The Rulebook Nobody Wrote But Everybody Knows

There is a man somewhere in Lagos who wanted to order a smoothie but looked around the table and ordered a Guinness instead. Nobody told him to. Nobody would have said anything. But something in his mind said no, don't. That thing in his mind; that's what this is about.

Nigeria has a rulebook. It has no author, no publisher, and no date of release. But everybody has a copy. You received yours slowly, in pieces, from your mother's tone when you did something "strange", from the way your uncles laughed at the boy who cried, from the silence that fell when a woman spoke too loudly in the wrong room.

The rules for men are simple: be hard, be providing, be certain. You cannot be soft. Softness is suspicious. A man who moisturises too carefully, who orders fruit drinks, who cries when hurt, that man gets looked at. Not attacked. Just... looked at. And in Nigeria, the look is enough.

The rules for women are the opposite but equally exhausting: be present, but not too loud. Be beautiful, but not intimidating. Go to the gym, but not too seriously ; because apparently biceps scare away husbands. Be educated, but don't let it show too much in mixed company. Cook well. Sit properly. Laugh quietly.

What's funny is that nobody is really enjoying enforcing these rules. The aunty who tells her niece to "tone down" at the dinner table probably had someone tone her down once. The guy mocking his friend for using face wash probably wishes he could ask what face wash to use. The rules maintain themselves. That's the genius and the tragedy of it.

The deeper question is what we're actually protecting. Because these rules didn't come from nowhere - they came from a time when survival looked a certain way, when men had to be unbreakable because the world was, and women had to be palatable because the world demanded it. Some of that context has changed. Most of the rules haven't.

And so we have men who are silently exhausted from performing strength they don't always feel. Women quietly shrinking themselves in rooms where they are the most capable person present. Not because anyone is forcing them at gunpoint. But because the rulebook is heavy, and everybody else seems to be following it, maybe you should too.

The shift is happening, though. Slowly, in the way Nigerian things shift, not with announcements, but in small private rebellions. The man who started journaling and told nobody. The woman who kept lifting and stopped apologising for the size of her arms. The couple that split chores without making it a statement.

Nobody's rewriting the rulebook out loud yet. But more and more people are just quietly... not following it.

And that's where it starts.