Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.
Karo, 29, and Folakemi, 27, have been dating for two years. Today on Love Life, they talk about meeting in secondary school, being friends for over 15 years and how transitioning from friendship to a relationship affected them.
What’s your earliest memory of each other?
Karo: We attended the same secondary school in 2008. I joined the school in SS 1 with my twin brother. We were all in the same class.
Folakemi: But I left that same term and we met again in Obafemi Awolowo University in 2011.
How’d you become friends?
Karo: Tobi, a mutual friend from secondary school linked us. Initially, we’d only hang out when Tobi was around, but after a while, we exchanged phone numbers and started building our own friendship.
Folakemi: I was also friends with his twin brother. My sister too, hung out with us from time to time.
Karo: As time passed and we became closer, I realised that I liked her. I was in 300 level by then, but I was too shy to do anything about it. I kept it to myself for the first few months but then my feelings kept growing so I decided to tell her.
What did she say?
Karo: She said no.
Folakemi: Because I wasn’t ready for a relationship at that point in time. He wanted to wait till I was ready but I told him not to.
Karo: I was so sure that she was going to say yes because we used to chat every day. When she said no, I couldn’t handle it and the best way I could move on was to stop talking to her.
Folakemi: Karo and I would see each other and say hi, but we didn’t have conversations.
How long did that last?
Folakemi: For about a year.
Karo: I eventually got over it and we started talking again. It wasn’t hard to reconnect because we had the same friends and our siblings were friends.
Folakemi: Plus he also got a girlfriend. He brought her to my room when we started talking again. We all remained friends until we graduated. This time, we weren’t talking every day like before. After a while, our friendship kind of fizzled out.
How did you two now get here?
Folakemi: Two years after we graduated, he called me on my birthday and we had a long conversation. We were just catching up on each other’s lives.
Karo: Catching with up on that call made me realise I still liked her so much, but I knew I didn’t want to lose her again so I kept it to myself. Our friendship progressed again. We kept in touch with calls and texts. There were nights we’d talk on the phone for hours not caring that we had work the next day.
Folakemi: We enjoyed spending time with each other as friends. His office was close to my house in Victoria Island, and they had game rooms and lounges, so I visited quite often. One day while we were hanging out at the office, we decided to call one of our secondary schoolmates, Yewande, who is in the US. As we were all gisting, Yewande said, “You guys are always hanging out together, why aren’t you guys dating?”
The question came as a surprise so we pushed it away but she was persistent. We told her we’d answer her individually.
Why weren’t you?
Folakemi: I liked him, but it wasn’t something I paid attention to until Yewande asked.
Man: I told Yewande that I already asked Folake out but she said no. I didn’t want to get my hopes up again. We continued with our friendship until 2020.
What happened then?
Karo: We texted each other more. One day during the pandemic lockdown, while we were playing a game of 21 questions, she admitted that she liked me too. I asked her out when they eased the lockdown and we could see each other.
Tell me she said yes.
Folakemi: LOL, I did and we’ve been dating since then.
Interesting, did your relationship with each other change when you started dating?
Folakemi: I’ve always been myself with him. There was no talking stage for us, and I liked the ease with which we slipped into our relationship. Our vibe when we were just friends was relaxed and it still is. I’m very grateful to be able to show up as myself in this relationship.
Karo: We have had good and bad times, but the fact that we are friends helps us navigate situations easier.
What kind of situations?
Folakemi: Before we started dating, there were things I wasn’t too bothered about. For example, I could comment on his budgeting habits and if he doesn’t take it, I wouldn’t care because we were just friends. Now, we’re in a relationship, so his decisions affect me just as mine affect him. When we weren’t together, he could decide whether or not to take my advice but now, it’s frustrating when he doesn’t.
Karo: These seemingly little things started to cause fights. Folakemi would be so angry at me and I wouldn’t understand why.
Folakemi: It was a very harsh reality. We fought a lot in the first year of our relationship. I didn’t think that we’d fight as much because we’d been friends for so long.
Tell me about the biggest fight you ever had.
Folakemi: All the big fights were about money. I’ve always been more calculated with money whereas he’s the opposite. In the beginning of our relationship, I was trying to help him with budgeting by always asking how he spent his money.
Karo: And most of the time, that question was annoying.
Folakemi: I felt these questions were important because by the time we got married, our money would become each other’s money, so it’s good to know how to manage our finances.
How so?
Folakemi: We got better at communicating with each other. Early on in the relationship, Karo would go mute and not speak about an issue until he was less angry.
Karo: But I’ve grown. Now, I try to figure out where I dropped the ball and how it could have affected Folake. We might not have the conversation immediately, but we’ll talk about it. We try not to let our fights last longer than a few hours. I had to read books about communication to get to this point.
Cheers to growth. I’m curious about what attracts you both to each other.
Karo: She is so beautiful and smart. I love how organised she is and how logical she gets when she’s navigating complex situations. People often complain that women are too emotional, not Folake.
Folakemi: Asides being handsome, he’s a very selfless person. He is accommodating and generous to a fault. He’s also always ready to learn, and I love that about him.
Sweet, what’s the best part of the relationship?
Folakemi: It’s friendship. I’ve always wanted to be in a relationship where we were friends first and that’s what I got. I’m very grateful for that.
Karo: It’s the same for me too. I love that we can gist any time. It’s something we built over the years and I don’t take it for granted.
Sweet. Rate this relationship on a scale of one to ten.
Folakemi: 11, because I couldn’t have wished for a better relationship. We’re growing individually and also growing together as a couple. This relationship is exactly what I prayed for.
Karo: It’s a 12 for me, because we started rough in the first year, but we’ve grown so much since then and I’m proud of us.
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