He sent me a message on TikTok asking if I could run an advert for his sister’s business. My numbers were small, I didn’t even have up to 5k followers. Some of my videos were doing well but a lot of them were under 1k views and at the time, no one had ever approached me for business. I thought he was making a mistake but through conversations, I realized he knew what he was talking about. He said he loved the quality of my videos and the consistency. He told me he loved the decency with which I approached my content.

I charged GHC1000 for the job but he ended up paying GHC1,500. When the ads were not going well, when the views kept going down and I was worried, he rather motivated me and asked me not to look at the short-term numbers. We talked every day until my job was over. When I was done, he came passing through, commenting on my videos and making me feel on top of the world.

Out of the blue, he asked me, “Can we have a video call this evening?” I said yes before I asked what kind of video call. I’d been there before. A guy wanted to see the shape of my intestines one night when I agreed to a video call. I didn’t want that experience again so I wanted him to be specific.

He called on FaceTime. The first time I was seeing his face. We talked about life as a content creator and my life outside of it. He talked about himself too. His job. His passion. His dreams. We filled every minute of the one-hour video call with laughter and conversations. There was no second we felt like we didn’t have anything to say. He asked, I answered. I asked, he answered freely. Before we went off he said, “Can we do this again very soon?”

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So a day later we were on it. The next day, we were on it again, laughing and enjoying making faces at each other. He asked if I had a boyfriend. I answered, “No ooo, do you? There’s a girl somewhere at the corner of your life?” He said no too. For the first time in the history of our video calls, we went silent. For several seconds, there was nothing else to say after he said no.

I broke the silence. I asked why he was single and he threw the same question to me. By the time we were hanging up the call, we were lovers. He had proposed and I’d said yes. He said it was crazy that we would fall in love when we hadn’t seen each other physically. I told him, “To do this with you, considering how I’m scared of men, is such an achievement. You got me despite my fears. It shows how much I trust you.”

That was a year ago. After a year of being in love, you would expect a lot to happen between us. He lives in Accra. I live in Tema. Just a stone throw from each other. In a year, we should have met to consolidate what we created online. I should know how he walks, how he throws his hands about when shuffling around. I should know how he smells, the texture of his skin and the softness or hardness of his palm. We haven’t been able to experience each other physically because he believes love dies quickly when the mystery is lost.

“You’ll see me and see my flaws. You’ll judge my physical presence against my online presence and feel something is missing. We’ll get used to each other and begin fighting over things we shouldn’t fight about. It’s strange but I like us this way.”

That’s his opinion and the reason we haven’t met in a year.

His physical presence is the only thing missing in this relationship but he plays his role as the boyfriend in my life. He’ll send surprises every now and then; lunch in the office, he’ll send a cake with pretty messages. We’ll talk about something in the night and in the morning he’ll do what I suggested I needed. He makes me feel heard. I feel seen, like there’s an eye tracking my movement and telling me I’m beautiful.

He gives me content ideas and purchases things he thinks will help my content creation journey. He bought me an online course worth $300. He wants the best out of me and yet doesn’t listen to me when I say the best for me will be to see him.

“So how long are we going to be like this?” I asked him. “Are we going to blow kisses online and get pregnant online? Should we look for a two-bedroom house online and live in it online? Why are you doing this?”

He talks about the right time that will come someday. If he didn’t care about me, if he didn’t invest a lot in me over the year, if he didn’t bait me with hope, I would have given up on him. But there’s a way he makes me believe that we’ll meet tomorrow but tomorrow will come and there will be no show. And then he makes me believe again. It’s like chasing shadows but he lives not too far from me.

Last time when I expressed frustration and told him I would call everything off and be free, he told me to look at things differently. I should think of him as a boyfriend living abroad who doesn’t have the right documents to come back home. I asked him, for the first time, “What are you hiding from me? Who sent you to come mess up my love life? Is it a gamble for you? A game of Aviator where you’re looking at how far the plane will fly?”

He laughed at me and told me to relax. So I gave him one month. He said I should make it three but we settled for two. That if after two months I don’t see him, I’ll cut the cord and move on as if nothing happened. I’ll pretend I fell in love with the breeze and it blew away just as it does every day. I won’t pick up his calls again, I won’t accept any more surprises. I won’t take anything he gives freely except the gift of seeing him.

He accepted but I know the time will come and he’ll come up with another clever excuse to keep the charade going but it wouldn’t be for long because I’m preparing myself, building my heart to accept come what may. Love like this is strange and tiring and frustrating and a vexation to the spirit

—Jullie

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