I am back to my life in Dublin…*sigh* and I can’t wait to travel again, not sure where I want to go to this time . I actually have some pictures from my trip to Belgium and some from Nigeria, will put them up later in the week or next week. 

Someone asked me about vlogs and if I have stopped, well No, I have not stopped, I am working on having creative ones and not just me sitting and talking to the camera in my room…so when I am done with my ‘plans’, you’ll see them. 

Also visit TheNakedConvos on Mondays and Wednesdays for some of my recent posts/topics  

Now to today’s post by Zizi on love or friendship…

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As girls we tend to have real close females who we can say are constantly there for us, if you need anything – whether it be  advice or a pink shirt to match your new pants, shopping trips, clubbing, movie trips and maybe making fun of others to our heart’s content..after all, laughter is good for the health they say. You may go out with the hopes of meeting “Mr. Right”, could work some days and some others, it could just be a good night of dancing till your feet ached in your new heels . This would be my girls and I…it would be our Girl’s Night/Day Out.
Going out with my gals was always fun, and I could count on them to keep the boredom of my single life away; they became sisters to me until the inevitable happened.

I got a boyfriend.

Suddenly, “Girls Night Out” turned into “Do You Mind If We Meet Up With “HIM” While We’re Out Night?” You see, my boyfriend and I wanted to get to know each other more, as expected. However, in the delirious excitement of having this new person in my life, I committed one of the worst dating sins a female can commit: I let my friendship with my girlfriends slip.

At first it wasn’t very noticeable to me. I still chatted and spoke on the phone with them almost every day. But the truth was, when they asked me to go out, I first considered if there was a chance I’d be doing something with “HIM” that night. As my relationship with “HIM” grew over the years, going out with friends to bars and clubs became a bit boring – I wasn’t looking for “Mr. Right” anymore. To top it off, my “Mr. Right” was not very happy at the prospect of me going to bars and clubs without him. “Clubs are dens of sin!” he half-joked one day, when I mentioned how often I used to go. “They only exist because people go there to hook up with each other, he even said only prostitutes that go there, and he made me believe my friends were not good enough because he did not like them.” So I stopped going to the dens of sin. I reduced my outing with my friends, I grew into who I wasn’t, living a life for him and not for myself

The only time I would see my friends was when he was out of town. Once, we had bought tickets to go see a new movie showing in Silverbird, just like old times I thought.  Unfortunately that thought did not last long as soon as I heard my cell phone ringing and caller Id informed me that my baby was calling…well doing his round of daily monitoring when he was away. This time he asked if I got there safely and told me to have a fun day, while trying hard to listen to the voices in the background, maybe he would pick a ‘non-female’ voice. Of course I didn’t think much of it until I looked over at my friends’ disgusted frown.

“Can’t you even go one day without talking to him?” Amy fumed. “This is OUR trip; it’s a Girl’s Day. Why does he need to call? what happened to sending a text?”

Equally annoyed, I told them that I liked when he called, that it made me feel he cared and thought of me. It was the truth – I enjoyed the fact that he thought to call when he woke up every morning and every single time. But looking back on it now, I realize Amy wasn’t angry that he’d called. She was angry that I had abandoned the girls who had been there for me even before he came into my life, forgetting that they also cared for me…I was too love struck and blind to see that.
My friends and I haven’t spoken much after that day.

As the months passed and my relationship with “HIM” grew stronger or should I say, more comfortable, I started noticing something very interesting. He had not given up any of his friends or hobbies that he had before we knew each other. He still played football every Sunday morning with his friends. He met his friends for drinks when I was busy and couldn’t make it. He made it a point to find time for them, even if it meant saying no to making plans with me once in a while and even when I complained about his bad friends ,he would make me understand that they are still his guys or it was just business.

Eventually, I thought back about how I had given up things to spend time with him. And from time to time, I threw those things in his face to make him feel guilty if he wasn’t going to take me out on a Saturday night. “I could be at my den of sin,” I’d yell at him, “but now I don’t have friends to go there with. Have fun tonight with Iyke and Yomi. I’ll just be here watching a movie or sleeping.”

Ironically, the friends I had in my life, the more fights I had with “HIM”. Why? Well there was no one to call and vent to about my problems with him or with life in general. So who heard all of my complaints? He did. And like guys do, he tried to tell me how I should solve all of my dilemmas, which annoyed me to no end. A female, like my girls, would have just listened to me, consoled me and threw a pity party while thinking of a solution.

It is very easy to blame “HIM” for giving up so many things I used to enjoy and leaving my friends but the truth is, all the blame lies on me. No one made me give anything up. I volunteered to chase the fairy tale relationship that depicts man and woman alone together against the world. I overlooked the friends that would protect them, help them, and love them.

And when the relationship came to an end, I was all alone till I summoned up the courage with my head bowed and tail between my legs, like a chastised dog, I called my girls and pleaded for another chance. And of course we had another Girl’s Day out to forget my pain.

One thing I have learnt is to never sacrifice good friends for a relationship. It is important to always have those you can run to – especially when you and your partner may have had enough of each other for one week. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder but these days we forget that and want to be stuck to the person by the hip…I am not saying abandon your relationship, all I am saying is give a little time (maybe a couple of hours) for others in your life.

This is my experience and I hope you learn from it…

Zizi