Imagine being in the dating scene and all the horrors you’ve heard of. You are a hopeless romantic, and you truly believe in love. At this point, you think you must be crazy to still believe in finding true love after the kind of people you’ve met recently.

You’ve met the secretly married guy, the ‘single’ married guy, you know the kind that treats their marital status like a technicality? That kind. You’ve met the cool kid who’s partly a mama’s boy and the de facto heir to their ‘empire’ despite the fact that they don’t get along with his father. He likes you because you seem ambitious enough to impress his father, and he somehow thinks his father will take him seriously if he shows up with you.

Then you decided the problem must be where you’re meeting these suitors — dating apps, social events and clubs. So the club’s not the best place to find love, so the church’s where you went. There should have been a big U-turn sign outside the gate because the one you found there was your biggest disappointment. Disappointment is a mild way to describe it, given that you almost went for therapy after all the manipulation and gaslighting you went through at the hands of that man.

To be fair, though, your assumption that you’ll find good men there blinded you to obvious red flags. The moment you humanised him, just like the rest, you saw through him. After that ordeal, you decided to find people that your community could vouch for.  That’s how Wanjala came into the picture.

He was a friend of a friend’s friend. Yes, that chain sounds long, but at least you knew somebody who thought he was a good guy.

“You know I know a guy who’s been through a lot with women, but he’s such a lover boy. I think you guys would be perfect for each other,” said the friend.

It was a bunch of wounded soldiers committed to the mission ­ — finding true love.  They were on to something because Wanjala was a certified romantic. He loved me so tenderly that I brought down walls I didn’t even know existed in me. I thought I was a lover girl until I met him.

He was thoughtful in a way that came to him so naturally. He’d pick up on stuff I found inconveniencing and find a solution to them. Wanjala listened to every word I said and, out of the blue, would remember them in our conversations. We could talk hours on end.

I kept wondering why anyone would let go of him.

“Why again did you break up with your ex?” I asked him.

“She was toxic,” he said.

Then he started opening up a bit more about the chaotic relationship he had with his ex, Carol. It felt like watching Why Did I Get Married? and he was Marcus. My question turned into, “Why did you stay with her?”

“I don’t know, but I really loved her,” Wanjala said.

I clearly wasn’t done with my assumptions game because I once again assumed that he was with me because he was in love with me. I mean, who shows up in a relationship the way he consistently did without loving the other person?

It was a normal workday, but Wanjala called me later in the evening.

“Are you home?” He asked.

“Yeah. Whats up?” I asked.

“I’m on my way,” he said, sounding drunk.

I’d never seen him that hammered before. He was very emotional and had a lot to talk about. A very hard day at work had triggered it. Then one thing led to another, and we found ourselves playing adult games. In the middle of it, he whispered in my ear, “You know I’ll always love you, Carol.”

Everything stopped.

“Babe, babe, babe, I’m sorry. It was a slip of the tongue. I’m drunk,” he said.

“They say drunk people tell honest tales,” I told him.

“It’s because we’ve just talked about her,” he pleaded.

I let it slide the first time. Then it happened two more times, and I found myself wondering if Dolly Parton felt that way about Jolene. Only Carol sounded so messy, but my man, our man, loved her. It took him confessing that he still had feelings for her for me to find the courage to leave him.

It felt even more shameful to tell people that he was still in love with his ex. Maybe it was that my friends knew of Carol’s transgressions against him, but he still chose her, which hurt my ego. Whatever the reason, the man who’d loved me the most was in love with someone else.

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