I had a conversation with a bisexual woman last year when we were talking about starting a new relationship series (which is in the works). I was trying to find out more about her love life, and somehow, the entire story revolved around a situationship that spanned almost a year.
Given the recent conversations around situationships, I figured there was no better time than now to share her story. She talks about how they met, how they were comfortable not being a relationship and how everything fell apart. There’s something in here about a pregnancy too.
It started with a tweet; I tweeted about needing more sad songs to populate my playlist. He sent a DM with suggestions and a couple of days later, followed up with a text to see if I was impressed by them. I was. That was how we got talking. A few conversations in, he asked if I wanted to go on a date and I agreed.
At the restaurant, we talked about everything from religion to Twitter gossip. We agreed on most things. He was smart, funny and easy to talk to. This was important because ain’t nobody got time to be playing guess games and it is usually difficult for me to get into a smooth conversational flow with people I just met. He asked me to come with him to a party in a few hours so that the date wouldn’t end, but I had promised my mother I was going to make bitterleaf soup, so I went home instead.
Throughout the bus ride home, I was annoyed that I had to go home, but happy about how the date turned out. I found myself looking forward to seeing him again and made mental notes for topics we could talk about.
We texted intermittently for a couple of weeks. Things kind of slowed down. I mean the date was great, but I didn’t want to come off as overly eager to see him again so he just kind of eased out of my mind for a while.
A little while after, we agreed to meet up again for a movie at a cinema. We ended up making out throughout the movie, creeping out a bunch of older Nigerians because we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Before we knew it, sex entered the picture and it was perfect.
We kept this energy for a while, but eventually, it got messy for simple and not-so-simple reasons.
I didn’t want a relationship because I was terrible at them. They took much work and too much time. He didn’t either, which was one of the reasons it was great: I could get all of the fun, all of the great sex and none of the commitment.
A few months into whatever you can call what we were doing, I moved in with him for convenience reasons. His place was closer to my workplace than my mother’s house. There were days when it wasn’t my cup of tea, but mostly it was good in the beginning. It was amazing to wake up to him in the morning, watch him go through the motions of living, look closely at him in that small and private space, and just be ugly.
It was while we lived together that I realised that I liked him more than I liked most people. In fact, I loved him. When I was with him, I was a little less sad. But the fact remained that we were not exclusive. There were other people in the picture: I had a woman on the side and he probably did too.
About seven months in, we had a conversation where he decided that I had too much power over him and was stifling him. He said that we had to spend some time apart so we could think things through and decide what we wanted to do. We gave ourselves a month. I agreed and left, a little sad, but also understanding his need for space. A few weeks in, I had a series of appointments in his area, so I asked if I could come back only for a few days. He didn’t mind — at least, he didn’t say he did.
One night, I got to his place and he had a work guest over. He said it would only take a few hours, so I went to the parlour to chill while they worked in the room. He was supposed to wake me up when she left so I could shower, prepare for the next day, and sleep. He didn’t, but I needed to pee so I woke and checked my phone to see he left me a message saying they had ended up working far into the night, so she’d be sleeping over. Not an unreasonable turn of events, but the way it was handled made me feel he was trying to send a message that I was a not-so-important part of his life.
Why didn’t he come out to tell me in person that his guest asked to sleep over because it was late? What does that mean if not go-and-kill-yourself?
As if that was not enough, I got pregnant.
I was on birth control, so I don’t know how it happened. One of those hateful sperm things must have found its way to an egg and fertilised the shit out of it. I was away on a work trip when I took the test and found out I was pregnant. I sent him a text to tell him the news and what I wanted to do. An abortion.
He texted back with one word: “Wonderful.” It was the word he used when he didn’t know what to say, but I was pissed — annoyed by this reaction. Eventually, he called back and asked if I wanted to keep it. I didn’t want to, although there was one moment when I was drinking and realised I had alcohol in my glass and thought about stopping so I wouldn’t hurt the pregnancy. The ridiculousness of that hit me; I laughed and resumed my wine.
We didn’t talk for a while after this. I was still pissed. Eventually, I put my grievances aside and we agreed to meet when I was back from my work trip. When we met up, he told me he had something to say. There was a pause, before he started speaking again. In long, winding words, he informed me that he had “somehow” gotten himself into a relationship that he didn’t see coming. It was a painful conversation because I felt blindsided and a tad manipulated.
Considering that it was the same work guest that was now his girlfriend, I realised, it was probably business and pleasure mixed together.
We decided to just stay friends but a few months later he said that was not working. We obviously missed being together, so we decided to bring the sexual relationship back.
A few more months later, we had this bare all conversation where we were apologetic about all that had transpired between us especially from his own end. We fessed up about our true feelings and what we wanted going forward. I was out of town then, so we agreed to meet up and talk more in person when I returned. We didn’t get the chance to because he had to go out of town as well. So we don’t really know what we’re doing, but we also know that we’re definitely not together. Here’s the fun part: his girlfriend is very much alive and in the picture.
The moral of this story? I don’t know. The problem, I eventually realised was that the minute we both wanted more from each other, we never communicated. The indepth conversations we had about our situationship were far and few between. From the onset, we never clearly determined what we wanted. And well, feelings were caught.
Did you enjoy reading this? Then you should also check out these out: Situationships Work When You’re On The Same Page and Love in The Age of Genotype.
