My dear boy,
My first introduction, not true. Rather, my first exposure to the power of perfumes in the area of dating would be in my third year. I was never one to borrow clothes or shoes or fashion accessories, but I made an exception.
We had just returned from holidays, and as expected, everyone was healthy-looking. Around this time of the semester, we looked like actual people. Once you find students looking sickly, thin and lanky, know that the semester is six weeks gone. Nigerian Public Higher institutions have an aversion for good looking students. Learning would not have begun if you had not lost most of the flesh on your body. Equally, you had to be darkened by stress. It was almost like an undisclosed criterion for securing your certificate.
Nonso, whose sister had just done her traditional wedding, did not disappoint. Nonso had the body of a freshly retired athlete and the wisdom of a sage. We called him a scholar. He was so brilliant we would cite him in English language courses tests. His name was the perfect name of an old Nigerian linguist. Any statement attached to “according to J. N. Obinwanne” is as scholarly as it will ever get. So, Nonso was that English student who had a law diploma and played brilliant football while writing introductions to literary papers he would never finish nor get to publish, just because he could. However, he had other interests, which he attended to with arrested focus and commitment. Alaba International Market is not for lazy Anambra men.
Anyway, Nonso resumed with a “potion.” We applied it every morning, ever so sparingly, yet results poured in. Ladies would swoon in. I had my way with words, but good looks eluded your old man at that time. Of course, I had my once-in-a-while breaks, a huge indicator of the possibilities tomorrow carried. But that was just about it.
Following that, I had to work less hard. Ladies loved me, but now they loved me even more. My presence shifted; people flashed their thirty-two at me more often than usual.
As artists with scientific minds, we started to make observations, ask questions, note timelines, mark the variance and the outcomes of the experimented assumptions. After such pseudo-scientific endeavors, we concluded that it was Nonso’s Club de Nuit, which we could not afford to replace, that was responsible for our sublime success.
I’ve come to understand that perfumes and memory are two bedfellows; presence lingers longer than words. Dalia Oufi agrees when she explains that olfactory attraction is the situation “where pleasant smells influence how we perceive and connect with others.” However, a gentleman’s perfume should be discovered. It must be subtle in its expression, culminating in the overall mysteriousness which elevates a man’s appeal. As I have told you before, a man’s purpose gives language to his clothes and discipline to his grooming; scent merely completes the harmony. Nevertheless, a great perfume without a deodorant is a potent repellent. Better a deodorant with no perfume than otherwise.
Love,
Dad.
