“This is my karma,” I say to myself on a Sunday afternoon. I’ve just been stood up by my fourth love interest this year, and we’re barely past the halfway mark. At least I think he has done it willy-nilly. This date had been in the works for two weeks. It was the earliest date we could find that worked for both of us.

I have changed into five different outfits before settling into the one I’m wearing. That’s how I know I like him. I’m nervous about my appearance. I’m not the kind that requires a check-in the day before and hours to the date to confirm that we’re still on. I am old school in the sense that if we said we’d meet on a particular day, then unless you cancel, the plans are still on.

I do, however, ask about the meeting time on the material day so that I don’t leave the house too early. So I ask my date what time we’re meeting when he takes too long to inform me. I momentarily wonder if I should have asked him first, or if it made me look too eager, then I rubbish that thought.

“I hate to do this to you, but I will have to cancel,” the message reads. I stare at the message in anger, disappointment and curiosity. I’m not sure what to ask first. Before I can compose a response, he tells me that his car is stuck at the mechanic’s and it’s looking like it has a serious problem.

“Quite the bummer,” I respond and put the phone away.

I feel bad that I thought ill of him. Then my mind wanders. I imagine he just decided to cancel the date because maybe he’s with another girl. “Can the car be at the mechanic’s on Sunday?” I wonder. He sends some money as an apology for the inconvenience.

“Maybe he’s sincere,” a part of me thinks, but then I also wonder, “Is he doing this to string me along?”

My plans for the afternoon are cancelled, and I have a lot of time to think. I like this guy, but I can feel all the alarms go off in me. The previous love interest went silent for slightly over 48 hours. When he didn’t text me at the regular time that we’d communicate, I tried calling him, but his phone was off. I quickly logged in to X and went straight to the Kenya Power profile.

I went through all locations with scheduled maintenance on that day, but didn’t find his place in any of the listed areas. When he finally resurfaced and told me that they indeed had no power, I went back to Kenya Power’s profiles and checked through the comments and mentions to see if anyone from his area had complained about the alleged blackout.

Somewhere between the scrolling, I caught myself wondering what’s wrong with me. “Am I too idle?” “Why can’t I just believe him?”

The one before that one was different. We had vibed, and I could feel the connection. He was funny, witty and easy on the eyes. I especially liked that he made me laugh. Then, as though I had unearthed another layer to him, he suddenly had many sob stories. The weight of the sadness varied from story to story. Then the little whisperers in my ear said, “You’re smarter than this. You know that’s how you get a girl hooked? Tell her sob stories, and she thinks you’re being vulnerable with her, and suddenly she thinks she’s the only woman you trust.”

I put some distance between us because I’ll not be caught saying things like, “You don’t know him the way I know him.”

The guy before that got the boot because he started making promises to take me places and breaking them before the interaction could even take off. I know his type. I have lived through almost all of those situations with my male friends.

I was there when they made up believable lies on the spot when their girlfriends caught them doing something they were not supposed to be doing. I listened to them plot mind games to earn the trust of women who proved harder to get. Heck, I was their alibi when they went out and forgot which beds they needed to get back to.

I saw my friends choose to treat some girls better than others and lie for the sake of lying. I learnt to read between the lines when men said something. The problem is, I don’t trust myself to know a sincere one.  I now appear with accusations before I even know these men, who may or may not be like my friends. With this trajectory, I think I’m going to be single for a while, but I also think it’s my punishment for enabling my male friends.

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