Written by Angel Nduka-Nwosu
I have always loved the cinema. Some of my favourite memories as a child and teen involve going to Silverbird Cinemas with my parents and siblings after church. I also have fond memories of going to Ozone Cinemas with my classmates during a secondary school excursion. To date, I think of a weekend trip to the cinemas when I need a reason to unwind and let go of the stress of a bad workweek.
Cinemas have always represented community, love and shared peace. They have represented my father’s love for me and memories centred on him buying me movie tickets as a child.
It was not therefore unusual that I took that same model into my relationships. To watch a movie together was to have a bird’s eye view into the thoughts of a partner. To watch a movie and analyse the characters together served as a litmus test into knowing if I will be giving them a second chance.
In my memories of my love for the cinema, as a Nigerian woman, I also look at some of my favourite scenes of lovers in Nigerian movies, showing them eating popcorn and watching a movie at major cinema halls.
To go to the movies was a form of intimacy stamped by my family and cemented by the markers of popular culture around me. In many ways, it still is.
Coming from this background, I therefore thought and still think it unusual that women who love cinema dates were and are often shamed as low budget and low maintenance.
Cinemas have always been a love language. One that I first carried with family, transferred to lovers and now take on resolutely first for myself and not based on my relationship with any man or person.
What happened to change my mind? In early 2022, I started dating a man who we shall call S. He was smooth-tongued and funny and seemed like a cool person. Soon enough, we started planning a trip to the cinemas because he said there was a movie he wanted us both to see.
I cannot remember the name of the movie. What I do remember is that it was an action movie that seemed of interest to him. Still, I was happy because it had been ages since I went to the cinema. The reason I had not gone could simply be traced to my then fear of going without anyone.
Simply put: I was looking for someone to tag along with me. Not because I could not afford it. Not because I did not have time on my hands. It was because I just did not want to go alone. This is because, like I said, in my childhood, cinemas were not things you did alone. This is regardless of the fact that I talked endlessly online about the importance of women being able to go on solo trips to places without waiting for a partner.
S and I soon went to the cinema and I totally enjoyed myself. I discovered that we had both attended the same university for our first degrees and the entire experience was memorable. And then he ghosted me. Talking about it still leaves me feeling very angry and exasperated. The sheer disregard for the abandonment hurt a lot.
S became slower with responses and then stopped responding. I was confused a lot because it was unusual. One day, we bumped into each other and he was full of apologies. He asked if I was free for a cinema trip and I said yes. Then he ghosted. Again.
While I blocked him, I started asking myself pertinent questions as to what exactly stopped me from going to the cinema alone. I am a person who writes endlessly about self-love and the power of solo dates and yet in that moment I realised that I had been waiting for a man to give me what I considered the wholesome experience of a cinema date. Why did I do that? If cinema trips represented community, healing and the joy of discovering new characters, why did I have to wait for a man to give me that?
The experience with S showed me that I had a lot of work to do with myself regarding how I viewed solo dates at the cinema. For some reason, I found it hard to associate self-love and confidence with solo dates at the cinema.
In her debut novel titled So Long A Letter, renowned Senegalese women’s writer and advocate Mariama Ba hinted at the loneliness that women could feel from going to the cinema alone. In it, the main character, Ramatoulaye, narrated how going to the cinemas alone as a woman whose husband abandoned her often empowered her and also rattled her spirit. She said that while the films gave her the ability to navigate the abandonment, the looks from mostly coupled younger people at an older woman alone made her feel terrible.
In deciding to heal from the pain S left on me, I made a firm decision to start going to cinemas alone. I would not wait for someone to give me an experience that gave me so much joy. A few months after I had blocked S, I bought a ticket to see The Little Mermaid. Normally, while waiting for tickets as a child with my family on cinema Sundays, we would buy ice cream or go to one of the boutiques around the cinema. While I waited for the movie to start, I sat alone making a thread on Twitter and used my phone while considering buying a wrap of shawarma and munching bits of my popcorn.
I realised that the slow passing of time alone was very comforting. One that could not have been noticed if I was neck-deep in conversation with S or anyone, really.
Ever since watching The Little Mermaid, I have gone on to take more solo dates at the cinema. I have also had a cinema date with a man which went well.
But by far what I have come to understand is that happiness is what we make of it. A trip to the cinema is no less interesting because it is done alone. And I know this because when I went on a solo date to watch Barbie in that cinema hall of mostly women dressed in pink, I did not feel alone.
Instead, I made new friends and squealed “Hi Barbie” in delight with other young women who it seemed had also come to watch Barbie alone.
If I had waited and waited for a friend or lover to follow me to the cinema to watch a movie like Barbie, some of my best memories may have been delayed. We must teach women and girls to be comfortable in their own company as opposed to waiting for other people to give them permission to start living and breathing. Life is for living both with people and with ourselves.
