I met SK about a year ago at an eatery where I worked as a cashier. He came around with three other guys. The waitresses were busy so I left my cashiering job and I attended to them. They had pistols on them and that made me scared a little.

They looked new. They didn’t look like people who frequent the hotel. I could tell from their demeanor and also from their faces. I’ve worked at the hotel long enough to know the people who came around often. These guys didn’t look like the customers I’ve grown used to. It didn’t make any difference. I took their order and served them. After serving them, SK said, “Why is my ‘ugali’ this small?” I smiled. I was willing to get him some more but he smiled back and said, “Don’t worry, I’m only kidding.”

They later asked for the serviettes, and I sent it to them. When I got to their table, this stranger asked me to turn around. It may look like a weird request but when you work in the hotel, you get such requests so often that it loses its weirdness. To make him happy, I did a 360 turn around for him. Hey laughed. He said, “How come you have this body? People from your tribe don’t usually possess your kind of body. What happened to you?” The way he said it was funny so we all laughed.

They came around again and again until they became familiar faces. It was during their frequent visits that I developed some sort of friendship with SK. When they came around, he was the one who paid special attention to me, trying to talk to me and trying to make me his friend. Eventually, he asked for my number and I gave it out to him. Guys who are interested in you usually call your number the very day they get it but not SK. It took him three weeks before he called.  A guy who calls back after three weeks? I wasn’t interested in him so I tiptoed around him. The first day he came around

One day our conversations went into far territories. I asked questions and he answered. It was through that conversation that I got to know that he and his friends were criminal investigators. He told me he was a single father of one boy and his marriage did not work out. I asked, “So you are co-parenting with your ex-wife?” He answered, “No we are not.”  From there he didn’t say much about his family life and the marriage that didn’t work. Actually, he was a man of few words so it became hard for me to know a lot about him.

He asked me out, and I kept turning him down. He didn’t give up. He kept asking me out until I obliged. We went out that day and I saw him in a different light—a light that was too good to ignore. I liked him but he never proposed. We went out a lot and got closer each day. He still didn’t propose so one day I asked him, “Are you not going to ask me to be your girlfriend?” He looked at me and said “We’ve spent so much time together and I assumed you are my girlfriend”

Red flag number one!

I couldn’t get a read on him. I tried to figure him out and know who he really is but there was so little to help me figure him out.  I worked on observing him. Keenly grasping the little he said if there was any at all.

Fast forward, this man asked me to visit him one day. I was overly excited about the invitation. I had it all figured out. In my mind, I said, “We would go for a perfect road trip, and we’d have dinner at a romantic restaurant.” I rehearsed my lines on how well I was brought up, and how old-fashioned I was when it comes to love and relationships. I would tell him, “You need to ask me out properly. I mean like how it was done in the old days. Our mothers’ times when men were gentlemen, and women were demure. Man meets a woman. The man says I love you. The woman says give me time to think about it. The man desperately pursues until the woman says yes. That way. I want it that way.”

I imagined a perfect night where everything goes according to plan but guess what. All my plans went down the drain when I saw him. We ended up doing having sex. Shuperu as they call it here. I fell for this guy in a thud. We were so much in love I thought nothing could break us apart but one day we had a disagreement and this guy never come around or talked to me for four weeks. I feared I’d lost him. How could I lose a love this new? So, I swallowed my pride and texted him first.

A man who stays out for four weeks after a simple disagreement? Red flag number 2!

I trusted him enough to give him my house key so that he could come around any time he wanted. That’s how to build trust. If a man holds the key to your heart, it’s just right that you give him the keys to your doors too. He who plays in your heart has earned the right to play in your room too. I felt he was going to reciprocate the gesture but he never did.  He never gave me his keys and I never asked for them. As if that wasn’t enough he told me, “Don’t come to my place unannounced. I don’t like surprises. I prefer a situation where I know you would be coming so I prepare for you.”

I hope we are counting the flags!

During one of my visits, I found a woman’s clothes in his house. He said, “They belong to my cousin who was in town for a graduation ceremony.” When he realized I wasn’t buying it he went ahead to show me some clothes that belonged to a child. He said, “It was a family party so she even came around with her kid.” I must have looked stupid to him. How else could he tell such unintelligent lies, and expect me to believe them? That day before I left his house, I slipped my number in the trousers of the “cousin”, and left a note that said, “Call me when you find this.”

By then, I hadn’t met anyone in his life, except his younger brother.

Things escalated that weekend when I found condoms in his house. I screamed, “What about these huh? How did they get here?” He answered, ‘You’re getting it all wrong. I don’t know anything about them. It might be for my brothers who came around.” Again, I might have been the dumbest person he might have ever met to think I would believe him. Something I found in his own room belongs to his brothers? I decided that day, that I was done with him. I didn’t say it was over, but it was. I was just waiting for more evidence and probably catch him red-handed.

If you are following, I am telling you even after this incident, he came to my place and we had a good time. Whoever is keeping count of the red flags, should know that red is my favorite color.

He bought my younger sister a new phone. Good guy eeh! Anything I needed, he got it for me. Sometimes I would wake up, and find he had sent me money via M-Pesa. We stayed away from each other’s phones. Things were peaceful, until the day I asked him to hotspot me, and he did. Within two minutes, I was on his WhatsApp. I saw a number saved with his surname. I suspected it could be his wife. When I asked him, he said, “That’s my cousin. We have the same surnames because we are cousins.

I didn’t believe it, even a little bit. The owner of the trousers hadn’t called, and I really wished she had. Men can be silly sometimes but a girl in love can be a complete idiot.

I didn’t have to wait longer than necessary. An unknown number called me one day, and guess who was at the end? She said, “My name is SH. You asked me to call.” We had a long conversation and I got to know all the details. SH is SK’s wife. They have four kids and was pregnant at the time we were talking.

READ ALSO: I Never Thought One Day I Will Fight Another Woman Over A Worthless Man

Wow! I had my suspicions, but the details blew me out. She told me she was at SK’s house so I decided to go and see things for myself. I met the two of them. Seated comfortably in the house. I stared at SK, wondering if he wasn’t the same man who spent the previous night in my house. He stood by his wife. When I started asking questions, he rushed on me and slapped the hell out of me. It was my fault for finding out so he beat me.

I left his house with my ears ringing and my heart torn into pieces. But it didn’t stop there. He followed me out of the door. I thought he was going to beat me some more but he shamelessly followed me trying to explain himself and his actions. He said, “Hey you don’t have to take things seriously. She’s just an ex who came by trying to make amends. She’s nothing to me. We were done long ago but she’s the one pushing herself on me.

I don’t know the kind of fool I appeared to be in his eyes. What kind of exes live together with their child or children? But the fault was mine. I gave him the chance to treat me the way he did. I saw the signs. I counted the red flags yet I went down head first falling in love with a man I shouldn’t have had anything to with in the first place.

I am done with relationships.  I am done with men. I’m done with love. This year, I am focusing on building myself and healing my ailing heart.  I am sharing this story so I can stop feeling stupid. I’m letting it out so I can have enough empty space for healing. I’ve learned today so tomorrow I can do better.

—Double G, Kenya

Do you have any relationship experience to share? Email it to [email protected]

NOTE: NO PART OF THIS CONTENT CAN BE REPUBLISHED OR REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT THE EXPLICIT CONSENT OF THE EDITORS OF THIS BLOG