I was going through a hard time at the time I met Tom on Facebook. I was unemployed. The only thing that kept me afloat was my food business. Even that one wasn’t going so well. Today market is good. Tomorrow you barely sell anything. I didn’t hide my financial struggles from him. As soon as I noticed he was interested in knowing more about me, I told him I was a jobless woman managing a food business on the edge of collapse. I wanted him to decide if truly, I am the kind of person he wants to get close to.

After everything I told him, he still stuck around. He said he didn’t have a problem with my financial status. He wanted to get to know me more. “Tell me about the job you  were doing before you became jobless.” “It was the food business I relied on for sustenance. By then it was thriving so money was not an issue,” I explained. I let him understand that now things are bad so it doesn’t feel like I have anything going for myself. 

He also told me a little bit about himself. “I live outside Ghana.” He said. “I had to leave in search of greener pastures.” I was curious to know more about him so I asked questions. 

“Do you visit home often?” 

“No, I don’t but my family doesn’t mind. I take good care of them so they understand that I need to keep working to provide. Besides, I see them on video calls,” he answered.

“Wait, so you’ve never visited since you left? How many years has it been?”

This time, no answer came. It gave me the impression that it was a sensitive subject. To be sure, I asked him the same question on three different occasions. No answer still. In the end, I had to leave it alone. 

The next thing he asked for was my photos. I sent him a selfie I took in my living room. This man zoomed the picture into a frame on my wall. There is a photo I took with my friend and her dad. I don’t even know the man personally. We only spoke once on the phone. That was what I told Tom when he asked who the man was. It was the truth but he didn’t believe me. He asked me repeatedly if the man was my boyfriend and I kept telling him the same thing, “He is my friend’s father. I don’t even know him. Besides, that photo was taken eight years ago.”

When we finally moved past that, he asked where I grew up and who I grew up with. I told him everything. My mum raised me as a single mum seeing as my dad was not in the picture. Sadly, I lost my mum along the way. So it’s just been me striving to make things work for myself.

When it was his turn to tell me about his upbringing, he said he grew up with his mum and some prominent people who made him who he is today. That was all he was willing to share.

One thing I observed based on my interaction with him was how much he wanted to know about me yet how little he was willing to reveal about himself. This guy won’t even send me his photos unless it’s set to view once. This made me suspicious of him. I mean, if he has nothing to hide then why don’t I have anything concrete to hold on to when it comes to him?

To be sure I wasn’t being played, I asked if he was married. He said no. I wanted to believe him but I had a dream. It wasn’t his face in the dream but whoever it was had a four-year-old child and a pregnant wife. This dream came to me every time I prayed about Tom. And each time, I would ask if he was married. He always answered no. I didn’t have any proof. All I had was suspicions and a recurring dream. I could either dwell on that or take him at his word. I chose the latter and we carried on. 

I was there when he sent me a photo of myself in a bridesmaid outfit. He asked, “Were you the one getting married?” I thought we were past this but apparently not. Calmly I told him, “No, it was my sister’s wedding. I was the bridesmaid.” He then asked me to tell him the number of men I had been with. At this point, my patience was running thin. 

I lost all sense of decorum as I snapped; “Why do you keep asking me all these unnecessary questions? Whatever happened in my past has nothing to do with you. You should be asking me questions about my genotype or my medical history, not my body count.” He apologized and we moved past this.

One thing I know about men who live abroad is the things they request for when you are dating them. Every small thing, “Send me a picture.” “Let me see your b**bs.” “Let me see how you look down there.” “Let’s do a video call so I see what you are wearing.” I was worried I would have to deal with this when I agreed to start a relationship with Tom. 

In this case, Tom surprised me. He never tried to have sexual conversations with me. Neither did he ask me to send him photos. Even when we had video calls, he didn’t ask me to lower the neckline of my shirt or lift up my skirt for his viewing pleasure. He was a perfect gentleman. I loved this about him. Told myself he was the one. I was willing to go all out for him at this point.

As time passed, he asked what I would like to do for money. I told him about my container, the one I was using for my food business. “I want to clean it up and move it to a busier location. I have a deep freezer I can use to sell frozen chicken and beef.” He said it was a good idea. Before I knew it, he sent me GHC2000 to prepare the container. I was happy that I was finally with a man who won’t ask for shuperu or intimate photos of me before he would help me. 

I promised myself I would keep myself for him alone. No matter how long it would take him to arrive in Ghana, I was his. I had a lot of men trying to get my attention on a daily basis. As for my Facebook, over four hundred unread messages. I rejected and ignored everyone for Tom’s sake. I was doing all this because Tom told me he was looking for a serious relationship leading to marriage. I am thirty-two and he is a year older so the age gap was perfect for me. I was constantly praying for God to let it work between us.

Now, before I met him my phone was faulty. It would be on one minute but go off the next. When Tom found out, he asked me to find out the price of a slightly used phone. He was willing to buy it for me so that I would manage it until he sends me a new phone through a friend who would be in Ghana in three months. I agreed but I didn’t go looking for a phone until my phone went completely off. It was the screen

I called Tom with my yam phone and explained my phone situation. “How are we going to communicate now?” he asked. I suggested we do regular phone calls and text messages. We tried it but it was expensive. So I proposed that we fix my phone’s screen instead of buying a new phone. “Buying a new phone is way more expensive. I can use that money to pay for land for my container.” That was all I said. This guy ghosted me.

I would call him and he would tell me, “I am busy, let me call you back.” He wouldn’t. This is someone I used to talk to at least twice a day when my smartphone was working. But the moment my phone developed a fault, he was gone. I even cried and begged him to tell me if I did anything wrong. He ignored me. 

A while later he called me and said, “While I am here thinking about how to help you start a business, you are there thinking about phone.” Before I could say anything in my defense, he hung up and continued ghosting me. I also got angry and promised not to call him again.  

Along the line, a friend fixed my phone for me. As soon as I made my first status update, Tom sent me a message asking why I didn’t reach out when I fixed my phone. He saw that I was taking my promise not to speak to him again seriously so he apologized. I forgave him and we moved on.

He made promises to help me with the shop but after the way he disappeared on me, I took it all with a pinch of salt. The next thing he said was, “I want to take our relationship to the next level. But before I introduce you to my family, I want to know what I am taking home. Be honest with me, how many relationships have you been in?” Ah, this issue again?

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“It’s my past,” I answered, “You know I have never not been with a man. That’s all you need to know.” This guy started behaving as if his life depended on the number of men I had been with. He said it would be better if he heard it from me than from somewhere else. “How can I defend you when your past comes up, if you won’t tell me where you’ve been?” He demanded.

It isn’t that the number is big or that I couldn’t tell him. I just didn’t trust that he was mature enough to handle the information well. This is a guy who zooms into an eight-year-old picture to ask questions about a picture frame on my wall. What would he do if I told him about my past relationships?

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After our conversation, he updated his WhatsApp status; “If you are on a trip and you realize it’s a wrong trip, end it fast. If not it will cost you twice. I am not talking about a trip. If you know you know.” After reading it I texted him, “Based on your ghosting me and this status update, I am out. I wish you all the best in your future relationships.” He got angry and called me ungrateful, among other things. He then asked me to delete his number and never contact him again.

I have done all those things without losing a night’s sleep. Long-distance relationships are hard already. Whatever trust issues Tom has would only make it worse, so good riddance. My question now is, why is it important for a man to know his woman’s body count? What has it got to do with your relationship with her? Did I do anything wrong by not telling him? I know I could have lied but I didn’t want to do that. I just felt it was not necessary for him to know that information.

— Nakie

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