My Naija Life Pt. 5 – Dating

Welcome to the 5th installment of “My Naija Life” posts.  This post will be dealing with the dating scene.

So many dating apps…but which one do I choose? NONE!

I have been living abroad for the last 3 years.  During my second year I was dating a previous ex.  It had gotten so serious that this coming summer I was planning on moving to Houston, TX to get married.

Yes, you read that right.  I was planning on giving up my love of teaching internationally to settle down to be someone’s wife. Now…don’t get me wrong, NOTHING is wrong with getting married, but what is wrong is doing it before you are ready.

I WAS NOT READY!

I’m just glad that I realized this before planning a wedding, moving EVERYTHING, and going back to teach stateside.

So I came back to Nigeria single. Technically, I was single the entire time since I was never married, but I won’t even ago there. Let me also explain that dating while international has NEVER happened for me.  I’ve always been an LDR (long distance relationship) type of girl. Also, I’ve never been asked out while living internationally so…

I look at my circle of girl friends and each one of them are now either married, engaged, and/or dating a Nigerian man. All I can do is to laugh when I see them all together.  This was not anything any of them expected to happen and there are many times that we sit and laugh about it.  It’s during this conversations that I am quiet one.

However, that all seemed to change last week.

Last week, I signed a contract for a new school in a new country. My friend and I also had our last pop-up Jamaican restaurant bashment to celebrate Bob Marley’s birthday.  That night at the bashment a gentleman approached my friend’s mum, my other mum, to ask her permission to come talk to me.  THAT floored me and all I could do is to laugh and say yes.

So in between taking ordering and serving guest, I danced with my girls and Naija bae (lawd knows how I detest the word “bae” but that’s what he will be called). We exchanged contact information and he promised to call.

to be continued…