soul when the heart is forced to serve as a ladder. When we transform our partners into vehicles, genuine intimacy begins to evaporate. We trade the depth of a soul-to-soul connection for the coldness of structural security. In this trade-off, we turn our most private sanctuaries into vulnerable public spaces, leaving us with a romance that looks perfect on a timeline but feels hollow in the dark.

We often miss the point: healthy relationships are rarely transactional. While at the center of every human interaction is a degree of value exchange, some kind of symbiosis, our rush to make our love stories visible should not make us forget how to let them be. A relationship should be a sanctuary from the world and not another place where you have to perform to be seen. We’ve commodified romance and have woven a love that is materialistic and fragile. If we don’t tear down the high walls of this gated community and return to the simplicity of just being, we may one day find ourselves with very expensive lives but very empty hearts.

As I sit in these fancy restaurants today, I find myself longing for the simplicity of the past. Not that I don't appreciate fine dining, but I miss a world where love wasn’t a survival strategy or a gendered audit. In our rush to make our stories visible to the world, I fear we have forgotten the quiet, radical miracle of simply letting them be.