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Good day my good people. I'm back again with another one. This story is written in first-person narrative, and it will have about 13-15 chapters.

This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Chapter 1 : The Beginning 


When I was growing up, I never thought I would be unmarried at 40, let alone single. There are just some things in life you would never think would happen to you. But life happens to us all, in different ways. My name is Lucas, and I am going to let you into my world. 


As a kid, I was a talker. I loved movies, and I loved narrating the movies I watched to anyone that gave me attention. Around 5, it was my mom's friend, Mrs. Johnson. She was about 10 years younger than my mom, and gave me a listening ear anytime she would come around. Back then in the 80s, Indian movies were very popular in Nigeria, and even though they were mostly 3 hour long, I would sit through them, and always couldn't wait till Mrs. Johnson was around so I could narrate the movie to her. 


I was a cute little dark skin boy with all the energy in the world, till something happened. One day when I was 6, I was playing outside with my friends in the neighbourhood. They were swinging around on our house gate. One kid would hang on the gate, and the others would swing it shot, and swing it back open, over and over, till the kid got off, and another got on the gate. I was lost in thought, thinking of the last Indian movie I had watched, thinking of how I was going to narrate it to Mrs. Johnson when she came around and I didn't know when I put my hand in the little space between the gate and the metal  part attached to the wall. By the time I realised where my hand was and tried to pull it out before that space got shut, it was too late; the tips of two of my fingers got mutilated in the accident. 


I remember walking into the house with a bloody hand, crying. My younger brother had just been born at the time, and they were people in the living room visiting my mom. They all screamed and jumped up when they saw me. The look of fear in their eyes made me cry even louder, and it made my baby brother cry too. 


My mom grabbed me, crying as she examined my fingers. I could feel her trembling as she assessed the damage. She quickly led me out the house, and rushed me to the hospital opposite my house at the time. They were overwhelmed with the amount of people that came in with me, and I remember them running around trying to get non-family members to leave, and get the operating theatre ready for my surgery. 


I passed out from loss of blood even before I got anaesthesia for the operation, and they had to revive me first, keep me steady for a few hours before proceeding with the surgery. Medically, things weren't as advanced as it is now, especially in Nigeria, and they did a really bad job with the surgery. I woke up with gauze on the two affected fingers, my middle finger and my ring finger. The doctor assured me that they would look better when they healed, but even at that age I knew he was lying. 


I was discharged after a few days, and I went back home to heal. That single event changed the course of my life. Sometimes I wonder why it had to happen to me. Where was my guardian angel? I was just a little kid with an afro who wanted to tell happy stories to anyone that was ready to listen, and make them smile. After the incident, my confidence was gone. I felt incomplete. I started keeping more to myself because I didn't want anyone noticing my injured fingers. Slowly, I went from a very lively kid, to an introvert. 


By the time I was 7, the right side of my head had a patch of white hair. The white hair was restricted to just one side, and I guessed it had something to do with the fingers on my right hand being crushed. Now, not only did I have to hide my two disfigured fingers, I also had to find a way to not make people notice I had white hair like an old man. The psychological and emotional stress was too much for a 7 year old me. 


I withdrew deeper and deeper into my shell. I lost my self esteem, and never wanted to socialise with other kids. As I grew older and started getting female attention, I would always think they were staring at me because I had white hair. I remember one time in primary 5, my home tutor for mathematics was also my teacher in school. I had just gotten a new haircut, and he kept looking my way while teaching us in class. I was thinking in my head, 'Oh my God, the haircut has made my white hair more obvious. Why the hell did I get this haircut?' I was shocked when he stopped what he was doing and said, "Lucas, this your new haircut makes you look really handsome." All eyes were on me after his statement, and I didn't know how to act. 


With the days that followed, a lot of my female classmates would giggle whenever they walked past me. Before, I would have thought that it was because of my white hair. But after what my teacher had said in class that day, I started to think maybe it was because of my looks. Although I remained shy, that incident gave me a little confidence. It made me realise I wasn't as worthless as I thought I was. With a brighter outlook on life, a little twinkle was back on my face.

Keep it coming. I'm here.

Following

Wow!

More ink to your pen 🖊 Op!

So interesting
next chapter plss

Okay, I am here.
Kayo80 is at it again 🤩😊
Take us on a long ride boss

Jaybest1719:
So interesting
next chapter plss

Coming soon.

And thanks for helping me come up with the title of the story

DemiKOL:
Wow!

More ink to your pen 🖊 Op!

Thanks. And thanks for being a fan for over 5 years now.

YoungBruzzy:
Okay, I am here.
Kayo80 is at it again 🤩😊
Take us on a long ride boss

lol.

Yes o.

kayo80:
Thanks. And thanks for being a fan for over 5 years now.

Wow!🙈

I did not even know it’s been that long.

But you have been posting good, interesting, and captivating stories which gave me no choice than to follow you.


Keep it up!👏

DemiKOL:
Wow!🙈

I did not even know it’s been that long.

But you have been posting good, interesting, and captivating stories which gave me no choice than to follow you.


Keep it up!👏

Thanks once again.

Chapter 2 : My Teen Years (Part 1)


Kings College Lagos, the secondary school I attended was boys only. As prestigious as the school was and still is, I feel it wasn't the right choice for me. I was already battling with social anxiety and problems interacting with the opposite sex, being in a school with no girls didn't help my case. I was a boarder, which meant I spent more than half the year cooped up with just boys, all day long. 


Once in a while, we would get to interact with females during the yearly inter-house sports competition, or during the literary and debate club events, but it was usually just a few days of the year. I remember one of the social events that took place when I was in JS 3. I was about 13 at the time. The event usually had guests from other schools, especially females, socialising with a selected few from our school. It was a Saturday, and I was going to wash my clothes by the school reservoir. Loud music was booming out of the assembly hall as I walked past it. The building was all glass, but thick glass. I could see figures moving inside, but I had to move closer to see clearly. 


Inside the hall, I saw about two dozen boys and girls on the dancefloor, dancing to slow music. My jaw dropped when I saw boys my age holding girls in their arms and moving slowly to the rhythm of Boyz 2 Men music. ‘Oh my God, they're actually chest to chest.’ I said to myself, thinking of if I could ever get the confidence to dance in that position with a girl. My heart started beating fast just from the thought of it, and I slowly walked away from the place. I wandered off to the reservoir, lost in thought. 


Later that day, I went to the dormitory room of one of the boys I had seen dancing and waited. John was a very popular boy, and an extrovert. Even though we were agemates, he always looked older to me, because of his muscular build. 


I needed to hear from John on how the whole experience was. I had a classmate in the room, and I pretended to have come to visit him. He was very playful, and smaller in size than most of us. He kept talking about cartoons I didn't know still aired on TV. The dorm room had six bunks on both sides; my classmate’s bunk was the first bed to the right, and I was sitting facing the entrance of the room. When he noticed I had my eye on the door and wasn't paying attention to him, he poured his Nescao chocolate powder in his hand and blew it in my eye. I cussed him out and left his bunk corner, looking for water as he laughed like a villain from a cartoon. He then said he wanted to show me how the wrestler, The Great Kabuki, disarmed his opponents. I just shook my head at how childish he was.


When I got the powder out my eye, and was storming out of the place, John finally walked in, and almost bumped into me. He gave me a handshake, and smiled before walking past me to his corner of the room. I guessed he had seen me peeping at them in the hall earlier. He smelled really nice, and had on blue jeans, and a red lumberjack shirt. On his feet, he had on butter colour boots that I would later learn were called Timberland boots. I pretended to want to look out the window at the end of the dorm room, where his bunk was, and eavesdropped on him talking about his experience with the girls that had come for the event. 


What shocked me was the nonchalant way he spoke about the experience, like it was something he experienced regularly. I was perplexed. Am I ever going to be confident enough to do what I had witnessed that day? I thought to myself as I walked out the room.


……….


Through the course of my teen years, I had a couple of memorable encounters with females; some good, some bad, and some ugly. Let me start off with the bad. 


When I was in SS1, my cousins were sent home from America to live with us for a couple of years; their parents wanted them to imbibe some of our Nigerian culture . They were two: the older one was a girl named Susan, and the younger was Larry. Susan was closer to me in age, and happened to be in Queens College; the sister college of my school. 


One day, my dad was dropping Susan and I off in school after our mid-term break, and he drove to Susan’s school first. I was 14 years old, about 5 ft 10, and in my white on white school uniform. The moment we drove our red 1982 Mercedes Benz into the compound, my heart quickened. There were girls in sleeveless blue check blouses, and blue skirts everywhere. I had never seen so many beautiful girls in one place before. It was like I was Odysseus trapped on the mythical Amazon island that had only women on it. 


We had to stop at a roadblock, where the students' house masters were all lined up, checking them in. I sat in the car, while my dad helped Susan carry her boxes out of the car for scrutiny. While the procedure was ongoing, I looked around from the back seat I was in. I hadn't been looking for long when I recognized a girl. I quickly looked away and wished she didn't see me. Her name was Tayo; she was a slim light skin girl I had had a puppy love crush on when I was in primary school. I hadn't seen her since I left primary school 4 years ago, and was even surprised with my bad memory at how I was able to recognize her. 


I was dreading having to get out of the car to talk to her when my dad sat in the driver’s seat and said, "Lucas, do you know that girl? She has been looking at you for a while now." My heart started beating fast again. 


I swallowed spit. When I looked to my side, she was right there, a few feet from our car smiling at me. "Oh, okay. Yes sir. I know her." I managed to say, in a shaky voice. I got out of the car, my whole body shaking as I did so. I stopped a few inches from her and waved, when I could easily have hugged her or shook her. 


"How are you Tayo?" I didn't recognize my own voice when I said that. It was like the sound of air being let out of a blown up balloon. I cleared my throat and tried again. "So, do you attend this school?" Tayo chuckled at how ridiculous my question was and said, "How are you Lucas? Long time." I smiled back at her, not wanting to say anything and make matters worse than they already were. "So you attend KC?" She asked, and I nodded. Just then, her house mistress called her attention to something. She had to move along with her box for the next person to get checked in, so she smiled and waved at me before heading towards her dormitory. I cursed under my breath as I got back in the car. 


That was one of the many bad experiences I had with the opposite sex, before I got it right. Thinking back now, I can remember one particular good experience that made me realise talking to a girl wasn't that hard, and that it was all in my head. 


I was about 15, and had gotten sick in school. My mom came to pick me up, and we took a cab to her office clinic. After seeing the doctor, I was waiting in the corridor area of the clinic to see the head nurse when I saw something weird on the other end of the lobby. A girl about my age had come out of the rest room, holding a drip stand in her hand, with the tube that carried the liquid into her veins still attached to her wrist. It was like a scene from a horror movie. When she got to where I was seated, she looked at me and said, "hello." She had an American accent, and it made the situation even scarier. I greeted her back as she walked off. 


I thought I was hallucinating, and looked at the man sitting opposite me, on the other side of the corridor. He didn't seem shocked that she was walking around like that, and I had to conclude in my mind that I was overreacting.  


A few minutes later, I was called into the head nurse's office. As she examined my file, I noticed the mystery girl sitting at one corner of the room. I told the nurse my age when she asked how old I was and the girl said, "you're quite tall for a 15 year old." I didn't say anything. I just smiled. The nurse then told me I was going to get two injections, and some drugs. "Do you know how tall you are?" The girl asked, and I said I was 6 ft 1. "Wow! That's tall." She said, but I wasn't paying attention because the nurse had just asked me to pull down my pants a bit for the shots. I was wondering why she didn't ask the girl to leave the room. 


'Okay Lucas, you can't show any form of pain in front of this girl.' I said to myself as the nurse put the needle of the syringe into a small glass bottle and drew the liquid out slowly. The first shot wasn't that painful, but it took all my focus to not make a painful sound while getting the second shot because I felt it in my bones. "You didn’t feel pain? How come it didn’t hurt you?" The girl asked from where she sat, the nurse said, "Tinu, leave him alone." The girl got quiet afterwards. 


The nurse asked me to sit for a while before going out, explaining to me that the shot would make my legs weak for a bit. I sat on a chair by her desk, and watched her walk over to where the girl was. I assumed they were mother and daughter. She removed the drip’s tube from the girl’s arm, and pressed down on the spot she had pulled the tube out with wool for a few seconds, before putting a bandaid on it. The girl said something about being happy to finally be able to walk around freely. 


When the nurse came back to explain where I was supposed to get the remainder of my drugs from, I wasn't getting the description, and the girl volunteered to take me there. Her mother reluctantly agreed to her suggestion. 


On our way to the place, Tinu couldn't stop talking, and she reminded me of how I used to be. She reminded me of a time when I was filled with energy, and was always eager to talk to anyone that was ready to listen. In the short 3-4 minutes it took for us to walk to the clinic’s drug store, we had a discussion about my height, basketball, and video games. It was so easy to talk to her, and I wondered why I had been so scared to talk to girls all along. Our interaction went so smoothly, and I had no idea I was going to have a different type of encounter with another girl that same day.

Thanks for the update Op!

Chapter 3 : My Teen Years (Part 2)


When my mom got an opportunity to come check on me at the clinic, I was feeling really sleepy. I guessed it was the effects of one of the shots I had gotten from the nurse. My mom hadn’t closed from work yet, so she took me to her colleague's apartment, just across the road from the clinic. The lady was about my mom's age, and she seemed to know me pretty well, as she called me Dada number 2 with a smile on her face when she saw me. My elder brother and I had dreads when we were kids, and the Yoruba language name for a dreadhead is Dada. 


I remember laying on her living room couch as she told me she had to go out, and would be back soon. Before she got through with explaining herself, I had already dozed off. When I woke up a couple of hours later, I took a few seconds to recollect my thoughts before opening my eyes. In those seconds, I could sense someone in the room. When I opened my eyes, sitting on the couch opposite me was the most beautiful light skin girl I had ever seen.


She sat with her arms on the arm rest, and her legs curled up on the couch. It was like she had been watching me sleep. She smiled when she noticed the confusion on my face. "Hi...how are you feeling?" She said with a soft feminine voice. 


"I'm fine." I said, and sat up immediately. I felt really vulnerable in the sleeping position I was in. The headache was gone, and my appetite was back. Just like she had read my mind, she asked what I wanted to eat. She said her mom had made me spaghetti before leaving for her night shift at work, but asked if there was any specific thing I would like to eat. Not wanting to stress her out, I said the spaghetti was okay. 


She left the living room for the kitchen, and was back with the food and a bottle of water in less than five minutes. She let me eat in silence for a couple of minutes, before asking me how the food was. I said it was great, and she smiled. It really was great, and did a great job at waking up my taste buds. From there, the conversation went to our favourite foods, and favourite snacks, to our favourite hubby. Unlike talking to the first girl earlier, with this girl, I was actually attracted to her. Every minute we spent talking, I was already planning in my head on how our wedding was going to be. It's laughable now, but that was just how magical the whole thing felt back then. 


Her name was Rosemary, and she had just finished her SSCE, while I had just concluded my SS2 final exams . But it didn't phase me, because I was always older than most of my classmates, as the gate accident I had as a kid had delayed my schooling. And from examining her all night, she didn't look older than me. I assumed we were probably the same age. 


By the time my dad and mom came to pick me up, it felt like we had known each other for years. But this was the 90s, and there were no GSM phones, or social media. And like a light from a matchstick, our fire burnt bright, but not for long. 


The following year, when I got through with secondary school, I went into the partying phase of my life. My brother was a popular guy that always had money, I was a DJ in the making, and my cousin Susan that lived with us had a lot of beautiful friends. We had a big house with no adults around most of the time. After attending a gig one day, we got an idea to throw our own party as we noticed we had everything needed for that. And that's how we got famous for having parties in my house every 3 months. It was a very interesting time in my life. Our parties always had abundant girls in attendance, which made it the talk of the town in our neighbourhood. I remember one particular party we had where a girl came with rollers in her hair. Her hairdresser was taking too long to be done with her hair, and she came like that so she wouldn’t miss the party.


I became a ladies man in this phase of my life, but the problem was that I wasn't dating any of them. My cousin, Susan travelled back with her brother during this time, and three of her closest friends in the neighbourhood became my close friends. They would come over to see me with their friends, and those girls also became my friends. Sometimes, I would have about half a dozen girls at my place watching movies. With time, my friends and brother's friends noticed this, and took advantage of it. I became the number one matchmaker amongst my friends.


I had so many female friends at the time that people would invite me to parties with the hopes that I would come with girls. I remember one particular event that remains fresh in my memory after all these years. It was a birthday party being held at the beach. The celebrant was a rich northerner's kid, who was spoiled silly by his parents. He had got word out to me two days before the event that he would be sending two cars for me to fill up with girls. As I said earlier, there were no smartphones at the time, so I had to do real work, going to the girls' houses, one by one. Some didn't want to go, because it was far from home. But I got enough girls interested to make a statement. 


I remember being awestruck when I walked out of my house on the d-day to two black Mercedes Benzes parked outside, with executive looking drivers, ready to go. It felt like the scene from Coming to America, when Prince Akeem’s dad came from Zamunda with his convoy in search of his son. You have to understand that I was about 18 at the time. This was before Yahoo boys made things like this achievable for teenagers. 


I took the drivers around my neighbourhood to pick up the girls, and I remember the look on the faces of boys as I picked up girls on their street and drove off. The experience was priceless.


The beach party was fun; great music, abundant food, and great people. The celebrant gave me a wad of cash once we arrived, and asked me to make sure the girls got the best treatment. 


This phase of my life was when I had the most girls around me. I had so many of them in my reach, but I was too busy matchmaking them at a fast pace that I never thought about myself. The thing I was doing was so magical to me, and I wanted to remain selfless. I thought if I got serious with one girl, then the rest wouldn’t want to be around me any longer, and I would no longer be the match make king anymore. Since it gave me a sense of self worth, I decided to remain single.


At the time, I thought I would be the match-make king forever, but nothing lasts forever. Nothing lasts forever.

More ink to your pen Op!

So interesting sir,thanks
Lucas the transform guy

Chapter 4 : My 20s & 30s (Part 1)


Everything comes to an end. By 19, I had to go and live with distant relatives because I was partying too much, and I hadn’t been able to pass my JAMB exam after three tries. I lived with the family, on and off, till I turned 20. It paid off, because I finally got a great score in JAMB; a strong enough score that got me into the University of Lagos with no hassle. 


At this time, most of my other friends had gotten into universities around the country. It was like a new start. I was a small fish in a big pond. I was able to attract females with my height, good looks, and knowledge of popular culture in my teens. Here, things were a little different. To get the hottest girls, you had to belong to a club, live off campus, or have a cool car. I tried to play in the big leagues for a while; stealing my mom's car to school a few times, and going to club parties. But that wasn't me. After my first year, I settled for a low-key lifestyle. 


One day, while home for the weekend, I reconnected with a friend of mine, Isioma. She used to be shy like me back in the day, but now she was the opposite. She was bold enough to tell me she used to have a crush on me, but not anymore. I laughed it off, because I knew the attraction was still there.

Standing at 6 ft 2, most of the girls I had gotten involved with in the past always had to look up at me. I liked the fact that Isioma was tall for a girl; it was a turn on for me. Also, she was a lightskin beauty that didn’t let her beauty get to her head. We officially started dating the following month. I was 22, and she was 21. 


In my third year at the University, after dating Isioma for about a year, she started hinting at marriage. The finality of that scared me, because I was just 23. She was 22, but was already done with the university, and waiting for youth service. One day, she asked me what I could do to improve my finances so we could get married. She said it as a joke, but I've always known that a lot of truth is shared in jest. Her parents knew of our relationship, and I guessed they were somehow behind this. As much as I loved Isioma, I didn't think I wanted to start a family at 23. I thought the whole thing through for a couple of days, and decided to at least go ahead with the relationship for now, and see how things go. 


Because of my love for movies and music, I believed opening a shop where I sold DVDs and audio music CDs was a great idea. I told Isioma about it, and gave her the breakdown of how much it would cost; one hundred thousand Naira. The following week, I got a call from her, asking me to go and collect the money at one of her dad's establishments. That afternoon, I walked out of the building with a bulky brown envelope in my hand; there was exactly one hundred thousand Naira cash in it. This was 2004, and as at then, that was the most amount of money I had ever had in my life. 


The first thing I did was rush to the bank to open an account, as I didn’t have one at the time. My parents gave me the empty shop in front of our house rent free, and I used a little over fifteen thousand to furnish the place. The remainder of the money was used to equip the place with the latest DVDs. This was before movie downloads, and the business was a huge success. It boomed, and I was making money for the first time in my life. Money gives a man confidence; I didn’t understand that till I started making my own money. I was able to see Isioma more often, and recharge my phone to call her every day. 


Business was great. The only issue was that my studies started to suffer. And when I decided to reduce time spent on the business and focus on my studies, my business started to suffer. 


I was in a dilemma; I  had to choose between my education and my business. I was in my final year at the time, and thought the best thing was to take a break from the business for the last 6 months of my university days. When I closed shop and decided to focus fully on my studies was when I discovered how behind I was with my studies. Everyone was already half way through their final year project, and I hadn't even met my project supervisor yet. I became overwhelmed, and it affected my relationship with Isioma. When you're fighting for your life, time flies. 


After one year of a very shaky relationship, Isioma and I grew apart. By the time I was doing my own youth service, and I had time to myself, I tried to rekindle things, but it was too late, she was already seeing someone else. 


About a year later, when I saw her wedding pictures on Facebook, I shed a tear. I went down memory lane, thinking of all the ways I could have made things work between us. She tried her best; one year of her life, she reached out constantly, trying to make things work, so I never blamed her when she moved on. It was all my fault. I can never forget her for the way she loved me unconditionally. I can never forget her for helping me set up my first business. Isioma brought a lot to the table, but I just wasn't ready.

Your work rate on this street is second to none, ngl
Your consistency and ability to deliver >>>>

Keep up the good work boss

Wonderful to read,can't wait for the next chapter

YoungBruzzy:
Your work rate on this street is second to none, ngl
Your consistency and ability to deliver >>>>

Keep up the good work boss

Thanks for this comment. I really appreciate it.

I am really enjoying this beautiful story. Thanks for the update

It's refreshing to read stories on Nairaland all thanks to our own very best. God bless you more 🙏

Thanks for the story bossman

Chapter 5 : My 20s & 30s (Part 2)


Sometime in my late teens, after overhearing some guys in my neighbourhood calling me Mandela behind my back, I started dying my white hair. But by my late 20s, I no longer cared about the patch of white hair on the right side of my head. I would live it that way, and only occasionally dye it black when I felt like it. 


I had started working as a supervisor at a sausage factory shortly after my national youth service, and one day while eating during lunch break I noticed a new industrial attachment student staring at me. In the factory, we had our lab coats, facemask, and head scarves on at all times, and the only time we got to see how each other really looked was at the canteen at lunch break. I was wondering if the girl was staring at my white hair and I got uncomfortable.


I caught her staring again the following day and I decided to talk to her after lunch, but she beat me to it. I was inspecting a small assembly line with about a dozen workers, when she slowly walked up to my side. She stood there and watched what I was watching for a few minutes before turning to face me and asking me why I was so quiet.  It hit me off guard. I didn't expect her to be that bold, especially to her superior at work. The management had advised the supervisors to have limited interaction with the factory workers to keep the respect, but unlike my fellow supervisors, I took things a bit too far, and applied that to all workers. 


That day, we exchanged phone numbers, and continued to chat after work. It was clear to me now that she was never staring at my white hair; it was just a simple case of physical attraction. Jade was just a few inches shorter than I was which was tall for a girl. She was slim, but also curvy at the same time; Apart from having a warm personality, that was another of her qualities I was attracted to. With her brown complexion, I saw her as a rare Benin bronze sculpture. 


Even though we never made things official, we got called into the HR office one day for issues concerning inter-office dating. I guessed the mutual attraction was obvious to everyone else. We made conscious efforts to reduce our interaction during work, and saw each other more often after work. 


I was 27, she was 24; I felt it was a perfect age gap for marriage. And then I was hit with the bombshell when I had walked in on her talking to a guy on the phone at the factory canteen. She didn't deny who he was, and told me they had been dating on and off since her first year at the university. I had not officially asked her out, so she didn’t owe me any explanations. I was just vexed that she had allowed me to fall in love with her knowing she had someone she was already dating. I had a feeling she was waiting for  me to ask her out, so she could break up with the guy. But I just didn't like the whole thing, so I slowly withdrew from her.  


I left the company a few months later to start my master's program at my alma mater, but Jade and I remained friends. With a lot of free time on my hands at this time, I started reading motivational books. I got hooked on books like Rich Dad Poor Dad, and Think and Grow Rich; I read them over and over again. These books changed my way of thinking, and I no longer wanted to be a worker; I wanted to be a full time entrepreneur. At the time, I had an entertainment blog I was running as a hubby, and I decided to take it as a full time job. The year was 2010, I had been running the Hip Hop blog for two years at the time, and I saw a lot of prospects in it. It was my way of earning dollars, which was my ultimate goal. I saw the advantage of that over earning in Naira long before most people my age did. 


The numerous motivational books I had read at the time had made me understand that no great deed is ever achieved without sacrifice, so I was ready to sacrifice sleep, pleasure, relationship and any other forms of comfort just to make my dream come to fruition faster. I threw myself into my blogging career full on. The years that followed were the toughest and most challenging years of my life. 


I wasn't making any meaningful money from the blog in the beginning, and I depended solely on an allowance I was placed on by a relative who believed in my dream. The only issue was that the money she was giving me monthly was barely enough for feeding. I didn't want to get a job as I believed in total focus. I would blog for 14 hours daily, 7 days a week. I wasn't taking care of myself, and having a girlfriend was out of the question. My brother and I were renting a 3 bedroom apartment together at the time. A lot of times when he would go out clubbing with his friends, they would always be amazed at how I would blog all through the night while they clubbed. One morning, when I let them in after they had been out clubbing all night, my brother shook his head and said something I would never forget. He said, ‘when you make it in the future, people will believe it was luck. They would never understand the amount of work you had to put in to become successful.’


I had blogged for six years without earning anything substantial till an investor came in. I remember the day he gave me a cheque for a million naira. It wasn't what I was expecting, but I had worked myself to exhaustion at the time, and I needed a break. The year was 2014; I remember going to shop for some clothes, paying for a 12 month internet subscription and buying food in the house. After six months, the whole money was gone, and I was back to working long hours like a slave on a plantation in 18th century America. 


It took me working on my blog for 8 years straight with no reasonable income to realise that the particular niche I had chosen for blogging wasn't going to get me any headway. I quit and got depressed. I had spent almost a decade of my life on a project that didn't amount to anything. At this time, most of my friends were already married and doing real good financially; I was still broke and single. On many nights, I had suicidal ideations, but close friends and family kept me going. 


I had always had a passion for writing stories, and I decided to start writing crime stories for sale on the internet. My years of writing multiple articles for my blog daily paid off as I had become a very fast writer and creative thinker; I was able to churn out multiple crime stories in a very short period of time.


Within a year of my writing career, I was already making enough Dollars to live a better life. Although I wasn’t at financial freedom status yet, this was a lot better than my former life. 


I decided to relocate to Ibadan from Lagos as I felt that would help me further focus on my new career path. This decision paid off. I was able to work long hours with little to no distractions. And the more work I put in, the more my income grew. 


After working at my writing career for 5 years, I looked up one day and realised I was there; I had gotten to where I had always wished for. My 5 bedroom dream home was almost complete, I lived in a well furnished apartment, I owned two cars, I ran a successful poultry farm, and had millions in the bank. I never wanted to be a billionaire; I just wanted to attain financial freedom doing what I love, and I had achieved the goal.

I remember the first time I drove my 2020 Toyota Camry past the security of the mall I went to regularly in my neighbourhood, and the security guards were all smiles, greeting me, expecting me to tip them some money. I shed tears as I sat alone in my Camry at the carpark. A few years ago, I was looked at like a man with no bright future, now I was being looked up to by strangers. 


My dream had become a reality, and I was rich, earning 10 times what most of my old friends were earning. But another reality hit me; I was 40 and single. Damn!

Good evening sir/ma,

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Wow! A beautiful piece!

kayo80:
Good day my good people. I'm back again with another one. This story is written in first-person narrative, and it will have about 13-15 chapters.

The master writer himself, I dey with you boss. 🙌🙌

Sadly, Time is what we all can't tie down
What matters most is to be accomplished
Keep it coming boss

Chapter 6 : Re-entering The Dating World at 40


When I decided to start dating again, I realised most of the women in my age range were already married with kids. I didn't want to go for girls I was 10 years older than, but technically, I had no choice. And then, I never could get through the talking stage. I dreaded this stage so much, because the questions from the girls were always the same. ‘Are you married?’ 'Why are you single at this age?' 'Do you have children?' 'How old did you say you were again?' These are some of the questions I get asked by the women on the first date. Although it is understandable that they ask these questions, it gets exhausting going through the scrutiny every time. 


Anytime I get asked the predictable questions, I usually remember the one time I interviewed GT The Guitar Man back in the day. I worked briefly as an entertainment reporter for a magazine in Lagos back in 2009, and handled all the celebrity interviews for the company. The interview took place in his car, parked outside his house. Immediately after answering my last question, he let out a huge sigh that made me laugh. He let me know he was tired of answering the same questions over and over. But when he was driving me to the bus stop, he was genuinely excited discussing American Hip Hop music with me. Just like him, I was exhausted after the series of predictable questions I got asked by women on the first date. I knew they were doing their due diligence by asking those questions, but I just wanted to skip those questions and talk about fun stuff, not questions that reminded me of my age. 


There is only one year between 39 and 40, but I realised if I told girls I was 39 and single, they didn't look as shocked as if I told them I was 40 and single. 


I had a flashy car, dressed nice, and looked great for my age, thanks to my athletic figure, so I had no shortage of women's attention. The only issue I had were the questions, or knowing whether they really liked me or they were just coming around for the money. After a while, I decided to try reconnecting with some of my old flames from my university days that were still single. I was able to find three. 


Chioma was the youngest in our set when we were in school, so she was still 36 when I found her. We used to have a mutual love for rap music, so I felt we would at least have something to talk about. We didn't get to see each other before I removed her from my list of prospects. She was an entirely different person now; all she wanted to talk about was Jesus. I had no problem with overly religious people, but we were no longer compatible. 


The second was Zainab; a girl I had dated briefly back in school. She was now a bank manager in one of the oldest banks in Nigeria. We were reconnected by a mutual friend who stayed in touch with her all this while, because they were both bankers, and had worked at the same bank at different times. The problem with her was that she never had time. Even when we would go on dates, her phone would ring constantly and interrupt our conversations. After a while, I decided it was best we just remained friends.


The last was perfect for me; she was everything  I wanted in a woman. Shade hard a warm personality. She was brown complexioned, beautiful, and average in height. She had also maintained her slim physique, which made her appear younger than she was. Most of all, she didn't ask me multiple questions concerning my single status at 40. 


Shade and I had been very good friends in school. I got to know her when she intervened after a lecturer had sent me out of the lecture theatre during an examination while I was looking for a sharpener. If it wasn’t for her, I probably wouldn’t have written that examination. I looked for her to say thank you after the paper, and from there, we became good friends. Reconnecting with her was thanks to Facebook. I was surprised she still had her infectious smile, and hadn't let the societal pressure to get married rub her of her sparkle. Ironically, she said her mom had been asking of me for some weeks before I reached out to her. It all felt like it was meant to be, until one day when I found out we were both AS genotype. 


I didn't immediately give up on our love after that; I believed I could find a way around the complication. I was still doing research on a way out when I got a call from a close friend of mine. He was out of town, and his son with sickle cell had a crisis. The hospital wasn’t comfortable with just the boy’s grandma being the only person to stay the night with him, and my friend called on me to help out. This was a friend that had helped me on many hungry nights in the past, and I knew the son since he was a baby. I was even at his 16th birthday party just two weeks ago, so I agreed to spend the night at the hospital with the boy. I didn't sleep throughout the night; the boy kept crying from excruciating pain. The nurses would come over to administer painkillers in the form of injections, but he would start crying minutes later. I would massage his legs and arms with aboniki balm for several minutes before he would be at a state that resembled a little comfort, but after a few hours, he would be in pain again. It was very painful watching him go through so much pain all through the night. 


The following morning, when my friend and his wife got to the hospital, and I narrated the whole ordeal to him, he didn't seem shocked. He thanked me, and said it was what he had to deal with anytime the boy had a crisis. When I got home that day, I knew I had to kill my plans of marrying Shade, as sad as it seemed. If we go ahead, knowing the possible outcome, then we would be very selfish parents. We agreed going our separate ways was the best for the both of us but still remained friends. 


After ending things with Shade, I spent a lot of time on my poultry farm. I rented a furnished apartment close to the place, and was there every morning by 6, even before my workers arrived. I loved nature, and there was abundance of greenery around the farm. I loved sitting on a tree stump close to the chicken pen, listening to birds chirping, and chickens clucking, waiting to be released for the day. My birds were not cage raised, but free ranged. Watching them roam the length and breadth of my land chasing insects before they got fed was always therapeutic for me. 


After the two weeks spent on my farm, I decided to give the dating world another try. This time I decided to try out the church scene. It ended up being more interesting than I thought it would be.

Interesting boss