First-date diaries: The head over the heart?

“If you don’t like where you are, change it. You’re not a tree.” Jim Rohn

It was time to change my status from single to married.

I had just returned home after a year abroad (or maybe it should be the other way round – abroad after a year at home), during which I had grown tired of gypsying around and wanted to start my own home. Also, I was finally free of the five year ‘long-distance, roller-coaster, emotionally-draining’ relationship I had been in. It was time to start afresh. It was time to get married. No more dilly-dallying and waiting around for Mr perfect, I was going to be pro-active.

The first thing I did when I got back home (or abroad) was move to another neighbourhood. I had been reading a lot of self-help books on relationships; my favourite was ‘How to get a REAL man in 10 days and KEEP him.’ I liked that the author was in a happy relationship, so I was willing to give it a try. From the book, I learnt that I had better odds of meeting a REAL man if I lived in a good neighbourhood with a world-class gym compared to one with the highest crime rate in the city where make-shift gyms and weights made of locally hardened cement were the norm. So after scraping together a few bucks (well, a lot) with just enough leftover to survive on more than garri, I rented a flat in a more upscale neighbourhood. Flat is a very generous word for what would be my home but it was going to serve the purpose.

You probably guessed my next move; I joined the gym.

After three months, during which I realised that men actually go to the gym to work out and not scope girls, I was ready to cut my losses. I bought another book titled ‘Good men like girls that love chocolate’ and even though I  hoped I would not regain the 12 kilos I lost during my ‘unproductive’ visits to the gym, finding a GOOD man was definitely worth the (any) effort. I ignored the burning hole in my pocket and decided to invest in this new venture. It was during one of my trips to the supermarket for chocolate and chocolate-flavoured goodies that I saw Charles. I remembered him from the gym; the slightly older man who looked very fit and always seemed to work harder than anyone else.

“Hey, I have not seen you in a long time.” He looked disapprovingly at the contents of my shopping basket and I made a mental note to throw that stupid book in the bin when I got back home. I held the basket close and hoped it could hide the bulge that was starting to form (again) in my tummy.

“I have been busy...” Yeah right, busy eating chocolate

We chit-chatted for a few minutes, during which he said he had missed seeing me at the gym because he had admired me from a distance.

Urgh, dude had been admiring me from a distance for three months? Did he know how much money and time he would have saved me if he had told me SINCEEEEE?

My mind went into overdrive. Could he be the one?

1.      We met at the gym! That must count for something right? Our kids would be soooo fit.

2.      I had finally dropped ‘tall, dark and handsome, or Osaze’ from my list, which was good because Mr. Gym would not have made the cut.

3.      Also, it was only a few days to my birthday, and nobody wants to be single on B-day... so I was ready!

 “Surely, this is the one”, I thought.

He took my number down and I Googled wedding dresses all night. And rings; wedding rings.

We had our first date the next day and a relationship with him began to make perfect sense. Well, to my head; my heart refused to get involved.

I don’t care about my heart anymore abeg; I have been following my heart for five years, still no show... no ring. This time I am going with my head. Responsible, hardworking, comfortable, well dressed, eloquent, confident, God-fearing young man, with a good job and ambition. What more could a girl want?

He proposed the following week and met the parents shortly after.

So what happened? Why didn’t we get married? How did it end? Why did it end? I am not sure exactly- maybe we had been going too fast...

Or maybe, just maybe, it was because I went abroad (or home) and saw my ‘long-distance, roller-coaster, emotionally-draining’ ex...

Maybe I’ll always choose my heart over my head. 

"Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye" H. Jackson Brown, Jr