Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.
The subjects of this Love Life Elizabeth* (20) and Oyin* (20) walk us through a relationship that almost didn’t happen, discovering their chemistry during a chemistry practical and finding a way to keep their two-year relationship alive in medical school.
Tell me how you met
Elizabeth: We met in 2019 in our first year, during a chemistry practical in the laboratory.
Oyin: We were put in the same group. I had to take notes from the experiments we carried out, and she made fun of my handwriting. Then we started talking.
Elizabeth: I actually wanted to talk to him because he’s pretty smart, and I needed some help with schoolwork. Making fun of his handwriting was me shooting my academic shot.
LMAO. How did that work out?
Elizabeth: We exchanged numbers and kept in touch.
Oyin: Only for the first week. After that, we didn’t speak again. She had a boyfriend, and I didn’t want to push for anything. Ever since that conversation we had at the lab, I knew I was into her, but with the boyfriend involved, I was respecting boundaries. Whenever we saw each other in school, we’d have a friendly conversation but nothing more than that. It was never awkward or anything.
When did you start talking again?
Oyin: It was in 2020. I had come late to a class and the only empty seat was beside her.
Elizabeth: We talked to each other all through the class.
Is this what our future doctors are doing?
Oyin: LMAO. It happens sometimes. She spoke about how she always came to class early. But me? I was a serial latecomer.
Elizabeth: That’s why after the class, I texted and offered to keep a seat for him in every class we attended. I offered, not just because I was being nice, but because I’m attracted to him.
What about your boyfriend?
Elizabeth: Boyfriend was still in the picture, but we faced issues. He’d cheated and the relationship was hanging by a thread. I knew it was going to end, so I didn’t see anything wrong with at least talking to Oyin.
Oyin: We talked in every class and even after.
Were you people even learning anything? Plus, what were you even talking about?
Oyin: I want to believe we were learning, and we talked about anything. One conversation led to another that led to another. Whatever we didn’t finish saying in class, we’d continue over text.
Elizabeth: We could have the fluffiest conversation and immediately transition into traumatic moments that altered our lives. It was nice to have someone you could just talk to. That’s why in May 2020, three months after we started talking again, I told him I liked him. At this point, I’d broken up with my boyfriend and wanted to see if Oyin and I could develop anything more than a friendship. Unfortunately, he didn’t reciprocate my feelings.
Oyin: I didn’t want to lead her on when I didn’t feel it as intensely as she did. I told her I only liked her as a friend and wanted to remain friends.
Elizabeth: And it’s partly because there was another girl he liked.
Oh? Tell us about this girl
Oyin: She’s also a medical student. I started talking to her towards the end of 2019, but our conversations mainly happened when we were both in school.
Elizabeth: Before I met Oyin, the babe and I were friends, but after a falling out, we stopped speaking to each other. Seeing her be all besties with him annoyed me, but I didn’t say anything about it.
Oyin: It’s funny because the thing I had with this other babe was undefined. It’s not like we’d spoken about having feelings or anything. We were just going with the flow but we’d end every conversation with “I love you”.
However, I got to find out that all the I love you’s she told me were friendly, and she actually had a boyfriend. It was a very serious reality check.
Elizabeth: LMAO. Toh. I thought they were an item, but maybe not with labels.
Oyin: Not at all o. We were just talking one day in April 2020, and she mentioned her boyfriend. I was like, “Ah. From where?” I sha got the memo and knew my place in her life.
So what happened to you and Elizabeth in the midst of all this?
Oyin: We still spoke. She was still my friend.
Elizabeth: He paid her more attention than me so I moved aside for a minute. I was trying my best to play it cool, but then, something happened.
I had a small house party on my birthday in July. I’d invited him because he’s my friend, but he said he doesn’t go to people’s houses. No wahala o. Fast forward to August and I see a video of him in his friend’s house, celebrating her birthday. He was even singing. I was livid. I couldn’t speak to him for a couple of days.
Wait. Was the friend that babe?
Elizabeth: Gbam! I was so pissed.
Oyin: To be fair, the babe posted the video she saw.
Why was she even with your phone? You’re not helping yourself at all
Oyin: Everything happened in a blur. I opened social media and saw her subbing me all over her timeline. I deleted the video and tried to explain what happened, but she didn’t answer.
Why did you go to this babe’s house but not Elizabeth’s?
Oyin: I was just nervous because I knew Elizabeth’s parents would be there, and I didn’t want to meet them. This other babe lived alone so there was no such pressure.
Elizabeth: That’s what he told me o, but I wasn’t buying what he was selling at the time.
Oyin: I waited a couple of days for her head to cool down before I texted her again.
Elizabeth: I was supposed to be angry at him, but I really liked him and not talking to him made me sad.
Oyin: After the apology, we started talking a lot more, and I liked her a lot more than I did initially. I started planning to ask her out, but I didn’t want to do it over the phone.
Elizabeth: We were trying to planning for his birthday in September. That’s how one day, I mentioned I wanted to give the birthday boy a kiss on his birthday. He agreed. I don’t even know why I offered. I was feeling adventurous maybe, but I’m glad I did.
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How did the kiss happen?
Elizabeth: So we were arguing because I’d given another boy a lap dance, and for some reason, he was pissed.
Oyin: In my head, I was planning to ask her out, and she had said she wanted to give me a kiss, but here she was, giving someone else a lap dance. Plus, she knew I already had feelings for her. Why’d she do that?
The same way you knew she had feelings for you and didn’t attend her birthday but attended that babe’s?
Elizabeth: Gbam!
Oyin: Fair point.
Elizabeth: Anyways, he called me into a room, and as we were arguing, I asked if I could give him the kiss then. As a gone guy, he agreed.
Oyin: Then we had a conversation, and I asked her to be my girlfriend.
Elizabeth: I loved him and knew I wanted to be with him, so I agreed.
Cute. What was it like moving from friends to partner?
Elizabeth: Hmm.
Oyin: It had its good moments, but it wasn’t so smooth in the beginning. There were unresolved issues that got dragged into the relationship.
Elizabeth: By unresolved issues, he means that babe he liked. They were still friends, and it made me feel a kind of way.
Oyin: Okay, that’s more specific. The babe and I were still friends for the first three months of Elizabeth and I’s relationship.
Elizabeth: It was weird how big of a place she had in our relationship. It was extra weird because she had her own relationship to worry about. Apparently, she was his “best friend” and would always give him weird opinions about me based on the falling out we had a year or two before Oyin and I even met.
Oyin: I tried to keep my distance from her for a bit. Then she confronted me about it and called me a horrible friend that didn’t care about her. I didn’t reach out to her to even try to fix things, so that’s how the relationship ended.
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After cutting her off, what did the relationship look like?
Elizabeth: It was much easier. We were actually able to grow as a couple.
Oyin: Yeah, it was so much better. Less arguing and external forces.
But navigating all this while studying medicine?
Elizabeth: Yeah, it was hard. It’s a difficult course to study. You barely have time for yourself, but we try to keep it going.
Oyin: We’re both there so we understand how the schedules are. We attend classes together, do homework and even study together. It’s our way of ensuring we spend time in each other’s presence.
Elizabeth: It’ll definitely be a lot harder if only one of us is studying medicine, but I guess that’s where we’re lucky.
Oyin: We always find a way.
Lord, our future doctors are using lab to do love. Anyways, on a scale of 1-10, rate your love life
Elizabeth: I feel like nobody in life will ever understand me the way Oyin does. I don’t know how to put my emotions into words, LMAO, but I know I want to do forever with him. I’d have given it a 10, but nothing is perfect, and 9 is the closest we can get to perfection.
Oyin: Me, I’ll rate it a 10. I want to spend the rest of my life with her and hopefully have a family someday. It feels right.
