Man republic: Four awkward challenges of dating a last born

My friend Eunice Akinyi is a first born but she enjoys the company of last borns. She says they complement her calm, soft spoken nature.

Recently, we engaged in a discussion on psychologist Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual stages of development. Among other things, we discovered that lastborns score quite poorly in the dating game. This is why:

1. Attention seeking behaviour

When dating a lastborn, if they inadvertently say ‘guess what!’, it would actually be better if you do not guess anything at all because a wrong guess could lead to days of sulking.

Last borns are terrible attention seekers. Now, this is what makes dating them a job. They must be constantly reminded of how pretty they are, how perfectly that new outfit suits them, how excellently they delivered that speech and so on.

The worst you can do to them is forget their important days. Those birthdays, anniversaries and graduations. Before you start dating a last born, have a diary or create a reminder in your phone of their important days. Be ready to give attention or be ready to lose them.

2. Being too sensitive

Oversensitivity is the other trait exhibited by last borns.

You could be chatting normally when you innocently remind a last born that she is talking a lot, or maybe you change travel plans for a road trip you were to take together, or you politely inform her that the dress they are wearing is too tight for a board meeting.

It could even be a positive thing, like you surprise her with a yellow dress yet her favourite colour is blue.

This may lead to days of long faces and paragraphs of apologies before you are forgiven. Once, I dated a lastborn, we went out for a lunch date and I complemented a waitress in the restaurant for being smartly dressed and for carrying herself professionally.

Ladies and gentlemen, that lunch date ended our relationship and I quickly found myself reading a web post titled, ‘How to move on as if you never were.’

3. Not open to correction

Last borns also have a self-righteous attitude that makes them allergic to correction. You are better off not correcting them because they cannot agree to being wrong.

They hardly see the other side of the coin. Few of them apologise when they wrong. Any apology is usually shallow, mostly meant to appease the relationship instead of admitting that they really erred.

4. Misplaced sarcasm

They are also masters of sarcasm. They say the opposite of what they mean. There is a difference between being sarcastic and being annoyingly sarcastic.

Many last borns are good at the latter. These people can criticise you in the softest manner possible but it will take you ages to realise what they were saying.

Some say sarcasm is a show of intelligence but we all know that intelligence does not play a big role when it comes to dating.

Lest I be accused of saying nothing positive about last borns, let me confirm that I am one of them and so I have given first hand experiences.

Good luck to those dating last borns.

 @aseri-the-prince on Twitter