Kojo worshipped the ground on which I walked. I am sure that if I asked him to give me the stars, he would pluck them from the sky and put them in my palms. That’s how far he would go to make me happy. I remember when I called him one Saturday morning, “Babe, I want to eat the Waakye Hajia sells in your neighbourhood. Can you get it for me?” “Okay sure, the next time I visit you I will bring you some,” he said. He misunderstood me, “No, I am talking about now. I won’t eat anything if I don’t get it.” I didn’t know his plans for the day but I inserted myself into them because I knew he would forego everything he had planned and show up for me. Back then, dispatch riders were not much of a thing so he had to bring it himself. Oh, he complained. He said he had to run errands for his uncle. He talked about the two-hour drive to my place and the cost of fuel. But he came anyway. That’s Kojo for you.
When I met him I was young, and curious about a lot of things, especially when it came to relationships and intimacy. I wanted to practice some of the things I read in my romance novels. And Kojo was the perfect candidate for my experiment. I saw that he was a decent guy who would treat me right. That’s why I chose him to be the person who would deflower me. Of course, he didn’t know this at the beginning of the relationship. He thought we were in love and that he was the one who proposed. But I had everything planned, and I guided him where I wanted him to go. Don’t get me wrong, I liked him. I was attracted to him as well, but I just didn’t find him intellectually stimulating enough to fall in love with him.
Our first time together was scary for me, because it was my first time. But I didn’t tell him. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. So I just went along as if I had done it before. There was a little resistance at first but we managed to do it. There was no blood so he didn’t suspect anything. After the act, I felt disappointed because it didn’t meet my expectations. He asked if I was okay and I smiled and said yes, but I thought; “So this is it? The real act does not measure up to the picture painted by all the poetry, music, and erotica out there. Sex is overrated, I shouldn’t have done it.”
Although I wasn’t in love with him, I was committed to him. I believe I did my best to make the relationship work. However, he had this best friend whose opinion he trusted more than his own thoughts. And his friend always told him that I was too wild for him. He made Kojo believe that he wouldn’t be able to contain me. That is why Kojo was always eager to please me. He believed if he gave me everything I wanted, I would stay with him. On the contrary, I believe we would have been perfectly happy if he hadn’t tried too hard to hold on to me.
His fear of losing me made him possessive. He wanted to control every aspect of my life. “I don’t like this dress, it shows too much skin. Go and change it.” Or he would say, “Don’t wear those earrings, they will draw too much attention to you.” There was even a time he wiped off my makeup in public. I am not one to engage in arguments or fights but I am also not someone who allows myself to be pushed around and harassed into forced submission. So we fought all the time. Sometimes I even did things I knew he hated just to get on his nerves and prove to him that he does not own me.
While all this was going on, he was still running to his best friend for advice. I remember telling him, “Just because your friend says something doesn’t mean it’s true. I am not leaving you so stop being so possessive. It’s smothering me.” But he didn’t listen. Then I went to tertiary school, and he got worse. This guy would call me in the morning and expect me to be on the phone with him throughout the day. If I told him, “I have to go to class so let’s talk later,” he would say, “Sure, but don’t hang up. I want to listen to your lectures.” If I was with my friends, he would still insist that I don’t hang up. He wanted to know every detail about my life on campus. He even had my roommate’s number and I didn’t know. It got to a point, all the boys in my hostel knew about him. They nicknamed my phone, “Kojo”. So every time they saw me without my phone they would ask, “Where is Kojo today? He finally gave you space to breathe?”
After all this, Kojo still wasn’t convinced that I was his. I didn’t know what else to do to make him trust me. The more possessive he got the less attracted to him I became. It got to a point I couldn’t even stomach his touch. So I started pushing him away. He would try to touch me and I would say no. “What’s going on with you? Why do you keep pushing me away?” I explained, “It’s because you are smothering me. There is too much of you in my space. I need you to stop being so controlling.” For once he seemed to have listened. He promised to change even. And he changed for a few days. It was peaceful and we were happy. Then all of a sudden he switched back to his old self. When I confronted him he said, “I talked to Ivan about your behaviour, and he said it’s because you are cheating. He said women push their men away when they start cheating. So who is the other guy? Is he one of your male friends, or he is someone new?”
That was the day I reached my breaking point. I snapped at him, “Every day, Ivan said this, and Ivan said that. Since you care more about Ivan’s opinions about me, than you care about my feelings, go and date him. I wish you all the best in life.” He thought I was joking so he said okay. I didn’t hear from him until two weeks later when he called to apologize. He said he made a mistake by not trusting me. He promised to change if I took him back. But I was tired. I was done bending myself over to appease his insecurities. So I didn’t take him back. I didn’t also try to experiment with relationships again. It ended a decade ago but to date, when I see the slightest sign of possessiveness in a man, I run the other way. Maybe that’s why I am still single. Most of the men I meet are possessive, and that’s a turn-off for me. So I am wondering, are there men out there who are not possessive or controlling?
—Willow
