Ebi am bored,” Dan said when he called me that evening. We were best friends but deep in my heart, I wish we were more. Four years earlier when I first bumped into him at the airport on my way back home after a training session, I knew I had met the kind of man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Being stocky and light skinned, Dan was certainly not any body’s idea of the ideal six pack guy but one hour of conversation during the plane ride and I saw all the qualities and more I wanted in a man; he was very affectionate, had strong family values and loved to read just like I loved to write. We became friends and then best friends and in him, I found a second self. We were so close that even though we lived in different towns, we talked on the phone every single day.
One day, in a fit of emotion, I broke down and told him how I felt about him. He said while he loved me, he was not in love with me. He repeated this several times in words and actions which showed we were not on the same page but I ignored it. As far as I was concerned, he was in denial and I really thought he’d come around, maybe even surprise me with something special on my birthday but three birthdays came and went and there were no surprises. At 33, I didn’t want my life to pass by so I tried to date other men but none could compare to him.
So when he told me he was bored that day, I decided to hook him up with my best friend, Thelma who was visiting the town where he stayed. She was a safe option since she was tall and skinny and he had told me repeatedly that he wasn’t attracted to thin girls. I gave him her number and called to tell her. I made her promise not to take him to places where he could meet his “spec” and she agreed. I dropped the phone feeling like a wise woman.
The next day, while I was at church, he sent a text message asking me to call him when I was free. I thought he was calling to ask me why I hooked him up with my skinny friend so I was taken aback when the first thing he said when I called was “I am in love with Thelma.” I thought he was joking so when the phone cut after his declaration, I did not call him back. He called back and said “Thelma thinks you are in love with me and she is reluctant to go out with me because of you. I love you but I am in love with her. Ebi, she is the one! If you tell her its okay, she will agree to go out with me. Will you tell her there is nothing between us?” He asked. From a throat that seemed like it was filled with stone, I told him I would.
On my way to work Monday morning, I played the telephone tête-à-tête over and over in my head. I was in a state of complete and utter shock as I struggled to recalled details of the conversation we had the previous day. He said he loved me, didn’t he? But he also said clearly “Ebi, she is the one!” That was the part I didn’t want to hear.I had been waiting for four years for his pendulum to swing in my direction so how could he just fall in love with my best friend at one glace?I was also angry with myself over my foolishness. Why did I give him her phone no? They were together in a lonely town! I Maybe he was just joking …maybe I was mistaken and I did not hear right. I wanted so hard to believe it was a huge joke until two days later when Thelma called to tell me. She knew how I felt about him and was worried that I would be hurt but she admitted that she was in love with him. She was crying as she said this and I had no choice but to say it was okay and I was fine. In my mind though, I was hoping he would see all her faults and that they would break up by the third month and he would realise I am what he wants but two months later, Dan (who had told me once he could not date anyone less than six months) proposed to her and on valentine’s day, at a small court wedding, they got married.
I attended the wedding dressed from head to toe in black (even my underwear was black!) and the tears that rolled out of my eyes when they said their vows that day were tears of blood. I felt enough pain to know that I truly cared about him. And if you are wondering if the law of karma visited them with the gift of barrenness, well, hear this; exactly ten months after they got married, they were blessed with a set of twins ; a boy and a girl and they are more in love that ever before.
Till this, day I cannot understand it. What was wrong with me? Why was it so hard for him to love me and so easy to love her? Loving someone who doesn’t love you back is the most impossible situation imaginable, especially when the love is so strong you are a slave to it! I have no doubt he had feelings of love for me, but he choose not to be with me.
That was my first and only (I hope) experience of heartbreak and it taught me an invaluable lesson which is that love truly is a weird thing! There is an almost comical asymmetry between two people. The person at the top of your love list may rank you only at the middle or bottom of his or her list and that is exactly how Dan had ranked me in his love ladder. He had told me over and over again that I was not the one but I ignored the gong that should have deafened me. I HELD ON. I thought the fact that he did not choose me had something to do with me, my ability to be desirous or a reflection on what I’d done or didn’t do and so I worked really really hard to be what I thought he wanted. I changed many things (friends, personal beliefs, etc) just to fit in with him but I was still not the one!
I learnt very painfully through that experience that true love is grace! We do not have to work hard to receive love …it is either there or it is not! This wrong notion that the only way we can receive love is when we are perfect have been engraved in some of our hearts that we have began to believe it. I have heard a few friends say that you must prove to a man that you love him by being everything and doing everything he wants. Oh yeah? Really? I don’t believe that anymore. I don’t want to be everything to someone and I sure don’t want someone to be my everything! That task is too much for a human being. God is the only one that can be everything to all of us and the only person I seek to please wholeheartedly is Him. There is no need for me to spend all my hours cooking dishes to prove to a prospective mother in law that I am capable of taking care of her son because it would amount to nothing if he doesn’t love me! Love simply is a matter a grace!
It’s been a year since that episode and I am still single. But unlike before, I am at peace because I know that someday love will find me and I won’t have to work hard for it. The real issue in my life right now is making sure that I am running the race God has set for me until He brings across a man that would help me fulfil that purpose. He will be a man with a heart for God, who believes in prosperity, a great lover, who can satisfy and be satisfied by only me all the days of his life and most importantly, he will be a man who will not be afraid of loving or being loved by a real woman forever. It might take a while but I know that day will come.
The most important lesson I learnt from that experience however is that in the issues of love, I cannot ‘make’ anyone love me and its okay. Love is simply a matter of grace and a choice people make based on factors that might have nothing to do with me as a person. I have learnt not to take it personally but to respect myself and to take a hike!
