• I have had my ups and downs in romance until I discovered what I like
Image: PIXABAY
I’m back on dating apps. In Kenya, I was on Tinder, and that’s where I met my ex three or so months before moving out of the country. We tried long-distance for a month or so before I called it quits because I’m such a physical touch, quality time girlie, and if I don’t see and touch you, I swear I begin to forget you.
That relationship really messed me up, especially because I was really in love with my partner. It was one of those intoxicating but kind of toxic love stories. They were my muse and I have never been so inspired to write poetry in my life as when I was with them. I did not write another poem for two years post-breakup. Every attempt felt like I was bringing them back to my life only to watch them leave me again.
Over the past three years, my longest relationship was with a balding 30-something-year-old who was the first person to make me happy since moving. I had been in the depression pits for months and he came in like a white knight. Looking back, I was with him more for companionship than the relationship. I liked him, he was funny, he had his own place, and he had paid for all streaming services. The problem, though, was that he was a selfish avoidant who broke up with me on text. We got back together two more times before I realised I was an idiot and moved on.
I’ve always known I was a polyamorous pansexual. I didn’t have the vocabulary for it but from the time I started indulging in relationships, monogamy just never made sense to me. I used to see a captivating man who was so much fun knowing that he was involved with someone else. Knowing he was ‘taken’ gave me a lot of comfort because then I knew that we both knew what this was. There were no expectations for intimacy beyond the physical, and I didn’t feel trapped. It wasn’t so much fun, though, when I had my life threatened in a club by a drunk girl with a beer bottle. I still saw him a couple more times after this incident, and we may have laughed about it. Men are cruel and I wasn’t always the nicest.
In my delusion, I always thought she should know I don’t want to ‘steal’ him because I was never blowing up his phone or asking him for anything other than the occasional sex date when I was bored. Apparently, that’s slut behavior but here I was, thinking I was just a liberal.
To be continued