WhatsApp group etiquette (part 1)

Phone number etiquette

GHOSTS OF ALMOST BOYFRIENDS

 Hello hi,

Welcome back to my blog. I hope you have been doing great and keeping safe. Today, I wrote a 'short' story. I hope you like it!

GHOSTS OF ALMOST BOYFRIENDS

You know what they say “nearly cannot kill a bird” but Nkechi could almost swear that these guys were nearly her boyfriends. The first one was Emeka (typical name for an “Igbo angel” right?).

It was 2004; Nkechi was a fresh woman at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. She was excited to experience life and love, having just graduated from an only girls’ boarding secondary school. Nkechi and her friend, Kemi had been standing on the balcony of their hostel one evening, completely bored. Suddenly, Kemi had an idea.

“Enkay, let’s fool around a bit.”

‘What do you mean?” Nkechi asked suspiciously. Kemi always had something mischievous up her sleeves.

“You know I’m currently using the phone that my brother dashed me and he did not remove his contacts before giving it to me.”

‘So?” Nkechi raised her right eyebrow.

“How about we flash different guy’s numbers and see who would call us back.”

“Erm, I’d rather not…what would we say if they called us back?”

‘Nothing serious. We would just flirt with them.” Kemi giggled; she was already excited, a feeling that Nkechi did not share at the moment.

“It’s just for fun, don’t be so uptight. C’mon!” Kemi pulled Nkechi.

“What if somebody calls the police? I don’t want to get into any trouble”

“Which police? Are they not guys? Once they hear a fine female voice, they’ll cave in. You can use this to practice your flirting. Trust me, you’ll thank me later’

And that was how Nkechi met Emeka. Emeka was a third year student at Nnamdi Azikwe University, not too far away from her University. He was the first guy to call back and they spent the rest of the night talking, thanks to free MTN midnight calls then. She was surprised at how pleasant their conversation was and before the end of their first phone call, both of them declared “like” for each other. Ofcourse she updated Kemi, who had also found herself a talking partner. That night had been fruitful for sure!

Nkechi and Emeka became hooked with each other really quickly, especially for people who had never met. They spoke every night such that it pissed off Nkechi’s roommate and she had to always move to the balcony and forfeit half of her sleep. Naturally, they became eager to meet each other and Emeka decided to make their dream come true. He was finally going to be visiting the next weekend, after a month and half of daily phone calls and text messages. Nkechi and all her friends were excited. They made her up for the dinner and for the first time in her life, she wore contact lenses out of peer-pressure. Nonetheless, she looked great and even Emeka could not stop staring when he met her.

“You’re even more beautiful than I imagined” he said, taking her hands into his. He was also a good looking guy, not drop dead gorgeous, but good enough. By the end of the dinner, he took her back to the front of her hostel; it was past visiting hours so he could not come in. He hugged her tightly, gave her a kiss on the forehead and whispered that he would come back another time for a proper kiss. “Soon, I promise” those were his words. It had been the most romantic night Nkechi had ever had.

The next day, Emeka did not call. She knew he was travelling back to his school so she sent him a message but he did not respond. She called at night, again no response. Maybe he was asleep, she shrugged. Two days, three days, one week…still no phone calls, no replies to her message, nothing! Was his phone stolen? Nkechi began to wonder. But if it were, why were her calls going through? Typically, thieves discarded the phone line or turned off the stolen phones. Did he have a car accident on his way back? Nkechi was beginning to get worried. She begged Kemi to ask her brother if Emeka was okay; Kemi had been reluctant because she did not want her brother to find out about their games. Eventually, Kemi came back with news – Emeka was well and alive! So why was he ignoring her? What happened? Nkechi began to replay the night of their meeting in her head but could not figure out what could have gone wrong. His sudden disappearance was a mystery to her. She felt sad and missed their conversations. It took her some months to get over him and maybe even longer to forget his phone number, which she had mastered.

It was 2010. Nkechi had finished her undergraduate studies and was applying for a graduate program while doing her NYSC. She went to a nearby cybercafé to scan a document to a prospective school and while the café guy was scanning, she decided to check her Facebook for updates. She saw a friend request from somebody named “Emy Diogu”; his face looked familiar so she accepted the request even though she could not place where she knew him from. Her new Facebook friend started chatting with her immediately:

“Hey long time babe! How have you been?

“I’m okay thanks. I’m sorry but I don’t remember you exactly” Nkechi replied.

He seemed surprised and almost upset that she did not remember him. He then reminded her of who he was, - the very same Emeka from 5 years ago! It was then that Nkechi realized that she never knew his surname and she must have repressed her memory so much to forget about him. She was not sure of how to react so she barely typed anything. Emeka proceeded to ask her how she had been, where she was, and asked if they could meet. They fixed a date and Nkechi went to meet him. She was curious to know what had happened before he disappeared. She hoped that he would offer some explanation but he did not. He just chatted as if they had been chatting throughout the five years. Nkechi could not understand his attitude; it was either that he had suffered a five year amnesia or he thought she was stupid. She could not hold it in anymore and asked why he had disappeared.

“Oh!”, he started off as if it was nothing, “My girlfriend back then found out about us and got really jealous so I had to cut off.”

Nkechi was so startled that she was speechless for a few minutes.

“Your girlfriend? You had a girlfriend and you never told me?”

“You never asked me.” Emeka replied calmly.

Nkechi was furious. It was true that she never asked him but she did not think she needed to; how could someone with a girlfriend speak to her all night, every night for over a month and not even mention it? If her memory wasn’t failing her, she believed he had even told her he was falling in love with her. She tried to refrain from yelling at him whilst he gave his rebuttal. He claimed that he was having relationship issues then and was truly falling in love with her and became scared to break off his relationship. Nothing he said made sense to her. Eventually, Nkechi had had enough and was ready to leave.

“Wait, but now I’m single. How about we give us another chance?” Emeka asked.

Nkechi glared at him; “You must be a joker!” she said and with that she never spoke to him again. This time around, she decided not to even think about the situation anymore; he was just one weirdo.

That was her thought until something similar happened to her again. This time around, it was Uche. He even said he was going to marry her and was going to come visit her the following week from England. His flight never arrived. The next year she bumped into him, the story was almost the same as Emeka’s. Argh, a second weird guy, she shook her head.

And then it happened a third time. Was she possessed? She wondered. How could these guys be coming and disappearing? She spoke to a friend about it and that was when she found out that it was more common than she thought. A few years later, she found out that it was called “ghosting”; literally like someone disappearing. The phenomenon never made sense to her but at least she was better prepared if it ever happened to her again, and surely it did. Countless guys - Nnamdi, Ifeanyi, Chukwudi, Wale, Peter, Mike; by these times, she did not even bother to call the guys once she did not hear from them. Whenever they came back with some meaningless explanations, she would sit, smile and say nothing. After a while, and she had gathered more than enough information about the pattern. Three things were common:

1) There was always someone else,

2) They claimed they had fallen in love so fast that they were scared of their feelings,

3) They always tried to blame her for something.

Although there was no way she could really avoid being ghosted in the future, she vowed henceforth not to ever waste any more emotions or time on a ‘ghoster’. Therefore, she decided to stop giving them an audience on their return; after all, they had never really been her boyfriends.

Thank you very much for reading my post. Please comment and let me know if you have been ghosted before or know anyone who has been, or if you have ghosted anyone before - I’d like to know J Also, please check out my YouTube video here on how to deal with "ghosters' and don't forget to share this post. Don’t forget to keep visiting my blog and follow my Instagram page @lavivsblog and twitter @vivio_gogo for more updates (my main Instagram page is @ugochiukah). Also, please SUBSCRIBE to my YouTube channel here. Until next time, please try to stay coronavirus free and have a great week. 

God bless. Xoxo.