He’s a very handsome guy but I didn’t choose him because of his looks. When he approached me the first time, I didn’t like him. I didn’t want to even be his friend. But he used my friends to get to me. I softened my stand. I allowed the conversation to go over the minute line. I started calling him on the phone too and texted back immediately when he texted. He proposed when the friendship was barely weeks old. I said yes, “Let’s see where the tides would lead us.

Months later, while I felt our relationship was growing, I also felt something wasn’t right with my boyfriend. He would post a photo of himself on his WhatsApp status every day, singing praises about his looks. “Hide your girlfriends before they fall.” “Boyfriends don’t like me because I look better than them.” “I don’t like your girlfriend, she’s the one in my DM.”

You would expect something better than this from a thirty-three-year-old man so I picked up a conversation with him on that.

“Who are you shading on your status and whose girlfriend is in your DM that you always make a post about?”

“No one. It’s just captions but it’s a fact too. Paddies are jealous of me but it’s not my fault that I’m better looking.”

I asked him to stop posting those things because it didn’t exude class and maturity. He told me I was also part of the problem because I didn’t comment on the photos he posted. “I don’t even need your comment. Come into my inbox and see the kinds of women who comment on my stuff,” he bragged.

Compliment is also a love language. I thought that could be his love language so I started telling him how good he looked in dresses; “This dress sits on you very well.” He would say something like, “I know. That’s why I wore it.” I would say something like, “You look like a prince today” and he would respond, “God took his time with me, I know.”

It got me angry sometimes but they were things I could easily let go of until he started brushing it in my face.

We had a fight about a call. He promised to call but didn’t. When the call wasn’t coming, I called him and he didn’t pick up. Not once, not twice. This was just a simple fight couples usually do but he made me feel like I didn’t deserve to be angry because it was him. We had a winding argument that he later told me, “You can leave if you want to. Do you know how many ladies want to take your place?”

My heart froze with anger. I told him to go to those ladies and leave me alone. We didn’t talk for a day. The following day, I called to apologize for everything. I took the blame so we could let things go. He misunderstood the gesture and thought I couldn’t live my life without him.

He would go to a wedding and make the wedding about himself. “They thought I was the groom. The bride was eyeing me.” I muted his status. After a while, maybe when he realized I wasn’t watching his status, he came to question me. I was honest about it. I don’t want to see a mature man behave like a high school boy.”

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“So why are you still with me if you think I’m a high school boy? Why don’t you leave? Go today and tomorrow I will have a new one. Do you know how many wo—

I didn’t allow him to complete his statement. “Mr. Beautiful. Mr. Lover boy. Mr every-woman-wants-to-be-with-me. I hear you. I’m out of your life. Allow those women to take over.”

Another break-up that lasted for two days. When I didn’t call him, he recruited my friend to speak on his behalf. I didn’t listen to my friend. He sent his friend. I sent him away. He called, “So you were serious when you said you were out?” He asked me. I answered, “Why are you calling? Please go straight to the point.”

After beating about the bush for several minutes, he apologized. It wasn’t even a fully baked apology but I accepted it the way it was, thinking once the apology had come from him, he’d be better. He was better but for a few weeks before the next fight happened.

We went for a program together. Every few minutes, he would take a selfie. When the program ended, he gave me his phone to take a photo of him. I walked away.

He gave the phone to another lady and the lady did. After, I saw him talking to the lady. I stood on the side waiting for him until I saw that he and the lady had taken a seat and were chatting heartily. I texted him that I was leaving. He read the message and didn’t respond. I went home alone.

He took photos with the lady. All evening, he kept posting those photos with some funny captions, trying to get a reaction from me. I watched everything and didn’t say a word. He didn’t text or call. I decided not to. One day, two days, three days later, we didn’t call each other. I wrote a long message for him, telling him we were over.

I didn’t send the message. I thought he wasn’t worth it. Five days later, he texted, “When you do silly things and have to apologize, you go silent waiting for me to call you. That’s what you always do but this time, you won’t get me. Do you think I have your time?” I responded, respectfully, “Thank you for not having my time. Have a good day.”

He sent a five-minute-long voice note. I texted, “Who is going to listen to that, me? Boi!”

Slowly, I was getting used to the fact that he was no longer in my life. I wasn’t hurt. I was rather tired and his absence was an opportunity for me to catch my breath. Two weeks later, he was back spinning tales of the past and trying to get me to accept that we both messed up so we should mend.

I’d already mended. I told him I wasn’t ready to be with a man who made me feel like he was doing me a favour by being with me. “Where are the women ready to take my place the minute I’m gone?” I asked. “Tell them the position is vacant so they should start auditioning for it.”

He’ll come today to talk about the need to come together and disappear for days when I say no. He’ll post pictures of himself and sing his own lullaby until he’s tired and then come back again asking us to be together. He doesn’t know what he loves the most, himself or another woman he can call a girlfriend. Not me. I’m so gone.

—Asabea

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