Dating in Nairobi: Life Lessons From My Last Relationship

Two lovers holding hands
Two lovers holding hands
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Be careful the kind of women you bring into your lives. Let not your vigilance end at her face and poise. Many men make this mistake, and they rued it to the grave. Women destroy men just as profoundly as they build them. No book is long enough to narrate men's tears in the hands of women.

Years back, grandpa would spit into the fire, and tell me: "I have no doubts with you. It is the woman you'll marry I worry about". And I have seen it many times, to know that women break men.

They break men's will; break their ego, and then they break men's dignity. You become a walking shell.

My first real relationship taught me that there are people who are sincerely predisposed to the simple life: to sleep and wake up to their partners. To rise and tend to their small kiosk - and not dream to expand it to a wholesale outlet. To raise kids and attend PTA meetings. To go to church on Sundays.

Two newly weds get intimate
Two newly weds get intimate.
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Then they die as quietly as they lived - and that it's okay.

I didn't see that, like me, she didn't want the world. She didn't want the fame. She didn't care for the money. And in my oblivion, I would wake up at 3:00 a.m., and return at 11:00 p.m. I'd put in weekends. To get her all the good things I thought she needed. But instead, I was taking away everything she needed.

Post-breakup, I realized that we unintentionally impose our visions onto our partners. Never asking what they wanted and deciding whether we can meet it. In my quest for ultimate success, I slowly but surely choked the life out of us. I wanted to bring her to the world, but I ended up losing us.

The question that would play on cue in my mind, looking at her was: "How could you be satisfied with so little?"

I judged it to a lack of vision, mediocrity, or perhaps, ignorance. In such moments, we forget that these people are adults like us. That they also have their visions.

Most men are alike, we hardly know when to stop.

Two wedding rings
Two identical wedding rings.
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