When Alice left me, her reason was very simple; “You’re too soft for me. I want a hard guy—a guy who can take hold of the relationship and push it where he wants us to go but you, you’re too relaxed. That doesn’t cut it for me.” I thought she was being petty. I thought that wasn’t a reason enough for her to leave but she left. My softness was her red flag. She walked away, leaving me searching within myself. Looking for the softness in me so I could replace it with some hardness.

Then I met Grace. 

It was a distance relationship so we talked more on the phone and texted a lot during the day. In the night when we were about to go to bed, she would call me on video. She would say something like, “I want to see you before I sleep.” I would respond, “Here I am. What do you want to see?” She would joke, ”Turn the camera around let me see if you’re hiding another lady in the room.” I would turn the camera 360’ around the room. She would say, “that’s not all. Go under the bed.” We would laugh about it. I would call her crazy. She would tell me, “I need to protect my territory.”

She was a lot funnier than any woman I’d ever dated. She knew what it meant to have a long beautiful conversation. Because of that, we almost always had something to talk about. Then one day she visited. She came around on a Friday night with the intention to leave on the next Sunday. It’s something we planned for weeks before she finally arrived. That was the first time I ever saw her in person and she was even more beautiful in person than in photos. 

That night, we went out to eat. You know these restaurants and how they delay after you’ve placed your order. She got impatient. She called the waitress, “Ah, how long are we going to sit here before you serve us?” The waitress was calm. Courteous and graceful in her response; “Dear, I’m sorry for the delay but it should be ready by the next five minutes.” She screamed at her, “It better be or else, we’ll get up and leave.” Five minutes later, the food didn’t come. Her anger got worse when she realized others we came before they did had been served. She called the waitress again. She was harsh and was brute. I tapped her and whispered, “Please be patient.” She said, “These people are fond of that. Why would they take forever to serve us simple rice? Or they are now going to the farm to harvest the rice?”

I looked at the face of the waitress. You could see my girlfriend’s behavior was getting to her. Soon the food was served. The waitress asked courteously, “Is there anything else I could get you?” Grace snapped, “Oh leave there…we should order something else so you could take forever to deliver?” We ate and when we were leaving I left a tip for the waitress. She screamed, “Why are you tipping her? What did she do well to deserve that?” I just pulled her hand and we left the restaurant.

When we were going home, she kept ranting and ranting about how bad their customer service was and how unprofessional the waitress was and then came to me; “Maybe you like her. Other than that, I don’t know why you would reward her for such bad service.” I said, “It’s only the food that delayed. You can’t blame the waitress for such delay?” She retorted, “The food koraa wasn’t nice.“ 

Our night ended badly. I slept with a little bit of anger in me but it was our first time so I decided to water things down. When she woke up in the morning, the first thing she said was, “I’m hungry.” I told her, “Get up and let’s cook something. I went to the kitchen first. Thinking she might follow. She slept until I finished preparing the breakfast. After eating, all I expected to hear was thank you but she said, “Next time, don’t put sugar in my tea. Leave that one to me. It was a little too much.”

I couldn’t wait for Sunday to come so she could leave me in peace. 

On Sunday morning, I took her to the station and bid her goodbye. I already made a decision. When she got to her destination and called me, I told her point-blank that I didn’t like what happened when she came to visit. She asked, “Is it because I didn’t allow you to have your way with me?” I said, “It’s not you who didn’t allow it. It’s an agreement we both made but my point is this, you can’t visit a boyfriend and decide to sleep while he does everything for you and not even a single word of appreciation. The way you treated that waitress wasn’t a one off thing. It’s probably who you are and I can’t stand it.”

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I thought she was going to say something to defend whatever happened. She said, “Why have you taken that miserable waitress issue on your head? Is she your relative or she’s someone you mess around with?” I told her, “It’s ok, let’s end it here. If you don’t understand what I’m saying today, you might never understand it tomorrow.” She cut the line on me and took the fight to her Whatsapp status. Every minute came with a different status; “When men don’t get what they want from you, they use every excuse to walk away. Those men are not adults. They are children.”

The next day, she called and gave it to me very well, calling me all sorts of names. I only said, “Nice to know you,” and cut the line. For a whole week, she tried calling me to insult me. I didn’t pick her calls. Then she used another line to call and I pick. Immediately I picked she screamed, “You’re one stu….” I cut the line. I could imagine how she would continue the insults on her dead line. 

Red flags. You hear about it every day in relationship stories. When things go wrong in a marriage, you’re told, “Didn’t you see the red flags while dating? Didn’t these behaviors come up while the two of you were dating?” So I’ve been very careful with the women I date. I don’t go fishing for red flags but when they do appear, I take them seriously. Red flags don’t come redder than what Grace brought.    

—Tim

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