What Do Women Want? - 7

When I got more into character, I became more tolerant. I realised Mr. S wasn't all that bad. He had some vices that at first fascinated me before going on to creep me out and then disgust me. During this period, Mr. O was getting the cold shoulder from me. I barely talked to him anymore. I only picked his calls when I was bored and sometimes, just for the fun of it, I would add his number to my auto-reject list. I stopped asking to see him and when he wanted to see me, I was always busy.

Being the ardent pursuer that he is, the more I rebuffed him, the harder he chased me. Some days I would gift him with my presence. By this time, it would look to an outsider like I was in a committed relationship with Mr. S. This irked Mr. O, I could tell but he always managed to rein in his emotions. He had convinced himself that it was a harmless friendship and he refused to ask me about it until...

One of his friends got wind of it and being the 'busybody' that he is, proceeded to 'report' me. That was the first time Mr. O ever lost his temper with me. Apparently, he's allowed to have another Miss on the side but I'm not allowed to have another Mister (talk about double standards). I just laughed. I didn't deny or confirm it. I decided to remain ambiguous and not implicate myself. Lol.. it was like a blood vessel popped in his head! He hit the roof!!!

I tried to get him to reason that the only reason he was mad was because his friend found out about it. Besides, how long did he expect me to stay in a faithless relationship without calling it quits? I told him, " I refuse to let you do this to me...I refuse to let you take advantage of me by coercing me to stay in a relationship where fidelity is so obviously missing...please carry your wahala and go!" He wasn't expecting that. I wasn't expecting that either. I had said what my heart truly felt. It was out there and I couldn't take it back. The Yorubas will say (paraphrased by me), "Words are like eggs, once it's broken...you can't unbreak it!" I couldn't 'unspeak' what I had said.

The next day, we parted ways. We didn't break up but it was like we did. Words weren't necessary. There was something very wrong with our relationship. And we were both used to avoiding confrontation. Instead of fixing it from the beginning we kept covering it up with band-aids. And now the wound had festered and become infected and we didn't know what to do or how to treat it. So, we both decided to pretend like it didn't exist for a season.

This is why communication is fundamental in any relationship. How I wish we had just sat down like adults and gone ahead to talk about our relationship, how to fix it and it's future (if it had one...). We all could have probably done without the chaos that ensued thereafter.

To be continued...