Nowadays, when people ask me if I believe in love, I tell them yes.
Not really because I do, but because it's much easier to say "yes" than to explain to anybody why I'm no longer enthralled by the whole concept of meeting someone, “falling” for them, and then possibly spending the rest of your life with them.
Recently, some people have started to follow up that initial question with, "But this one that you’re not married yet," accompanied by a dry, humourless laugh.
A futile attempt to ease the inevitable awkwardness caused by them making such an intrusive and otherwise inconsiderate statement.
Fortunately for them, I don't ever take offence.
I just shrug, fold my palms together, and say, "If it's meant to happen, then it will happen."
Then if they attempt to press the issue any further, I immediately change the topic.
To be fair, I know that most of the people who try to have this conversation with me are doing so out of concern.
They probably think I'm a man who doesn't have his "priorities" set right or that there's something inherently wrong with me.
I mean, they see a 38-year-old man who is healthy, successful, moderately rich, and has built a thriving business, attends church regularly, and is known by his community for his philanthropic activities.
They see a model family man and wonder why that man has no family of his own.
I’m single; I live alone in my big house all by myself, and I have no potential “prospects” that would suggest my imminent settling down.
This is a great concern to everyone around me, especially my mother.
"You this boy! You are my firstborn son; do you want to kill me? Don't you ever want me to raise my own grandchildren? Ehn, answer me o!?"
I don't know how she always conveniently forgets that she has already "raised" four grandchildren.
Two each from my younger brother and younger sister.
On the days when her constant barrage of questions and accusations manages to trigger my irritation, I just kindly point out to her that there's more to life than marriage or having children.
“Mama, I’m satisfied with my life as it is. I’m busy with work, and that’s enough for me. If a family will happen, then it will happen.”
The first time I told her this, she stared at me in bewildered shock for a long time, but she didn't say anything.
I thought that was the last I would hear of the topic, till she returned to my house the week after with two elders from our hometown, the three of them pleading with me to "seek deliverance if you need it."
My mother, like the rest of them, doesn't understand that I'm not against the idea of falling in love; I've just tried and failed so many times that I no longer believe it’s a realistic possibility for me.
I have loved, and I have loved hard, and neither has served me well to date.
I’ve accepted fate that it will probably never happen, and I’ve made my peace with it.
If you think I’m exaggerating, then hear me out.
I had my first girlfriend at 17. I was in SS2, and her name was Tina.
She was a very brilliant girl, and everyone, teachers and students included, agreed that she had a bright future ahead of her.
Tina liked me because I was taller than her, and I liked her because she didn’t trim her uniform skirt like the other senior girls in our class.
It also helped that she did most of my assignments for me.
We dated for about a year, and we were making plans to go to the university together.
Then immediately after our WAEC results were released, she broke up with me.
I had gotten a D7 in Mathematics.
She probably got the sudden realisation that our children could possibly inherit my brain instead of hers, so she decided to run away as fast as she could.
I don't even blame her.
Tina ended up going to one of the best private universities in the country, and I had to defer my admission for a year to get my grades up.
At 19, there was Tolani.
She was a coursemate in the university and my first taste of real, undeniable attraction.
The kind that made us text and call for long hours into the night, talking about every mundane and trivial thing possible.
She was stunning and confident, and her soft voice made my heart flutter, even when she was being sarcastic or rude.
I was head over heels for her.
Two months into our relationship, I mustered up all my courage to finally tell her, "I love you."
She smiled and replied, "Aww, that’s nice. You’re so cute."
That was one of the signs, but I was too infatuated and naive to notice.
I told Tolani those words thirteen other times in the duration of our relationship, and she never once said it back.
Eventually, it started to bother me, but I just told myself that she’s probably just not used to saying it.
I mean, we spent all the free time we had together; she couldn’t say she didn’t love me too, right?
We dated for about six months, and then one day I saw a post on her Instagram where she posed for pictures in the snow.
Ahnhan. Snow? In Lagos? Since when?
That was when I found out that she had travelled out of the country during the winter break.
Just like that.
She hadn’t told me anything.
No heads-up. No warning. She just left.
I won’t deny that I cried like a baby that night. It felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest because I genuinely believed that she cared for me as much as I did for her.
Looking back some months after, I finally realised and admitted to myself that she never did.
She just enjoyed the attention that she was getting.
It was a very tough pill to swallow.
I also met Funmi in school, and I immediately knew that I’d never meet somebody like her again.
Funmi was very different from the other women I knew then and the ones I had known until that point.
Might sound cliché, but she really was.
She was grounded and driven and so focused on school. She was also a devout Christian too, always organising outreaches on campus and inviting me for fellowship meetings.
I’ll admit that I wasn’t too interested in attending those religious activities, but I went because of her.
She was a stark contrast to the man I was at the time, and I still have no idea why she even paid me any attention.
Funmi also loved adventure, and she was a meticulous planner.
She planned everything down to the detail, from the things she did per day to the exact amount of money she spent per month.
One time, she was telling me about her five-year timetable for her life, and she subtly suggested to me that I was a part of it.
I was smitten.
That was when I knew that I had to start taking my life more seriously.
I stopped skipping classes, took on some extracurricular activities, and actually started to listen to what was being said in our fellowship meetings.
The whole of me was determined to be the right man for her.
Then one day she abruptly and directly asked me, "Do you ever see us getting married?"
I panicked.
Marriage ke?
I was a broke undergraduate who had just started to figure his life out, and here she was, talking about something as overwhelming as marriage and settling down.
Funmi had put me on the spot, and I didn’t know what to say, so I just smiled and held her hands.
I thought I was being sweet when I referenced the Bible and said, "We don’t need to worry about tomorrow, Funmi. The future will sort itself, okay? Let's just enjoy the moment."
The moment ended exactly one week after that when she broke up with me after a communion service.
She spoke for a long time about there not being "time to waste" and how she had "too big a future planned to entertain any uncertainty."
I tried to explain myself, to tell her that we could figure it out together and that I was willing to move on the same wavelength with her.
But her mind was made up.
To this day, I regret not having myself a little more put together at that moment.
Funmi was probably my soulmate, now that I think about it, and it was so disappointing to have to let her go.
However, she was the one who drew me closer to having a sense of peace with God, so I'll forever be grateful to her for that.
Aisha came along a few months before my graduation.
I was about to turn 23, and I literally ran into her while sorting out some departmental issues.
She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
Aisha was tall and friendly to everyone she met. She carried herself with so much grace and humility, covered in her hijab and always smiling.
Our chemistry was great, and funny enough, she was studying Biochemistry so it became our little inside joke.
Unlike the ones I had with Tolani, my conversations with Aisha were always deep and intellectual.
Our outlook toward life was as similar as our taste in music.
We had everything that pointed to us having a great future together.
What we did not have, however, was her family’s approval.
"You are not Hausa, my son,” her father said to me plainly the day we met. Hard and honest. "This union will not be possible."
I tried to laugh it off, thinking it was just a jovial quip, but his face didn't shift one bit from its cold, rigid stare.
“You seem like a good man, but we’ve already found a suitable husband for her,” he added, his voice softer but his gaze still firm.
I opened my mouth to speak, but words wouldn’t come out.
I turned to Aisha for some form of solace or assurance, but she immediately lowered her eyes to the ground to avoid mine.
As soon as she squeezed my hand, I knew it was over.
I’d thought planning for marriage early would help me avoid losing Aisha like I did Funmi, but I was wrong.
We’re on good terms now, and she still calls me every now and then, just to check in.
I was still heartbroken over Aisha when I met Christa on Instagram.
I was searching for a perfume vendor to buy a new fragrance from when I stumbled across her profile.
She had some cute vlogs on her page, so I ordered more perfumes than I needed or could even afford, and then I stylishly started a conversation with her.
We hit it off immediately.
There were no awkward introductions or dragged-out monologues. We just started talking like we’d known each other forever.
She had a very good sense of humour, and she was always so supportive of everything I did.
The attraction was deep and mutual. We texted every day for a few months, having calls whenever the time difference would permit us.
I’d always been wary of “online relationships,” but this time I let all my guard down. It became clear to us from the start that mere “friendship” was not going to cut it.
Eventually, the reality of our very different circumstances became impossible to ignore.
For one, she lived far away in Europe, and I was in Nigeria, too jobless and too penniless to even dream of the possibility of leaving the country anytime soon.
And for another, she was five years older than I was. She was 29, and I was 24.
Even if we were to consider a long-distance relationship, the difference in our life timelines was enough to give us both pause and make us reconsider.
I think we both genuinely wanted to make it work, but life and its messed-up circumstances, eh?
Honestly, I was ready to pretend like everything was fine and just keep on going as we were, but Christa did not share this perspective with me.
As she rightly told me in one of our last late-night calls, “I have so much more to lose than you do if we do this for any longer and it doesn’t work out.”
One day, I woke up and realised that she had blocked me everywhere.
Just like that.
She did leave a final text, though, explaining that she was tired of pretending that we were going somewhere when we weren’t. She also said that it really hurt her to do this and that she’d miss me, but she knows that it’s for the best if we go our separate ways.
I was beyond devastated.
I had hoped that we would somehow opt to remain friends and keep the core of our friendship, but she chose to opt for a clean break.
I’d thought I couldn’t feel any worse pain after Aisha, but this hurt much more.
My heart still grieves for what could have been with Christa, and I think about her almost every other day.
I think she’s the only one I’ve not fully gotten over.
I’m also very disappointed that I never got to beat her in Scrabble.
Three months into working my first full-time job, I met Adaora.
Well, my mother made me meet her. She ambushed me after service in church one day and made me take Ada out.
I’d sworn to stay away from women after back-to-back crushing heartbreaks, but I could tell it would make Mama happy, so I reluctantly did it.
There was no special connection between us, no instant bond or anything like that. To be frank, I wasn’t even interested in her.
Or anybody else for that matter.
But my mother loved Ada so much. So much more than I did. She felt Ada was the one, and she was so sad when I told her that we were no longer together.
Sometimes she still asks me about her.
Why did we end? Well, she claimed to have found a man with a “better vision” than my own.
Apparently, being a young hustling guy with big dreams was not enough for her. I also needed to have my own house and a Toyota Corolla.
I'll never forget the last thing Adaora said to me.
"I love you, but I need stability. You're too 'mouth-to-hand' to take care of me the way I want. No offence."
I nodded and told her that I understood and that no offence was taken.
I cried again that night.
The next month I quit my job and started my own business.
At this point I was seriously starting to wonder if the whole love thing was even for me.
Was I falling in love too fast? Was I attracting the wrong type of women? Would I forever be a 'mouth-to-hand' guy?
So many questions.
It was a concern that always nagged at me, but I always redirected all my attention to my work.
My business was all I had, so I poured my heart and soul into it, with Ada's words ringing in my head anytime I got frustrated or wanted to quit.
When I met Chiamaka at 27, I realised that the problem wasn’t entirely me.
She was broke, jobless, and yet, she always had a request to make.
It started small and tolerable; she’d ask for things like airtime, lunch from Glovo, money to make her hair, and things like that.
Then all of a sudden she elevated levels to asking me to pay her rent, order wigs from overseas, and buy her a new phone almost every other month.
One time, she even had the nerve to ask for a ‘small’ contribution to her car payment.
I tried to satisfy her as much as I could because, outside the constant demands, she was a very decent person.
I initially felt like I was investing in a potential future partner, but as time went on, I realised that nothing I did was ever enough to satisfy her.
The day you can say my eyes “cleared” was the day I suggested that she join me in running my business.
That way she’d have something to do, keep herself busy, and also learn the ropes of my work, since we were most likely going to get married.
Do you know what that idiot girl said?
She looked me dead in the eye and told me, "Are you okay? Me? I should come and work in that small business of yours that's not going anywhere? Don't downgrade me like that, please."
I made sure she left my house that same day.
I also collected the phone and the other expensive things I’d bought from her, and I sold all of them.
I can’t deny that it felt so good.
I gladly invested the money back into my "small business” and that year I made 10 times my annual profits.
That was the big break that changed everything for me.
It was at 32 that I started to feel the pressure from every corner to get married and start my own family.
It was coming from everywhere.
Family. Friends. Church. Strangers. Business partners.
All my agemates were settling down, and I was busy scaling my business, working hard to establish new branches in the neighbouring countries.
I was already doing very well by that time; my company was raking in millions, I’d started my own charity company, and I’d just built a house for my mother.
“I love you, my son,” she had said, her voice solemn. “But all this money you’re making, is it not your family that you should be spending it on?”
I wanted to explain to Mama that she was my family, the only family I needed, but even I could admit that something was missing.
Naturally, a lot of women had started to flock around me, but I yearned for something real and deep.
Something that wasn’t rooted in the fact that I now had a lot of money. And yes, I was also tired of losing at love.
I finally succumbed to the pressure to “try again” when I agreed to go on a blind date with one of my younger sister’s friends.
Apparently, the girl was one of her bridesmaids, and she had taken a liking to me at the wedding reception.
Her name was Anita, and our first date went really well.
She had cute dimples, and her side frame made her look a lot like Rihanna. She also laughed at all my jokes, and she wrote the best stories I’d ever read.
Was this finally it? I wondered.
My answer didn’t take long to arrive.
Literally five days after our first date, while we were on a video call, she was complaining to me about how her hairdresser had postponed her appointment again for the second time.
I, ever supportive and encouraging, innocently told her that the all-back hairstyle she was currently wearing looked good on her and that she should “rock it” more often.
Anita failed miserably at hiding the disgusted expression on her face.
She ended the call with a flimsy excuse, and I've not heard from her since then.
My sister later told me that Anita felt like I was one of those men who only wanted women to remain in their “natural state” and not express themselves in their appearances however they wanted.
I laughed it off because it was far from the truth. I had genuinely meant the all-back thing as a compliment.
It’s just another thing about women I'll never understand.
My last relationship was four years ago, and it was with Belinda.
I'll be honest, I was never in love with her.
At that point, I was just happy to be with a woman who made me happy and gave me peace of mind. It was nice to have someone to look forward to seeing every now and then.
Being with her also protected me from that constant external pressure.
Belinda reminded me a lot of Funmi.
She always sent me morning devotionals, made me eat healthier, and even helped me plan my finances.
A year into our relationship, I made her the head of all the West African branches of my company. We were like a “power couple.”.
She handled the day-to-day activities, and I handled the bigger management stuff.
The thought of proposing to her was still playing around in my mind when she came to my office one day, sat me down, and said, "I feel like you're about to propose to me, but I don’t think we will be a good fit as husband and wife.”
My heart skipped.
So, after two years, she suddenly just realised that?
I jokingly asked her if she also felt like returning the two years of my life that she had taken back to me.
She didn’t laugh.
But she was right. We loved each other, but we were not in love, so we broke it off.
Belinda still manages the operations of all my foreign companies today, and I consider her to be my best friend.
I flew back to Nigeria to attend her wedding last year.
I sat in that ceremony, watching the couple in love and watching other men around me dance with their wives, and then a thought occurred to me.
“You’ll never ever have this, no matter how hard you try.”
It wasn’t a malicious thought. Or even a devil that I needed to bind.
It was just me, innately accepting what I’d feared all along.
So you now see why it’s easier for me to say “yes” when I’m asked if I believe in love.
I’d take it over retelling this story every single time.
Time does not permit me to tell you about Bella or Yejide or Kevwe or the many other countless failed talking stages and minor relationships I’ve had over the years.
But I know you get my point.
It’s definitely not been a lack of my trying.
I have tried and tried my best to love and make love last; it just hasn't worked out for me yet.
I don’t think it ever will.
And while you can say that I’ve learnt a lot from these women over the years, that’s not even consolation.
I’m tired of learning when it comes to love. I just want to love.
My friends even mock me and say that I’m the first man to date a woman from every tribe and religion and still fail to make any of them my wife.
Harsh? Maybe, but they’re not wrong.
I’ve never had a “spec” or any groundbreaking criteria when it came to picking the woman I want to be with.
I have tried to be as liberal and open as possible, simply because I didn’t want to limit myself to missing out on the things that could be.
I wonder if that’s the problem
Mama doesn’t visit me as regularly as she used to.
She’s getting older now, weaker too, so I make it a point to see her every time I can.
I know she’s not happy with me, but she tries her best to hide it.
Many times, I’ve considered just hiring a surrogate to get a child with so that she will have her greatest heart desire before she dies.
But I can’t.
As much as I want my mother’s happiness, this is my own life that we’re talking about here.
And that’s not what I want.
The best she can do is to keep praying that it happens for me and that it happens soon. That’s all.
Anyways, I have to go now.
I have a date with Theresa in a few hours, and I have no idea what I’ll wear.
Wish me luck.
Maybe it will be this time.
Editing this the day after uploading just to say - This story is entirely fictional.
Inspired by some real-life scenarios? Yes.
Is it about me and my life? No.
Thank you for reading. 😂😂
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Did you just make me cry just to find out this is fictional?? 😭😭Ahh God I actually got sad.
Love it tho🫶🏾
How can people not realize it’s fictional even though you glaringly stated it.
I can imagine the satisfaction after pushing (I can’t remember whatever her name is) her out of the house and selling everything to boost his business to the ever-highest-peak 😂💅.
Best of luck on Theresa o 😂