Theb

It was my birthday a few weeks ago, and what should have been a routine, barely noticeable bump on the flat line that has become the ultra predictable, safety first, thirty-something year old life that is my lot somehow morphed into a swirling mess of mildly depressive emotions. The trigger was an epiphany of sorts, one that I had no business having. If having that epiphany was odd, where it hit was even odder - midway through my morning ablutions, just before the commode gave way to a four minute duel with sensodyne and a power toothbrush. Leading up to it, I was stoking along nicely, keeping up with my annual birthday ritual - deactivating my facebook account, turning off all but my private phone and lobbing a text message in the direction of the one friend I know whose birthday is in the same week as mine. ...

Sometime between sending an SMS that went unanswered for very nearly a day and me slipping into one of my more pensive moments, something clicked in my head - TheB is not for me. My trip westward at the back end of last year had come at some personal cost. I had been invited for an interview at one of the Nigerian multi-nationals, and given the job description, it seemed a fairly reasonable job that fit in with my longer term life direction. I chose instead to head out to Chicago, prioritising clarity around my situation with TheB higher than snagging a dream Nigerian job. Unfortunately my nervousness and her busy-ness ended up putting paid to any serious conversations. ...

My lazy Saturday - the slightly chillier air put paid to any pretensions of activity I had planned for the day - ended being defined by three conversations. In all honesty, two were conversations I could have done without, but I ended up caught up in them anyways. I wake up to see an offline message from my Q, my friend of just under a week. She’s a Geek’s Geek complete with geeky glasses and loads of tech speech. We end up talking about everything and nothing for the better part of three hours. In a sense it feels like de ja vu all over again - the easy conversation, shared interests and comfort even in silence were hallmarks of the early days of my bonding with EJ. Probably still early days, but there does seem to be a real opportunity for something to develop here. ...

The one thing laying the ghosts of the EJ debacle to rest did was to finally free me up mentally to move on after what had been a horrendous six months of torture. On here as in real life, I was beginning to sound like a broken record with my endless whining and musing about what was a lost cause from day zero. In looking to go forward, I made the basic error of falling for the Dalglish conjecture. [The Dalglish conjecture is the fancy way I describe one party in a good friend situation suddenly developing romantic feelings and hoping they will be reciprocated, almost as a rebound.] ...

The evening before the morning I am due to fly, I stay awake till the wee hours of the morning tossing and turning on my bed. There is the reality of the unfinished business between TheB and I that needs sorting out one way or the other; and that thought, scary as it is, leaves my mind accelerating into overdrive. These could potentially be game changing events I am about to unleash, if I grow the balls to go through with it. History suggests that it will be yet another dumb squib.. One way or the other, there has to be some clarity I reckon

In a few days time, I shall pack my bags and head across the Atlantic one more time. The driver is some unfinished business from 2009. There was the small matter of a conundrum which developed in April of 2009. The ladies in question were F and my ’nearly girls’TheB and S. Over the course of that year F and I would finally put ourselves out of the misery of our forced dalliance, for good. ‘S would turn to me as a husband finder, and TheB and I would drift apart for no real reason. ...

I am all for defining my people connections upfront (DTRs) …… The thing about them though is that they are tricky……. Too soon, and you run the risk of permanently pulverizing some real bridges before they even get built…….. Too late, and you’re mired in the morass of the ‘just friends’ zone….. That night we had the inevitable talk and faced the ineluctable moment of truth….. Faced with a choice she said….. ...

Day Zero. You meet her on one of those days. Boredom morphs into irritation, topped off with despondency. Your 8-4 (5-9) is especially dull on the day. Madam Bosco, your loud mouthed, over-bearing boss rips into you as usual over the ever yawning chasm between your targets and your deliveries. The heat seems to have major intentions of causing grievous bodily harm in any case. That is when the ‘gods’ of the internet and itchy fingers contrive to send Her your way. ...