Students in Nigerian universities have stories to tell, but hardly anyone to tell them to. For our new weekly series, Aluta and Chill, we are putting the spotlight on these students and their various campus experiences.
A lot of things in life are fleeting. I might be wrong, but quite a number of relationships that happen in University don’t stand the test of time.
The subjects of this week’s story are students at University of Lagos, and they share their most memorable breakup stories.
Monica — He was in a relationship with 7 other people
I was in a relationship with this smooth talker sometime ago. I was convinced that we had a future together. He asked me to be his girlfriend with a poem. I don’t remember the full content, but it included something about how I was the one for him. Also, there was a line about how he loved me so much because his mother and I share a name.
However, a girl always called him every time he was with me. Of course, he downplayed it and claimed that the girl was obsessed with him. He was very open about our relationship, so I didn’t think I had anything to worry about.
My instincts, on the other hand, were on overdrive. The urge to get the girl’s number got too hard to ignore and I swiped it off his phone.
One day, I got really anxious and texted the girl. I asked her if he knew the man I was in a relationship with and she confirmed that she knew him — my boyfriend was also her boyfriend.
It was a big revelation, even though I took it as calmly as I could. I explained the situation to the girl. For some reason, she didn’t believe me. When I sent her all the receipts and pictures, she still didn’t think they meant anything.
I decided that we were over that night. I went to sleep with a testy eye and a heavy heart, with no clue how to get over him. The following morning brought more unnerving revelation. I woke up the next morning to see 6 different ladies calling him out on Twitter.
Apparently, he wrote the same poem for all of us and gave us the same corny story about us being namesakes with his mother.
Michael — We couldn’t make a long-distance relationship work
I was in 100 level when I started dating this girl. She was in her second year at the time. A little over a year after we started dating, she left the country to study, and she was going to spend 5 months there.
We probably should have ended it there, but we didn’t. We decided to give a long-distance relationship a shot, and it worked for 3 months or thereabout. After that, things started to go downhill. We couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong exactly, but it was clear that things weren’t the same anymore.
Luckily, she got back not long after. That was a lifeline. We talked things out and sorted everything we thought was wrong. We were still going — even stronger — and life was good.
Unfortunately, I had to travel out of the country too — I would be there for two years.
After I left the country, I realised that I needed to be free from the relationship. I was in a new country and discovering new things as I went, so I guess that I grew out of the relationship. We tried to keep it going for as long as we could, but it was only a matter of time. Eventually, we called it quits. On some level, I think I was relieved. The fate of the relationship was sealed the moment I left the country.
Tonton — I didn’t think he took us seriously
I started going out with this guy when I was in 100 level. We hung out a lot despite that we were in different faculties. Our favourite was to do was to go to the movies. It was my first relationship — there wasn’t any previous experience to compare it with, but I thought it was good.
My problem was his unwillingness to go to the extra mile for me. He was aloof for the most part. I was very big on celebrating important events like birthdays and Valentine’s Day, but he couldn’t care less about them. Also, he didn’t tell anyone that we were in a relationship. However, I didn’t turn any of this into a big deal.
And it probably wouldn’t be a big deal if he didn’t start to drift away from me. At this point, school had started to get hectic for me, yet I made sure to check in on him at every chance I got.
Things got to a head when one of my closest male friends saw him in the company of some girls and narrated what he saw to me. The way he put it, my supposed boyfriend was flirting with other girls.
This heightened my distrust for him. It didn’t help that we were barely talking to each other at the time. After a while, I realised that I couldn’t keep up with it anymore.
Surprisingly, he didn’t take it well when I told him I wanted to break up with him. The news riled him up. To be fair, he wanted us to give it another go. I was done, and that was all that mattered. It was my first relationship and it was great for a while, but I knew that it was time to keep it moving.
Tosin — I couldn’t get past his weird obsession
When I got to university, I was reunited with this guy I knew from secondary school. We were friends, so when our paths crossed again, we decided to be more than that. It didn’t take long for me to become deeply attached to him.
There were a lot of night walks to all the cool spots on campus. It was clear that we enjoyed each other’s company.
I’m not sure of the exact moment when this happened, but I realised that suddenly, I wasn’t crazy about the kind of guy he was. For starters, he was always posting a shitload of sexual content on his WhatsApp status. I’m not a prude, but the frequency with which he did this bothered me.
It triggered my trust issues and I found myself wondering what he was up to when I wasn’t there. When it became too much for me, I talked to him about it, hoping that he would appreciate that I was open with him and maybe get a grip on his obsession with nudity.
I got it all wrong. He got defensive about it. I would have let it go if he didn’t tell me that he wouldn’t mind blocking me if I wasn’t cool with his posts.
From that moment, I lost a lot of interest in him and the relationship. However, I decided to keep up appearances. Besides, I lived for our evening walks. Unfortunately, our walks couldn’t save the relationship. When it became clear that he didn’t really care about how I felt, I knew I had to kick him to the curb.
I took the easy way out, though. I started to withdraw from him. It became easy to forget that he existed. Whenever he wanted us to hang out, I would give some silly excuse to make sure it didn’t happen. Eventually, we drifted apart to a point where neither of us could claim to be in a relationship with the other, and we haven’t looked back since.
Can’t get enough Aluta and Chill? Check back every Thursday at 9 AM for a new episode. Find other stories in the series here.
