When I was a little girl, I thought that everything in life especially romance was straight forward. I thought that I would grow up, meet a ‘prince charming’ who I will marry and we would live happily ever after. But that was not the case. When I turned 20 I did meet a prince charming named Jason who showed me pepper.
He was 25, Handsome and tall… you know me and handsome men. We fell in love within weeks of meeting each other and literally became inseparable. We did almost everything together. I was doing my NYSC by then and he was working in a bank. Now that I think of it, I actually started working in a bank because of him. Everything went well until he met a Calabar girl named Patricia. My dear, the things people say about Calabar girls are not lies at all. Calabar girls are a special species of man-eaters. If you meet a guy and he tells you that his ex is a Calabar girl, remove your shoes and run.
Jason who was always faithful to me started cheating on me with Patricia, the Calabar girl until I became the side chick in the relationship and he married her. Yes, they got married in short they already have a son. So, there went my prince charming.
Ever since that experience, I became more ‘realistic’ about love. I stopped believing in ‘prince charming’ and I also removed the mentality of ‘love is blind’ from my head. Love still has the ability to blind you but you must shine your eyes and now that I have shined my eyes, I am still not getting it right.
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I know that I said that I was going to make things official with Max but when I got to his house I couldn’t do it. Instead, I told him that things were moving too fast for me and I needed a break
“How exactly are things moving too fast? Did I ask you to marry me?” he asked
“No…”
“Don’t you want to get married?” he interrupted
“Yes but I am not ready for that now. To be honest, I am not ready to be in a relationship” I retorted expecting him to get upset but he didn’t
“Okay” he replied calmly
We ate quietly and I left. When I got home I sent him a message to let him know that I was home as I usually did but no response; I called him but he did not answer. I waved it off thinking he may have fallen asleep or something. Three days later, I didn’t hear from him and he didn’t answer my calls or messages. Yup, you guessed it, I started freaking out. I wanted us to slow down not for him to kick me to the curb.
I decided to pay him a visit to his house to see what was going on. When I got there, there was another lady at his door knocking. Can you believe that he let her in and did not let me in?
“What do you want?” he asked in a hostile manner
“I just wanted to see that you are fine,” I said casually as if nothing was wrong
“I am fine. Thank you”
“Okay good,” I said and walked away before the tears bubbling up my eyes started to drop. He didn’t call me back or chase after me and I was glad because I just wanted to get the hell out of there.
As the law of confusion would have it, Tobe called just as I was crying in my Uber. Only God knows why I answered
“Hello,” I said through my tears
“Are you alright?” he sounded concerned
I couldn’t tell him exactly what was wrong but I admitted that I wasn’t alright
“I’m coming over” he insisted
I was almost home so I let him make his way to my house. I got home and had a little time to freshen up before his arrival.
He came at exactly 8:p.m and for some reason, I was happy to see him. I guess he was also glad to see me because the hug he gave me was very long. We sat down on the pavement in front of my house and talked for a while
“You see, you are just like me” he laughed after I finally told him why I was crying
“Hell no, you and I are nothing alike”
“That guy seems to really like you but you ended it when it became too real and became upset when he moved on” he explained
“First of all, I didn’t end it I wanted us to slow things a bit, it was moving too fast” I wasn’t going to let him win this argument
“That’s what you said but what he heard was ‘break up’. I’ve been there before I’ll know”
“Oh really, you have the capacity to fall in love?” I joked
“How do you think I got this way. The compilation of bad breakups results to the manifestation of the fear of commitment”
“I don’t have the fear of commitment” I denied
“We all do. In different degrees… Life has put it in us whether we want it or not”
“I don’t like that term ‘the fear of commitment’ it makes me feel like something is wrong with me”
“Nothing is wrong with you. You are perfect” he looked into my eyes and kissed me; a kiss that took the wind from under me. If I was standing I think my knees would have given me way to fall to the ground. The kiss was so mesmerizing that we couldn’t talk after. We just sat there in silence basking in each other’s presence. It was a charming night.
