Four months ago, I met a girl I loved right from the word go. It was one very hot afternoon. She stood in front of her gate, all dressed up and ready to step out. I saw her from a distance. I liked her but had no intention of stopping for her. When I got to where she was standing, she waved for me to stop. She looked inside the car and asked, “Can you please drop me at the junction? The sun is too hot. From here to the junction is too far to walk. Please do me a favor.” There was something about her and the way she pleaded. I said, “Don’t worry. Get in and let’s go.” 

She sat beside me and I drove off. From her house to the junction was like five minutes drive. She said she liked my car’s interior. I said thank you. She asked if I lived around. I said, “No I came to check on something around here.” Just when we were about to get to the junction she asked if I was going to town. I said, “Yeah, that’s my direction.” She said, “Great then let’s continue.” I was quiet while she kept bombarding me with questions until we both started having a long conversation. She laughed easily and she sounded like a girl who knew what it meant to be humble. 

Everything she told me was centered around having fun. She told me about her two friends and how they always went out to chill. She said, “I live far from town but that doesn’t stop me from having fun. After a hard week’s work, a girl has to find a place to cool things down.” I loved everything about her. I love to have fun too. I love it if I do it with someone I’m romantically involved so that day we exchanged contacts and the next day, we had our first outing. There was no dull moment between us. She was a good dancer. She danced to every music that was played that night. I watched her. Her moves pleased my eyes so that very night, I proposed.

She said, “You don’t even know me that well.” I said, “Knowing someone is a journey, not a destination. If you give me the chance, I’ll take the rest of our days to know you deeply but for now, I know enough to know that I like you and want you in my life.” She said, “I don’t know enough about you. Give me some days.” I asked, “How long?” She said, “Today’s Friday. Give me up to Sunday.” So Sunday I went to her house. Right there, she told me she liked me too, and right there and then, our relationship took off. 

A week or so later, I asked her, “Why is your TV mount empty?” She said, ”The TV I had got spoilt. Now looking for money to buy a new set. Or you would buy it for me?” I said, “Why not? Just give me some time.”

I added the purchase of a TV to my next month’s budget. 

One evening she called that she wanted us to go out. I said, “It’s Thursday.” She said, “I know a place where they do Karaoke on Thursdays. Let’s go and sing the night out.” I followed her. We were there when her two friends joined. She introduced them; “Meet Bene and Felicity.” I shook hands with them and they joined our table. By the time the night was over, we had spent over GHc600. The next day was a Friday. Again we went out. Just when we were about to start having fun, her two friends joined again. Those girls know how to order things but don’t know how to pay. The first thing they looked for when they sat down was the menu. They’ll go through it, select the exotic dishes and then leave the bill for me to pay. That night I had to pay a bill close to GHC700.

When I dropped her that night I told her about her friends; “When we are going out and your friends would come along, at least, let me know before they come along so I can budget for them.” She said, “If you don’t like them, it’s ok. I would ask them not to come around again.” I said, “I didn’t say I don’t like them. I’m telling you to pre-inform me before they come with us next time.”

She took me to a building site and showed me a house she was building for her mother. She said she started the project about six years ago when she had a good job. Unfortunately, she lost that job and she couldn’t continue with the project. She said, “If you marry me, this would be our first project to complete. I need a place for my mother. I said, “Why not. Moms deserve the best. Three months later she lost her phone. She was expecting me to buy a new one for her. I had it in my budget to do it but not immediately. 

She told her friend, Bene, that since we met, I haven’t been able to buy her anything. All I do is make promises that lead to nothing.  Bene called to tell me playfully, “Our sister’s phone is missing and you won’t buy some for her?” I said, “I will. I’m making plans to get her a new one.” She said, “Please hurry up, our sister is losing trust in you. I like you and I want you two to be together for so long. Don’t lose her because you didn’t buy her a new phone.”

So I called my girlfriend and asked why she told Bene that I wasn’t buying her a phone. She said, “She’s my friend and I tell her everything. So What’s wrong if I tell her that?” I said, “Somethings should remain between the two of us. They don’t have to come in.” She said, “She wouldn’t have known if you bought the phone for me. Since we met, you only promise me things and never get them for me. Stop promising and deliver.” 

What she said got me very angry but I played it cool. Then her other friend, Felicity also called on the same issue. “Please we need to talk to our sister on phone so when are you getting her one?” 

That was the last grain that tipped the balance. I went to her house to confront her. She asked me, “You said you will buy me a TV some months ago, have you bought it? When you said you’ll pay for the items I sent to my mom during Christmas, did you pay?” You said you’ll fill the gas but you never did until I did it myself. What have you ever promised and delivered?” Then I went into my pocket and brought out all the receipts of expenses we’ve ever made during outings with her friends.

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I said, “We met three months ago. Here are all the receipts. Do the maths and tell me. How much is a phone and how much is a TV set? You were happy wasting money on your friends because they are your friends. We spent money that could have equally paid for a TV set and buy you a phone. Today your friends have forgotten that they ate while I paid. It’s not that I made promises and didn’t deliver. It’s you who was busy wasting money you could have used to buy all these things on your friends. Or you thought I was a mugu?”

She was shocked when she saw the receipts. She said, “Which man keeps the receipts of outings? It’s only a stingy man who will do that. You spend on your woman and keeps records of it?” I can’t live with such a man.” I said, “I can’t live with a woman who doesn’t know how to protect his man’s wallet. When you girls go out to buy food for yourself, you buy kenkey and fish or waakye and the rest but when it’s me paying, you eat exotic foods because it’s not your money.”

That was it. We don’t buy TV and a phone while wasting money on foods we can’t even pronounce their names. She calls me stingy but I don’t mind being called stingy for knowing how to spend within my budget.

—Godwin 

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