Behold The Side Chick

Be prepared, this vlog is long.

I have said this before and I would like to repeat the fact that I think I have had a conservative dating life, but then again things like your dating life and whether or not they can be considered conservative are very subjective. What I consider conservative is probably to out there for some folks and to some others I am a Nun. Lol!

The hard fact of life is that there are some “good” people who have only dated the people they are married to now and there’s the others “the wildcards” who have dated every spectre under the sun. Being happy in relationships is something very confusing for me because I know through experience that there are no rules in this happiness matter and the things that make other people happy may seem like a death-wish to others.

You never know who may make the “right” decision at some point and meet the right partner. The “wild cards” sometimes end up being super happy despite supposedly being around the block and the “prudes” sometimes end up being alone/lonely and vice-versa there are no rules to this happiness thing. The story below is one of the Chapters in my journey to finally finding this “happiness thing”…

That being said, lets get to the main gist the side chick!!!!!.

So some time in my past, there was this guy …….I was super into him during this point in my life and I really liked him mainly he was someone I had know for a long while, we had been friends for over 10 years, we had a tonne of mutual friends,  he was a good Christian (supposedly), he spoke Christianese, he was almost cute (I’m not so sure now after everything….*covers face), he was a comfortable,familiar and safe place for me. Notedly, is the fact that he had been there for me through two particularly rough patches in my life and in retrospect I think I may have mis-interpreted his curiousity and his Christianese for care and concern.

{Christianese:  i. This is a situation where people who grew up in the church environment or have stayed around good Christian folk have acquired the “good boy” persona and know how to say the right things in every situation without meaning them. ii. It is also the diction and choice of words usually used in phrases or sentences spoken by Christians. It is usually void of  foul language and curse words.}

But I must say he was consistent with reaching out and checking up on me and to be honest it was a very good friendship but like all friendships they can be seasonal and after a while life took us in different directions and apart from the occasional random phone call, Christmas text or social media shout out we didn’t really keep in touch as often. So to me he was just this great old friend from my past.

Fast forward about 5 years his older brother was getting married and he was coming into town for that, so he reached out to me for us to hang out. We hung out, it was awesome, we caught up on each others lives and bla..bla…bla….. the usual. After that catch-up we started talking regularly and soon we were talking daily swapping relationship horror stories, and soon we were having very deep conversations and talking about things we kept secret, we spoke a lot about God, religion, faith and I will not lie that was the first time I ever connected with a guy on a spiritual level and it felt gooood. At this point we had gone from “old friends” catching up to “good friends” keeping in touch to “bestie” talking about everything.

A few months after this, he came back into town for something (I truly cannot remember what) and this time we hung out with a lot of our mutual friends and that’s where everything started to change. A lot of our friends kept asking if we had anything going on, telling us that we had so much chemistry, we looked good together, etc.  That night after I got home, I realised I had actually started catching feelings for this young man. Also that night, he was also figuring this out as well and for the first time in months he did not call me before bed time apparently he was having a hard time coming to terms with this feeling catching drama.

The next morning we met up had a long conversation and by that evening when I drove him to the airport after the conversations we had and all was said and done, we had reached a consensus (at least i thought so). I was still on the fence a bit with it though but the day he said he loved me. Mehnnnn!! I could’ve died of joy. Words really do work on me sheesh!! I switched to full on girlfriend mode I was in love and I liked it.

By now its pretty obvious he lived in a different town from me so this meant we were in a long distance relationship but given our history I didn’t even mind, I was on cloud nine. Our conversations became deeper and they modified to accommodate our new blossoming romance. The excitement of a new relationship had kicked in, my face was in a permanent smile, my skin was glowing, my edges were growing, me and Jesus was best friends…… then a f%$# boy…. (I digress)

RED FLAGS

 

 

Now what I have shamefacedly never admitted, is the fact that there were a couple of red-flags in this relationship. (or should I say situation-ship)

1. GIRL CODE: I broke a major rule. I conveniently made excuses for breaking the ultimate girl code. “Do not date your friends ex”. Yes Mr nice man had dated my friend very briefly many years prior to this time and to be honest the circumstances of how we got together was kind of out of my hands but it didn’t change the fact that I could’ve at least mentioned it to my friend. MESSSYYY
2. SECRETS: Mr nice guy had said I should keep the relationship on the down low…( I am super ashamed to admit I agreed to do this) but in my defense, considering our history, this explanation made perfect sense at the time . The idea was to keep it between us till we were ready to deal with our one million and fifteen mutual friends and all the questions they would have. I also convinced myself that it was ‘cos I also needed to mention something to my friend first so I planned that would say nothing till I spoke with her (WRONG!!!)
3. VERBAL ABUSE: Mr nice guy also became Mr perfectionist. He had “advice/opinions” about everything from my weight to my dressing to even my spiritual life.He took a jab at everything but I only looked at him through rose coloured glasses. My self esteem went on a steady and consistent decline and after a few months I was an emotional shadow of my old self.Gosh! it just shows some people are totally different when in a romantic relationship than platonic friendship (but their true colours show when you closer don’t make excuses for them). Ladies these are some of the early signs of abuse WATCHOUT FOR THE SIGNS!!!….
4. ANOTHER WOMAN: The most important sign that I ignored. One day about a week or two into our “@*^*ship he called me to inform me that in actuality there was a girl in his life. Huh!?  Now we had been forming friendship for at least 10 months and had been in a relationship for less than a month so this was about a year since we had reconnected. I was shocked, how come I had never heard about this mysterious girl? Mr nice guy then tells me that the reason he had never spoken about her was because they had broken up but it was the kind of break up where there was no official “its over” speech. But he said that since we were official now he would drop that call reach out to her and make sure he ended things officially so that there will be no mix ups. I believed him and never asked about it again. BIG MISTAKE

There were other things that happened but these were the Major signs.

#MEETS SIDE CHICK

So this fateful day after about a year of being in this hidden, secret, long distance, phone relationship, Mr nice guy had just come into town and I was super excited and had gotten all dolled up for his visit. I had decided that this particular visit would be our “big reveal” he didn’t seem to mind it was like an unspoken agreement so we went everywhere like we were fishing to get caught by our mutual friends . It was so funny the way we went to every popular mall and shop and saw no one we knew. I will never know if we were seen ‘cos no one reached out but it was a fun game and we were taking pictures, giggling  ….regular relationship stuff. Eventually we ended up at the movies and were just sitting around waiting for our movie to start when Mr nice guy left to go to the rest room.

A little back story……..so the week before, my phone had gone bad that is my blackberry had literally kicked the bucket and so I had bought an android phone but as it is with ladies our pictures are super-important so I was trying to recover some of my lost pictures. I had reached out via blackberry and watsapp  to a few friends to see if I could recover some lost pictures, and I was waiting for responses…….anyways back to the main gist. So Mr nice guy gets up to go to the rest room and I ask for his phone with no ulterior motive just to check for my pictures. I don’t think he knew why I wanted the phone maybe he wouldn’t have but he gave it to me anyway. (the whole time we were together I never checked his phone (yes I am like that) it is just too much work to be looking for stuff. I (still am) always have been an advocate for not being snoopy, I think its unnecessary and please if you don’t trust the person dump him. BUT, this one time I was forced to bite my tongue,  because if I had snooped it would have saved me 18 months of drama. Anyways, so I took the phone I went to the picture gallery to search for pictures of me….. and to my HORROR!!

There was a picture of another girl everywhere in this phone. She was young, cute and she was getting cozy with “MY MAN”. Initially I am thinking nothing, blank… as in …..like,… I think my brain just refused to think anything but then I started scrolling really fast through the pictures and this girl is in a lot of his pictures going back over a year. She’s there sitting in his lap, celebrating her birthday, cooking, sleeping, all what not…… hah!!. My heart literally stopped beating, I went to text messages …Nightmare!…. I opened Watsapp…… these two people were having conversations like people that have in a relationship for a while. I cannot describe the confusion in my mind in that moment. Before then I had NEVER been cheated on at least not to my knowledge and I had always prided myself in that and I always used to say “if a guy cheated on me and I knew, it would destroy me.

After the horror of me realising there was definitely another girl in the picture, I go back to the picture gallery and notice there is not even one single picture of me. Absolutely None.  I look up to see Mr nice guy walking back towards me from the rest room and I can see him looking at me like he is not sure but the moment he looks at the phone in my hands and where it is opened to, his shoulders drop, he closes his eyes and quietly sits down, that action alone told me volumes.

Based on my experiences when I am deeply emotional hurt I have two default settings. If I am near home I hold my self together till I am able to run to my room to break down. If I am in public I shutdown my emotions and my brain takes over. I do not always get it right sometimes I’m a mess but that particular day my brain took over.

The initial shock simply disappeared and I asked him “where are my pictures?”  I didn’t bother asking who she was because a part of me (instincts I guess) knew who she was. I was surprisingly calm and he didn’t deny anything he simply said “she is the one I told you about” and immediately everything made sense.

Flash back to point number 4 on my warning signs. Well it turns out Mr nice guy never ever ended things with his girl (I’ll call her mizzalour) and for the past the past 10 months, I had been in full girlfriend mode, Mr nice guy and Mizzalour had been rekindling their love life and even celebrated an anniversary. when he didn’t seem to say anymore I decided to ask questions.  So I asked what had been going on, guy went into full on “Christianese talking about how God would tell him the right time to leave her and be with me. Oh Gosh!!!

what?!

I could not even cry I was simply humiliated and hurt because the truth is I was in love with this stupid man and everything he represented to me. I was in love big time. We had a long talk and that night when I finally got home I took a bath and went to bed and just as I was falling asleep the emotions finally arrived.

I cried and my nose was running and I got up to go to the bathroom for some tissue. after cleaning my nose and all that mess on my way out of the bathroom I turned to flip the switch off and I saw my reflection in the mirror and  I said to myself “behold the side-chick”.

That day I met my boyfriends side-chick she was me and I was her.

 

And yes he showed me my pictures on his phone.They were in some hidden folder, inside another hidden folder (I was literally in Sambisa forest a bonafide Chibok girl). You would think that I was a pornographic website he was trying to hide.

The shameful truth is I wish I could tell you I ended things with him that day. But sadly my brain only worked for that night. My heart kicked in by the next morning and it took another 5+ months of emotional abuse, me lying to myself, outright stupidity and a public humiliation on social media from my brain to kick in again.

Thankfully the brain remained working after that last straw.