Our first date was at the beach. It was in the afternoon. The sun was so hot we couldn’t feel the refreshing breeze that usually comes from the sea. He was there before I got there. He wouldn’t let me sit. Immediately he saw me, he hugged me and asked for a walk. I thought it was just a simple stroll along the beach. No, it wasn’t. By the time I realized, we had walked off the beach to another resort over five hundred meters away.

I was thirsty and hungry. When I asked him to buy me water he said, “Eiii, I can’t afford water at this place ooo. Let’s go to where we came from. It’s cheaper there.”

I couldn’t walk well but he didn’t notice or didn’t care. The sinking sands kept swallowing my feet so I struggled to walk. When we got to the first resort, he ordered a bottle of water. The price was GHC20. He whispered, “You hear the price? The other place would have been GHC50.”

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I gulp down half of the water and put the rest on the table to drink later but he picked it up, gulped it down and belched out loud. I signalled the waiter to bring another one. This guy held my hand and pulled me away, “Let’s go. We’ll buy some when we get to the roadside.”

He had been trying hard to get my attention but ignored him. I knew what he wanted but I wasn’t ready to fall in love. He looked calm and modest. When he called, he talked like a man who was raised in a Presbyterian home. He didn’t want to offend even the mosquitos in my room so he spoke slowly and gently but the sluggishness in his pace didn’t hide the intelligence he wielded. It was the reason I decided to give him a chance and see how the future would be like.

Our first date was a disaster but I didn’t want to draw a quick conclusion so I gave it another shot. I invited him over to a bar in my neighbourhood. I got there first. He came neatly dressed with his shirt tucked in. He called for a hug and I gave it to him.

I asked what he would take and he said he was full. “Oh, so you won’t even drink a coke?” I asked him. He shook his hand and squeezed his face as if the mention of Coke brought a bitter taste to his mouth. I placed my order; rice and beef sauce and a bottle of water. When the food arrived, he said, “See all the garnishing. All because they want to charge an arm and soul for a simple rice.”

It dawned on me that money was his problem. I told him, “Don’t worry. It’s on me. I invited you here so I understand I have to pay.”

He sat well and called the waiter; ” I want the same thing.” I started eating long before his food arrived but he finished eating long before I did. He asked for a walk. I asked where we were going. “To any quiet place,” he responded.

We walked around and around until my knee started wobbling. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t mention love, dating or anything that has to do with a relationship. Our walk took us closer to the lorry station. He jumped into a trotro and bade me goodbye while the trotro drove away.

I stood there watching the back of the trotro until it disappeared from view. I didn’t know what to think. I’d come to love his personality but I couldn’t marry what he was showing me to the personality I’d built of him in my head.

He called the next morning. He went on and on and on about what happened the previous night. I asked him, “What are we doing? What do you want from me?”

He went quiet for a while. I urged him to speak what was on his mind before he told me, “Yes, I want something from you but I want to take my time. I don’t want us to rush. You should know me for who I am and I’ll also do the same. That way, it becomes easier.”

I pushed him until he confessed he wanted a relationship. When I asked what he saw in me he couldn’t answer. When I asked how long he intended to take it slow, he couldn’t answer. I told him, “Please make up your mind and let me know. We are not kids. We can’t waste time.”

We chatted a lot from that day. He sent me funny memes about relationships and photos of adorable couples. When I asked if that was what he wanted from us, he said yes. I asked if that was supposed to be his proposal and he answered yes. I told him to give me some time to think about it.

You will call him stingy but because I loved him, I needed to use soft words to describe him. He had a job that should be able to afford him a plate of rice in an average restaurant. The kind of job he had, buying water for GHC20 shouldn’t break the bank for him. He was simply shrewd with money, I concluded.

He invited me to the Aburi Gardens. Lovers usually go to places together but for some unknown reason, he always got to the venue first and waited for me. He was in the garden when I got there. He paid for a tour of the various plants. He held my hand while we followed the tour guy. Right after the tour, he said we should take a walk. “But what did we just do? I asked “I’m tired and hungry. Where can we sit and eat?”

He retorted, “Why don’t you eat when coming from the house? If you continue living like that you’ll go broke ooo.”

I went to get the food myself. He didn’t follow me. I ate alone and joined him later. I was thinking about the whole thing; us, how far we’d come and how far we could go. I told myself I couldn’t date him but the tiny voice in my head said, “Don’t let a good man go because he won’t buy you food.”

When it was time to go home, he said we should walk to the Aburi township to get a taxi. I followed him. Taxis passed us by, he didn’t stop any. When we got to a taxi station, he told me station drivers were expensive. I shook my head and whispered to myself, “What have you gotten myself into?” A little further away from the station, a taxi drove by. I stopped him and entered. He was there looking at me. “Are you coming or not?” I asked him.

He sat next to me and we were silent throughout the journey. The little voice in my head popped up, “It’s hard Julie. You’re free to leave him because what is this?”

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He was the first to get down. He didn’t bother to pay a penny to the taxi driver. I knew that was the end of us. When I got home, I wrote him a letter;

“Dear Alex, I’ve thought about it. I don’t think it will work. Thank you for the walk. It made my heart raced. It was a good exercise. Thank you for everything.”

He read the whole long letter and responded, “OK.” That was all I got, well, apart from the walk. “OK” because it was OK the way things ended. He loved to walk so I learned to walk out of whatever he dreamt of having with me.

— Julie

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