16. Tea Time !

I am so petty it's sad 😂😂 Don't worry I'll change, or not

Another Christmas is coming.

No one has asked you what you want.

No one has asked you where you want to go.

No Matching Pyjamas.

No Matching Bracelets or Necklaces.

No Hot Chocolate with blankets and movie dates.

No Kissing under any stick much less a mistletoe.

Maybe truly you are a tree! (One day you too love will find you, or not.)

Don’t worry, you will be fine. Trees are also essential to our ecosystem. You are not as useless as the p in raspberry. At least not yet.

Last year, I was so unfortunate to be one of you. By Choice, of course, unlike you guys. Let’s go down memory lane. How did I move from breaking up with someone last year to dating the world’s best man this year (yes, feel free to quote me anywhere). If this gets too long, I’ll just do a part two. But I hope not.

Where do I start from? Oh yeah! Absolutely the disclaimer!

I’m not going to sugar coat things here. If you see your sub, collect and move on in peace. (I am the main character and so I am always right!).

Let’s get right into it then, ladies and others.

Roughly a year and five months ago, my dad died (Geez this is such a dramatic way to start a story, I’m laughing). Somewhere in the months leading up to his death, I had started to see many red flags in my then relationship which I proceeded to ignore.

The gaslighting. The Victim Mindset. The Laziness. The Overstepping of Boundaries. Let me be honest I had already began to see that this relationship might not go anywhere. This was sad but my mother had already said this when she met him, saw him and went “Is that who you want to date?”. I can’t believe I thought it would work out. We even fought the whole “if your family doesn’t accept me what would you do fight”, because I told him I would stay with my family not him. Being the loyal girl that I am though, I made us have a conversation several times to try to fix all our issues. I mean we lasted eight (8) good months after my mother’s spell of doom. However when I started to get the “I’m sorry I’m such a terrible person.” and never “Okay, this is how we are going to fix it” I realised the timer on the bomb had been activated. Deep down I realised, this was not going to survive unless there was some divinely motivated 180º change in his attitude. News flash, there wasn’t.

When I ask myself, “why did you stay so long?”. The answer was simple. I crushed on him in church, he was dancing and having so much fun that I thought “This must be God-sent” I forgot even the Devil attended a heavenly meeting with God in the times of Job.

PS: You see those “Pastor’s son”… RUN!!! My sister, run for your life!! I will not admit what I contributed to this relationship. This is my story, so of course I am the good person here.

Not to say that I was an absolute angel though… (Although I am, I’m just not saying it), because it did take my dad’s death and my inability to process my emotions to then tell this boy “It’s over between us”. (I told you it was relevant!). At least if not for anything, my dad did give me one last courage boost to do right by myself.

This boy on the other hand told me he wouldn’t accept this break up. Asked me not to tell our friends (in hindsight, I was a trophy girlfriend. The upgrade. The one he normally could never pull. Can’t even blame him. Have you seen me?). I remember lying to his face telling him you know what, let’s part ways. If it’s meant to be and we come back together then so be it. But if we find other people, we both move on (this isn’t some Christmas movie, we all know how that ends).

Later on in the December after my dad’s death, I swore off men to heal and be better for myself.

Did I listen to myself? Of course not. That December I was catching feelings when I should have been busy catching flights and flus with one other dude. Not my man. Yes. (I shamefully for once admit. It was a lapse in judgement and sight). Because how did I not see that boy was not built for something serious or long-lasting at least not for me? (I said you collect your sub quietly and go).

Anyways… I talk to him more, the thought of it was fun with this guy but deep down I knew it was not that deep. Then somewhere in February this year it was like a switch flipped in my head where I suddenly decided, I want to stop dating guys for shits and giggles and actually seriously date someone I saw a future with. And certainly not a future in an asylum or the streets, but rather, a good, stable and happy future.

This really became a point where the girlie that once said “Oh I don’t really have a type. Mostly anything goes. I’m not that strict”, died a horrible a violent death never to be seen again. I realised, you don’t have to set impossible standards. But certainly, knowing yourself and what you do and do not accept.

Telling myself, I would not settle for someone who does not communicate with me. Someone who is not willing to put in any effort. Even more importantly, I am going to treat myself really well, so that when anyone sees me, they can tell that I can do this for myself and so I would not lower standards for anything less. I am the standard. Sometimes you just need to love yourself that much to be able to choose better for yourself.

On this note minions;

Jump off a cliff first before you ever beg a man for his attention. He’s not too busy. He just doesn’t like you that much and deep down, you know it’s true. I did too and that’s why when your favourite man-child started telling me how unbearably busy he was that texting hi was an issue, I played it off at first but got sick of it fast enough.

Beyond that, this gentleman told me “cheating is fine especially in long distance” and “see if I miss you too much that is why I would need to find someone else” oh and “If I cheated you would never find out” and I still stayed and talked to him. (Giiirrrrllll, yeah I side-eyed myself too). I wish I could draw my facial reaction for you. I’m not going to pretend as if I didn’t like him I really did, why do you think I listened to all this for so long?

Long story short, I stopped texting this dude first and I did not hear from him for two and a half weeks straight!! Yes!! It was funny then and it’s still funny now. While that was happening I decided my life cannot revolve around a man, so I was busy taking myself out, exploring places and discovering new experiences. When he finally remembered I exist, because he needed my help with something or the other …

He calls me, I answer. He’s talking about how much he was so busy but he also missed me so much. I’m just quiet listening to him because… I'm not the one to be played anymore and honestly I didn’t miss him at all. My favourite part of this conversation is when he says “Oh I’m surprised you aren’t even complaining about how I haven’t been texted you in weeks. I had my response ready to tell you that if I didn’t call or text you, you could have called or texted me as well. So it would also be your fault that we hadn’t spoken in so long” (you’re shocked right? I was too. But it was too funny not to laugh).

I’m sure you can certainly see the point at which I told myself, I need to forcefully lower my IQ to continue like this. Unfortunately for him, my IQ and standards can only go so low. So I laughed it off and didn’t speak to him until the next time he reached out again, at which point I was just done with all of it. I had had enough time to really set my priorities straight and consider what I wanted to do.

One thing about me though, is I am very open, or at least I really try to be as much as I can. So in this same period, everyone involved knew what was going on. My boyfriend, who was a friend at that time, knew that I had a crush on this guy from December, and everyone one else involved at that time which in like 3 people in total. To be honest, I think the only person who didn’t know was him because I had stopped actively trying to talk to him. But as at the time I used to talk to him, he was aware of whatever the circumstances were, for example the “when men men” episode situation.

(Side note Sam, I contemplated dragging you in this as well… Let’s see if I change my mind down the line).

Eventually however, on the day that I decided to talk things out with him, I did bring it all up as I have no reason to hide anything. Basically, I’m talking to someone else by the way so don’t get surprised when you see me in a relationship in a couple of months and act like I blindsided you.

Let me drop this lesson here however ladies, the decision here was never between sticking with him or choosing someone else, because I know some of us jump from situationship to situationship wherever someone smiles our way. Fully recognising that this was something that happened with me, my first decision was with myself. Do I want a relationship at all. Mind you I was enjoying being single as well. The other considerations then went a lot deeper and I’m not about to unload months worth of considerations into this already long post.

But yes, my point is, I did not have to be in any relationship and I did not enter one until a couple of months later.

Now back to the conversation I had with him because it was definitely fun.

The most fascinating thing about this convo is…
(Sorry guys, I had to go and re-read the last messages between us to give you an accurate version of the story and I had to stop and laugh hard)

I’m just going to list the highlights from this convo and I wish I could just show you guys the receipts but that’s not me.

Day one at 4pm my time …

Him: I know we are on shaky grounds

Me: I guess this convo was bound to happen. (I’m also thinking if I don’t do this now, I would be a coward and might never actually do this and make it a lot messy. Also I did think it wasn’t fair to everyone involved to leave things in the grey)

Day 2 at midnight, approximately 8 hrs after I sent the long message why it would not work and a “you still there” because I wasn’t hearing from him.
Him: Sorry my phone switched off (Fam…, stay with me. We start a convo a very important one that HE initiated… and his phone goes off for 8 hours… EIGHT!? Come on now)…

Also him: Summarises my messages that there is no bad blood between us and we can still be friends. But how can he proceed (with his life - if you get my drift. I really didn’t know I was that life changing)??? He will call me when he gets home.

**Calls me at 2 am my time, which is approx. 5 am his time…

(Yes, I’m also asking myself why I was awake at that time answering calls. Let’s just say it was a Saturday and I had nothing to do)

Let’s get into the best parts…

Him: Did I not tell you that I like looking at you? (me right now… oh come on…). I’m waiting for you to tell me whether you love me or not.

Me: I don’t, not anymore.

Him: Even if you don’t love me anymore why can’t you lie to me. (Sorry, I love to exist in reality)

I think at this point I went to sleep and told him I’ll call him around 2pm later in the same day. I didn’t. (My girlies can tell you why. I can bet my left kidney that they can tell why).

He texts me at 4:50 pm to tell me he thought I said I’d call at 2pm…

Me: I got busy, I’ll call you later in the evening… I don’t remember if I did. (Ngl, this uno reverse felt so good).

I think I did eventually… and this is the convo where I mentioned I was talking to someone else and I do want to date them and so nothing could happen between us…

And I legit remember him saying “I will still text you though and you would be there. Nothing changes between us. If I miss you I’m going to call you and tell you that I miss you and I love you. I don’t care if you are in a relationship. That doesn’t matter to me.”

Now we all know this is giving two boyfriends. You know it!! And it is not for me.

Welp, long story extra short, we did stay in touch for a few days after that and since I stopped initiating conversations, obviously the communication died out.

I thought it ended there, boy was I wrong.

He reached out on snap, somewhere in July roughly 3 months later… (fun fact, I was lying beside my boyfriend… yes boyfriend while he dm’ed me)

And he says something along the lines of “I’m thinking of coming to Accra in August for the competition and I need you to plan everything for me”.

Minions!! My Flabbers were Gasted!!! This was not a “I’m coming to your country, I’ve planned this and that, can you help me confirm… or I have these questions can you answer” - which I probably would have done. He was just telling me “Plan my trip to Ghana for me”. Might I add he did mention “If I did eventually come it would obviously be because of you” (Like that was going to make me jump to the moon).

Me: Okay I hear you. And didn’t do anything else.

It’s been radio silence since then. I hear he talks about me from time to time when my name crosses mutuals. But well, as I always say… Life goes on.

Dear minions, I do have just one lesson for you. If you are suddenly colourblind and cannot see red flags… It is because you don’t love yourself and you can proceed to unfollow and block me.

I understand that for some of you, a guy being cute and quirky is all that you need… but ask yourself, in the future, where would that cute and quirky take you? When you think about having kids is this the kind of person you, you would want raising your kids? If your favourite child came home with such a partner, would you approve?

And if you think these questions are too serious and I’m acting all grown…

Then you also have your answer for yourself and please, by all means, do go on. I’m sure you’ll be happy with yourself.

In all your decisions and in your single-ass or beautifully coupled life…

With love, peace and joy…

Stay blessed.

Wes.

Cheers to more content and a beautiful December.