Ms. Buket, what kind of drum are you looking for?

The things one learns as one lives... As long as we manage to stay alive.

For example, we learned two very important new pieces of information last week. You know the first one; I wrote about it last Friday:

The issue of skimpflation...

This term was introduced to our agenda by former Treasury Undersecretary Mahfi Eğilmez in a post on his personal blog on January 24...

If the price of a product you constantly buy from the market or the bazaar does not change but its quality drops, and you react to this situation by saying “What kind of skimp business is this, brother”; well, that is what they call skimpflation!

*

The owner of the second wonderful piece of information we learned last week is news anchor Buket Aydın...

According to a website called Gazete Münevver, this anchor friend's name was once involved in allegations of a love affair with Demirören Holding boss Yıldırım Demirören...

Again, according to the allegations, thanks to this, she rose from being an ordinary anchor to the Head of News at Kanal D Television...

When this relationship ended, she must have fallen out of favor, as she then had a love affair with Mustafa Sarıgül's son, Emir Sarıgül...

I say “allegedly” because I didn't see it with my own eyes!

I am just repeating what I have read.

So, this friend, who wanders in the “heights” of love, participated in a program hosted by “Relationship Coach Adil Yıldırım” last week and said exactly the following:

*

“If a man has taken you somewhere, he will pay the bill; this comes from the nature of masculinity. There is no ‘I am a woman, I will pay’; I wouldn't even pay for a normal friend. Then he shouldn't take me out to dinner, brother. If he can't treat me to a meal, he is already not in the same status as me. There is an old saying: Even a drum is for its own kind... If he can't pay the bill, he shouldn't bother eating with me.”

*

In the past, there was an elegance, a grace in male-female relationships...

Everything was not discussed in public, and especially talking about money was considered shameful.

Now, this friend is announcing her first condition to new candidates:

“He will have money, he will be in the same social status as me, even a drum is for its own kind...”

She is officially placing an order...

Using her screen fame, she is saying, “I am looking for a rich man!”

Well, madam, do you have no other conditions?

I mean, you are a journalist, you represent a profession, you are supposed to be a role model with your life; that's why I'm asking:

For example, would you also have dinner with a drug lord who has money?

Or with a rich swindler...

With an uncultured contractor, a rude wholesaler, a misogynistic tycoon...

*

By the way, what kind of “drum” are you that you are looking for a “drum” suitable for yourself?

Wouldn't a darbuka do?

Or a tom-tom?

A Mehter bass drum?

Is a Ramadan drum absolutely necessary?

Since you are so interested in proverbs; then let me remind you of one:

“The sound of a drum sounds pleasant to the ear from afar...”

What if the drum you find turns out to be “punctured”...

Or what if you don't like the drummer's zurna-playing friends...

What will you do then?

*

Fine; you can be outspoken, you can think this way.

You can set tariffs for yourself, such as going out to dinner in exchange for a meal, sometimes a car, or a villa.

But don't forget, madam, that you are a role model (even if I don't think you deserve it) for the children of this nation who might look up to you.

Instead of insisting “He must be rich” to go out to dinner... wouldn't it have suited a woman better to say, “He should be a good person, be enlightened, know how to hold a conversation, be polite, be respectful, be honest”?

Just because it is the era of savage capitalism and it is said that everyone and everything has a price in this era; did you absolutely have to put a “price tag” on yourself?

And doing so by involving womanhood and women in the process...

*

I also have a word for women's organizations that stir up the world when any man says something like this:

Weren't you offended at all, didn't you feel hurt at all, sisters?

Don't you have a word to say to this peer of yours?