In a candid discussion on MENtality With Ebuka, media personality and author Toke Makinwa sat down with host Ebuka Obi-Uchendu and shared something many needed to hear, especially young women raised on fairy tales and social media highlight reels.
The Saviour Myth
Toke’s starting point was the idea that many women enter relationships not as complete individuals but as people seeking to be made whole. They wait for a man to provide stability, change their circumstances, or elevate their lives.
Her argument is straightforward: approaching a relationship from a place of need grants the other person power over your life that they have not earned and which you cannot afford to surrender. Financial dependence, emotional reliance, and an undefined sense of self all set the stage for relationships that often end badly and publicly. 
Her radical alternative is self-reliance: build your own financial independence, establish your personal vision, and create a life you are proud of before inviting anyone into it. When entering a relationship as a whole person, you’re not seeking rescue; you’re looking for partnership, which creates a fundamentally different dynamic.
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Dating Your Way
This directly connects to what Toke calls the ‘Date Your Way’ philosophy, and the most memorable part of her message captures it well.
She describes the frustration when ‘Chapter Four’ people try to date ‘Chapter Seventeen’ people, two individuals in very different stages of life, financial capacity, and emotional maturity, attempting to forge something across a gap that is too wide to bridge comfortably. The result is almost always the drama and heartbreak that serve as cautionary tales.
Her solution is to date within your own sphere: people who are on your wavelength, at your level, and in the same chapter of life. Not because ambition is wrong, but because mismatched expectations create pressures that most relationships cannot withstand.
She also addressed social media, acknowledging how easy it is to compare your life to curated highlight reels. Genuine confidence, she claims, does not stem from comparing yourself to others’ online portrayals but from being grounded in what you have built for yourself, making comparison irrelevant.
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Why This Matters
Toke Makinwa isn’t speaking hypothetically. She experienced one of Nigeria’s most publicised marriages and divorces and rebuilt her life, writing about her journey. Her honesty about what went wrong and what she learned gives her words significant weight, unlike those of someone observing from outside.
Her message is ultimately one of empowerment dressed in practical clothing. When you are financially independent and emotionally stable, you stop tolerating situations that do not serve you, you cease forcing connections with people who can’t meet you where you are, and you stop accepting less out of fear that more isn’t available.
When you meet someone truly worth your time, your relationship rests on mutual respect rather than dependence. As she said, when your foundation is solid, you aren’t desperate, and without desperation, you date very differently.
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