I am a young man who has had a series of misfortunes when it comes to love. Usually, I like to take my time to know someone before I consider them a love interest. I slowly build trust through friendship. I learn about the things that matter to them, their history, and all their little quirks. This is because, when I fall in love I give it my all. So I always want to be sure of the person I am giving my heart. Unfortunately, this works against me in relationships. 

Most of the women I have dated often try to rush things between us. They fall in love with me shortly after we meet and they expect me to do the same with them. I tell them, “I know that the newness of each other makes all of this exciting but I don’t want to rush the process. It will take some time before I can fall in love with you, so relax.” All the while, I do everything possible to show that I care about them. But by the time I start to fall in love with them they pull the brakes on the relationship. What used to be attention becomes nonchalance. And their confessions of “I love you” turn into “I waited too long for you to love me back so now I am done.”

Writing this makes me think about how much time I have spent fighting for the love of women, who were not patient enough to wait for me to love them in my own time. Sometimes I would fight and fight, and fight until there was no more fight left in me. Then I’d just tell myself, “Look at how much effort I have invested into making this person fall back in love with me. If I had used it to train for the Olympics, by now I would have qualified and even won a gold medal.” And then I move on with my broken heart, take my time to heal, meet someone new, and another cycle begins. 

 In 2020, I went through a breakup that tore me to shreds and nearly ruined me. While I was trying to heal, I thought deeply about my relationship history and realized that relationships are not for me. “Just like this person who broke my heart, everyone walks into my life with the promise of love but they end up replacing me with someone else. Going forward, I don’t want to deal with any more relationships brouhaha. I will quietly stay in my corner and lick my wounds.” Days passed into weeks, and weeks passed into months, but I stood by my resolve and remained single. 

In April 2021, I met a young woman in an online group. She was very chatty so I often engaged her. As time went on, our conversations started shifting from social formalities to personal issues. I intended to only be her friend. I didn’t turn on my usual charm or give her any impression that I wanted her beyond friendship. Yet somehow she got it into her head that we could be more. I saw all the signs that screamed, “I am interested in you, but how do you feel about me?” I had seen it enough times so I knew it very well. But because I didn’t want to be in a relationship, I pretended not to notice that she was practically throwing herself at me.

I thought my lack of interest would deter her but it didn’t. One day we were chatting when she texted; “There’s something I have been wanting to tell you. I don’t know how to go about it but I will just say it.” “Okay, go ahead,” I replied. The subsequent text that came was, “I have fallen in love with you, and I’m wondering if you have any feelings for me?” It isn’t that I didn’t like her, I did. But the timing wasn’t right for me. I hadn’t gotten over my ex yet, and I wanted to take a break from relationships. Besides she is a single mother and I didn’t want any drama with her baby daddy. All these reasons made me tell her, “I am not ready to be with anyone right now. And I am also concerned that the father of your child is lurking in the shadows. It’s best we keep being friends.” 

The saying that women don’t take rejection well applied in her case. She told me, “How would you know you are not ready until you give it a chance? If your concern is about my baby daddy, then don’t worry. He walked out of my life long before I gave birth.” I didn’t have the heart to reject her a second time so I decided to accept her proposal and give love one last try. She was very invested in the relationship but my heart was still set on my ex-girlfriend. This made me feel guilty and undeserving of her love. What made it worse was that she was very patient with me. She didn’t try to rush me into loving her back as the others did.

 So one day I called her and told her, “I see how hard you are trying to make things work between us but I don’t think you are the one who needs to try so hard. I am still not over my ex, that’s why I’m unable to love you properly. Let’s take some time apart so that I can work on my healing.” She sounded very hurt and I felt bad. Then she spoke to a friend of mine who was also her friend and asked him to convince me to give our relationship another try. After my friend spoke to me, I called her and explained to her that I just needed some time to heal from my ex. This time she understood that I wasn’t trying to hurt her. We still talked regularly and involved each other in major decisions. 

I spent more time with her and got to know her in ways I didn’t know her before. Gradually, my heart started beating happy rhythms when her thoughts crossed my mind. I realized I was no longer into my ex. She was the one who had my heart now and I was ready to give myself to her. Just when I was about to express my feelings for her, she started withdrawing from me. Many women have fled from me in the past so I know all the signs. I asked her, “What’s going on with you? Did I do something wrong? Let’s meet and resolve whatever the problem is.” She didn’t give me any concrete explanation for her behaviour. She just kept withdrawing more and more.

Every time I asked to see her she would give me an excuse. This happened for several months until she ran out of excuses to give. I was very disturbed by her behaviour so I sat down one day and analyzed myself. I told myself that maybe I’m the one who pushed her away. I wanted to be sure of what I did so that I could apologize appropriately. So I spoke to our mutual friend and asked him to speak to her on my behalf. She told our friend, “When I was ready to love him, he wasn’t ready for me. Now that I have moved on from him, he is ready. I am not going to lie, there’s a part of me that’s still in love with him but what if I give him my heart and he hurts it again?”

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Honestly, after my friend told me everything she said, I wasn’t myself. I persuaded her to come to my place so we’d talk and settle all our issues. When she showed up, we talked about everything. By everything I mean, she opened up about having multiple sexual partners. She said, “That’s the only thing men want from me, shuperu. So I give it to them in exchange for whatever I want from them.”

 I was shocked, “How can you say that? You know that I genuinely care about you. Even after we broke up, I kept you close because I wanted you to see how much you matter to me.” She responded, “I am sorry that telling you this hurt you. It’s just that I couldn’t wait around for however long it would take you to decide that you want me. I am only telling you this because I want you to know what I did after our breakup. If you are willing to move past it, I will break off all ties with these men and we’ll start over.”

The painful part is that she went ahead to tell me that she had shuperu with one of the guys just last month, even though she doesn’t have any feelings for him. I don’t know how to feel about a woman who has shuperu with someone just for fun. I am hurt that she used our time apart to sleep around while I was busy falling in love with her. I don’t even know what step to take next. I am very confused. 

—Goddy

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