A Hooker is a Human
By: Adedolapo Olisa
Tags: Hookers, Empathy, Human Stories, Christian Living, Self Love

A Hooker is a Human

Yesterday night, I was lonely as could be. Really, I don’t even think it was loneliness more so bored. The last week or so I redownloaded all the top dating apps. I already had hinge, so I sprinkled in Tinder and Bumble. Why not, I thought ?

See, I am fighting the need to date by getting on dating apps and swiping away, longing for that feeling when someone new likes me. Does that make me a narcissist? I don’t know why I am now obsessed with that word – narcissist.

So while swiping, I saw a profile of this fine, really sexy lady. I checked her out and found out she called herself a hooker. Hit me up on snap chat, she said, and for some wild reason, I did.

What I really wanted was instant affirmation. Like indomie, I wanted a quick snack that made me full. But as the enemy of my soul would have it, he was offering a full rotten meal.

She was inviting and very sweet. Babe, hun, and all the words that stick my soul like a gymnast landing. But very quickly, our conversation transitioned like when the free part of freemium services end. I realized, or re-remembered that she was working and I better be clear with myself quickly. Do I want what she is offering FULLY or not. There is no half way, no half commitment.

Most of my life, I go to find pearls amongst a heap of dump. I pride myself in getting dirty but retaining the ability to take a shower and be back to clean. With this fire, there is no returning. Again, she was offering a 5 course meal with crack in it while I just wanted a kit kat.

So I came forward and admitted. Girl, I don’t want sex. I just want someone to chat maybe hang out with. In that moment, I felt so sad. I realized somehow I had returned to isolation. Why am I so lonely that a hooker could hook me ?

Repete apres moi?

Why am I so lonely that a hooker could hook me? In that moment of clarity and honesty. I took back control of what I was doing and realized the meal I was about to buy, I don’t even have appetite for.

Something else also broke, I saw her as a human. In the swiper no swiping world of modern dating. I treat women just like I treat her. A thing to swipe on, another meal to taste before deciding if I like this restaurant. And when she bites, I am flattered but confused. What about me does she like and what am I supposed to do with her attention ?

Something did break in me. Honestly though, I am afraid this break, however, has happened before but what I don’t understand is how I got back here needing it to break again for me to snap out of my reality into true reality.

A hooker? I feel filthy just thinking about it. That a hookerappealed to me. Even almost reeled me in like a fish chasing a fake 🦐 or whatever fishermen use for bait. Before rushing into fixing my defense systems and making sure I never find myself back here again, I realized something. I don’t see hookers as real people.

Even now, my Christianity says to me to flee. And I should, I have, or I will. Whatever is the right verb. But only a week or so ago, I used the story of the adulterous woman to paint an entirely different view of Christ. One where His perfection also had human stains on it. He was always digging out pearls from amidst the mud of sin. Jesus, my role model and father, spent time alone with an adulterous woman, and His words were go and sin no more after freeing her from the shackles of consequences. He shared a moment alone with her and He humanized the heck out of her identity. He didn’t linger with her. He didn’t ask to go to her house and make sure she got home safely. He just made the moment He shared with her be one where she tasted words that gave life to her soul. His eyes no doubt were deep with warmth and compassion. He was present with her in the moment they shared together and she felt human again. She felt seen. Heard. Loved. Known. She felt a gaze that saw all of her and left no judgment.

It’s easy to preach. Easy to see Jesus in His time but to apply. Sometimes it’s hard to know what wisdom is, let alone to walk in it. Some would say, I should never have been on hinge, never should I have taken a second glance on her profile, never should have messaged her on snap, never should have engaged her and considered her service. Lots of never should have. Most or all of which I agree but I leave asking, who needs Jesus the most? The well to do Christians in my church or the hooker looking for truth in humanity ?

I stand corrected. I feel like a little kid that just played with fire and didn’t get burned. I feel blessed that this story wasn’t a different kind of confession but I cannot shake this one thought.

The labels I put on people make them like statue that stand for something I believe about the labels they or I choose for them.

Statues are something not someone. This is the Genesis of the death of compassion. I have rejected the humanity of people because of the stories I assume their labels tell of them.

She needed warmth and love and affirmations too. Like me, she was lonely and desperate for a human conversation. She is not a hooker, she is a human that offers her body in exchange for money.