Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.
What’s your earliest memory of each other?
Onose: Arguing online.
One of my Facebook friends had posted about supporting a certain presidential candidate — I won’t mention names — sometime in 2015. Misan commented in support under the post, and I just went at him, criticising him for supporting such a person.
I didn’t know him at the time. He was just a mutual through the person who originally posted.
Misan: I was upset that someone who didn’t know me could have such strong opinions of me because of who I chose to support, so we had a long back and forth in the comments for the whole day.
My friend who made the original post had to enter my inbox to tell me to stop cluttering his notifications with my “wife”. I found his statement funny, so I asked if he knew Onose personally, saying, “Why is her blood so hot?” He said they were old friends from his former workplace, but he only had good things to say about her: she was a hard worker; smart and efficient.
I admired that so I slid into her inbox to say hi to my opp.
Onose: I wasn’t very active on Facebook, even though I spent a whole day fighting with him on the platform. So I didn’t see his message for another week. He sent something like “Hi. Sorry for making you so angry over our leaders. My apologies, ma.” When I realised it was the guy I’d given a large piece of my mind, I laughed and replied with “Apology NOT accepted.”
But like that, we continued chatting on and off for the next two to three years.
Wawu. When did you realise you liked each other?
Onose: We got so close as chat friends over time that we started involving each other in mundane things happening in our lives.
But things got more serious when we followed each other on Instagram in 2017. I used to sing, so anytime I participated in a challenge or contest that required voting, even giveaways, I’d tag him to vote for me. He always voted and would even get his guys to vote too.
He was always there with encouraging words when I was going through rough patches or feeling discouraged. Of course, I had other friends in real life who were just as supportive, but there was something particularly caring about his approach. Interestingly, we’d never met in person at that point.
Misan: My company had posted me to Kano in 2013, so I was there for much of those three years while she was in Lagos. When I finally moved to Ibadan at the beginning of 2018, I really wanted to see her. I took a chance and asked if she wanted to meet sometime. She was hesitant, so it took another month or two before we met up at a lounge on the island.
I remember my bus ride down from Ibadan, I was thinking, “What the hell am I doing? And why do I feel so nervous doing it?”
God, abeg
Onose: He was cute in his pictures, but I kept thinking, “What if he’s catfishing sha?” So before I even agreed to meet, I reached out to our old mutual friend. I asked him about Misan: if he’s how he looks in his photos, stuff like that. Nothing he said gave me cause for alarm, and Misan had been a good well-behaved online friend so far. But for some reason, I had my guard up.
I was pleasantly surprised when we met. He was even better looking than his pictures, and our conversations were smooth. We even revisited stuff we’d already discussed over the years, just to talk about it in person.
Did you bring back the Facebook fight too?
Onose: That was already way behind us. He teases me about it now that we’re married, but it never came up while we were dating.
Later that night, we went out and hung out with my friends at the club. By the time I returned home, I knew I liked him a lot.
Misan: I returned to Ibadan the next day. On the bus ride back, I decided I’d ask her to be my girlfriend and see what she’d say. I don’t even know why. I just knew I really like everything about her; from the way she talked to the way she walked.
That didn’t happen for another two weeks though. I was scared. For one, she’d spoken out against long-distance relationships more than once. But I finally asked her over a phone call one evening, and she surprised me by saying yes.
Onose: I liked him and didn’t mind giving us a chance.
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When did you know you’d fallen in love?
Misan: I can’t really pin it down. We got used to each other more and more over time. Before we knew it, our relationship had lasted longer than my previous relationships.
During the heat of COVID in 2020, I lost my job and moved to Lagos to freelance as a real estate agent for a while. I made considerably less money for about seven months, especially when I took out the perks my old company offered besides my salary, which meant I had even more expenses.
The way she came through for me, paying for some of my bills and randomly sending me small ₦10k here and there blew my mind. We’d been dating for two years by then, but it took a special kind of kindness for her to be that giving. I actually expected her to break up with me, or slowly ghost me being a newly broke man and all. But she did the opposite.
I already loved her, but that experience made me appreciate her more.
Onose: For me, it was our first anniversary in 2019. He came in from Ibadan for us to have a weekend getaway at Radisson. I remember just looking at him the next morning after we checked in, and thinking, “I love this guy. I really love this guy.” My mind was like “It’s over for you with this guy.” Do you get?
Can’t relate. And as a hater, I want to know what your first major fight was about
Onose: We actually fought some weeks after we first started dating. It was a phone fight.
Misan: Oh. Not that day.
Onose
Misan: I wanted to. Me and the guy go way back.
Onose: I discouraged him, reminding him that he’d probably be too tired to do much work that day. His company at the time was very target-based.
He told me he’d heard, but the way he said it, I knew he’d still go ahead, so I called him multiple times during the day to remind him not to do too much.
Why now?
Misan: She’s even putting it nicely. She kept calling, vehemently telling me not to go to so and so place, if I really plan on taking a danfo or making sure I hadn’t left before meeting my morning targets. It was my first time experiencing her controlling side — the side that’d make her passionately argue with a stranger online for hours.
At one point, I temporarily blocked her because I was tired. I had to talk to her firmly about it that evening. She had good intentions, but I told her to just let me make my own decisions in the end.
It’s still a work in progress, but she’s a lot more tolerant now.
Onose: Thank you. But why did you block me?
Misan: Omo, my team lead was beginning to give me side eye because of all the calls.
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OMG. But how has this relationship been different from past ones?
Misan: I’d never dated anyone I met online before her.
Onose: I’d never been in a long-distance relationship before Misan because I’d heard too many bad stories. I’d dated someone I met online, although we met in person through my cousin a long time before that sha.
2018 to 2023 seems like a long time. Why did it take you guys that long to marry?
Misan: The long distance was a huge factor. We lived in different cities, but we could visit each other often because Lagos isn’t that far from Ibadan. So there was no urgency to make a concrete plan to be closer. That in turn slowed our relationship down.
Onose: We were too comfortable.
COVID and his moving to Lagos changed the stakes a lot, and in some ways, our relationship really kicked off from then, even though we already loved each other. Does that make sense?
I think so. So how did a proposal happen?
Misan: I asked her to marry me as soon as I got a job in November 2020.
It was a really good job with triple my previous pay. And I wouldn’t have gotten it without her. She pushed me to take all sorts of professional courses, not only to increase my employment opportunities but also to defend the widening gap in my CV.
I wouldn’t have gotten the job and my current career trajectory without those courses. She’s a true gem. I knew I needed her in my life for the long haul, but I also needed to be in a good place with a stable job to take that step.
Onose: He literally proposed the evening of his first day. It shocked me when he casually came to my house and presented the ring. I wasn’t expecting it at all.
Before you ask, the engagement lasted two years because my mother passed away about six months later. I went into depression; I was in grief for almost a year. I couldn’t imagine having a wedding without my mother. We’d dreamt of my wedding day for too long, and I beat myself up for taking my sweet time with it.
I couldn’t even think of a wedding till almost a year after, in 2022. And Misan was patient through all that. I’m so grateful I didn’t have to go through that alone.
I’m so so sorry.
What’s the best thing about being married?
Misan: The promise of a lifetime together. Our relationship feels more solid. Also, finally moving in together after so long.
Onose: Having someone to assist me in everything. We get to be there for each other for real, like literally always be there for each other. It can be overwhelming sometimes, but I love it.
Five months in, and I’ve learnt to be less controlling. Misan has helped me see I can’t control everything; people want to be able to think for themselves despite your advice and how much you think you know.
Misan: And she’s taught me to be less laidback about my life. I know how far I’ve come career-wise and in my personal projects thanks to her OCD.
How would you rate your Love Life on a scale of 1 to 10?
Onose: 8.
Misan: 12 (I take her remaining 2 and add to my 10). I couldn’t have asked for a better, more supportive significant other.
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