Love, Loudly Performed: The Theatre of Modern Zimbabwean Romance

Love, Loudly Performed: The Theatre of Modern Zimbabwean Romance

This is one of those pieces that sat quietly in my drafts, not because it lacked urgency, but because it demanded honesty, and honesty is rarely welcomed when it disrupts tradition, fantasy, and comfort. But some thoughts don’t fade. They insist. And this one has been knocking for a while.

Zimbabwean romantic relationships today feel less like lived experiences and more like stage productions. Carefully curated, loudly announced, and meticulously documented. Everyone is playing a role. Few are actually present.

It’s not intimacy we are pursuing, it’s visibility.

If you want evidence, you don’t have to look far. Start with roora. What was once sacred, symbolic, and deeply communal has increasingly become a spectacle. Negotiations that should happen quietly now trend publicly. Family matters leak into group chats, social media timelines, and whispered commentary. The ceremony becomes less about union and more about display, especially at the expense of the girl child, whose worth is subtly measured in figures, outfits, and aesthetics.

I once spoke to someone who said something that stayed with me: many men participate in elaborate roora ceremonies not out of conviction, but obligation. Not because it holds meaning for them, but because it is expected, by partners, families, and society. When something sacred becomes compulsory, it loses its soul.

And honestly, why do we exhaust ourselves so deeply for a single day? A day meant to impress people we barely know. People who arrive, eat, observe, judge, and leave. A day financed by money that could have built a life instead of a performance.

Courtship, too, has not been spared.

What often begins as interest quickly turns into interrogation. A phone number becomes an invitation to justify your existence. What do you bring? What can you offer? Are you worth the investment? Decline politely, and the narrative shifts, you are proud, difficult, ungrateful. Accept attention, and suddenly money becomes language. Assets are listed. Spending is framed as proof of seriousness. Affection is transactional.

It’s exhausting. And deeply unsettling.

Somewhere along the line, relationships were repackaged as exchanges. Provision became leverage. Spending became control. Emotional presence became optional as long as financial gestures were visible. And in response, many women began equating safety with financial dominance, understandably so, in a system that taught them love must be paid for.

The result? Men now fear inadequacy not in character, but in comparison. Being out-earned, out-spent, outperformed by other men feels like failure. So the complaints follow:

Women are materialistic.

Women don’t care about men.

Women don’t understand men.

But who authored this script?

When money becomes the centerpiece, it allows everyone to hide. Men anchor their worth to provision. Women learn to expect it. And when the money is removed, there is often nothing substantial beneath, no emotional literacy, no partnership, no shared language beyond transactions.

Just performance. Rehearsed. Applauded. Empty.

This is not an attack on culture, nor a dismissal of tradition. It is a call to remember why these practices existed in the first place. Culture was meant to connect us, not pressure us. Love was meant to be lived, not showcased.

Because when romance becomes theatre, intimacy becomes a casualty.

“When love is reduced to performance, everyone plays their part well—and still walks away unfulfilled.”- Unknown