⚠️ This post contains references to sexual coercion, emotional manipulation, and exploitative relationships.

Dating in Lagos has shown me almost everything. I keep telling myself I’ve decentered men. That whatever script society has—about women needing men, marriage being the prize, keeping herself small—doesn’t apply to me anymore. I know better. I am not waiting around for rings or empty declarations. I don’t need someone’s son to validate my existence.

And yet, somehow, men still find ways to touch the edges of my life. With their promises, their demands, their selfishness disguised as love. I see the pattern now, I can laugh at it, I can walk away—but that doesn’t mean I escape unscathed. Sometimes I let myself play along, even if it’s just for a moment.

What I have are stories. Words that came too quickly. Desire that punished me instead of holding me. Care that twisted into exploitation. Marriage dangled like bait. None of these men are the centre of my world. But I still stepped in, wanting to see how far their words could really carry.

And like all stories, they begin with a man who thought he was the exception.

There was the one who came sprinting out of the gate. By the first week, we were already trading I love yous. He couldn’t hold it in, he said—it burned on his tongue. He believed in me, in us, in the kind of forever that usually takes years to build. His voice was full of certainty, full of ownership: you’re mine, you’re my person, I won’t let you go.

I laughed. I laughed a lot in those days. At the speed of it, at the ridiculousness of forever talk when we hadn’t even met in person yet. But even while I laughed, I stayed on the call. My head shouted too fast, too much, but my chest softened. I let myself enjoy the sound of it—the pet names, the big declarations, the fantasy of a man who thought he had found his everything.

It was flattering. I won’t pretend it wasn’t. There’s a warmth that comes from being wanted so loudly. I told myself I was in control, that I was just humouring him, that I could end it whenever I wanted. And maybe I believed that. But the truth is, I liked it. I liked being the leading lady in a shared fantasy, even if I knew it couldn’t win a fight against reality.

And then, of course, the cracks came. Not all at once, but slowly. The calls that used to stretch for hours shrank into minutes; the certainty thinned into silence. Real life asked for steadiness, and instead, he pulled back.

I wasn’t blindsided. I could see it coming. In fact, I set the trap myself, just to prove what I already knew—his fire couldn’t survive ordinary weather. It only lived in the rush of pet names and promises. It couldn’t last. Less than a month in, it became clear it was never really about me, but how good it felt for him to hear his own certainty out loud. And when that certainty was tested, he folded.

And when that fire fizzled, another kind of blaze found me—one that didn’t fade, just scorched differently.

There was the one who thought wanting me intensely was the same thing as loving me. He wanted everything at once—my patience, my time, my body. It was always me, me, me—how much he needed me, how I was his girl, his forever. He said it with so much urgency, like wanting me so much so quickly proved he was capable of love.

He wore his need like cologne, and it reeked. Everything circled back to him. His fears. His feelings. His declarations. His need for me to steady him, to reassure him, to prove he wasn’t small. He gave, yes—attention, affection, even gifts—but his giving came with strings, the kind that tightened whenever I tried to pull back.

With him, sex was possession. My no’s fell on ears deafened by his need. He wore me down, insisting my body’s shiver under his touch said yes, even when my mouth said no.

His version of love was selfish, illogical, relentless. He pressed until he got his way, mistaking surrender for consent. And I sat in the contradiction: sometimes I leaned in, wanting the force of it, taking my desire without the red flags colluding; other times I recoiled, hating how he pushed past my words. The truth is, when no isn’t honoured, there is no choice.

Afterwards, he smothered me in kisses and whispers of you’re mine, as if affection could rewrite what had happened. Love that doesn’t listen isn’t love. It’s hunger, and hunger devours whatever is in front of it.

Why does dating in Lagos have a way of dressing hunger up as love? Red flags waving, the way his “love” only circled back to himself—needy, demanding, convinced that love meant being claimed. And me, testing—not his devotion, he had plenty of ways to show that—but whether he could hear me in the middle of his hunger. He never did.

By the time I caught my breath, someone else was already circling, rehearsing his own lines.

There was the one who came correct. Sharp at a party, smooth talk, saying all the right things. He looked like the kind of man you could relax around, the kind that wouldn’t pull stunts. I liked him. I more than liked him. I even bought him a birthday gift, despite already clocking his flakiness, excusing it away, defending his nonsense because—let’s be honest—I was indulging my delulu.

He pressed me exactly right—sweet at the edges, steady enough to feel safe—and I gave, not because I didn’t see the cracks, but because I wanted to believe.

He asked for money casually, like it was nothing. Said he was strapped, promised to pay it back the next day. I gave it, no stress. Why wouldn’t I? We were good. Or so I thought. A week later, when the money still hadn’t returned, I joked that he’d have to pay me back with kisses as interest. That joke turned sour fast, because the next day came and went. Then a week. Then silence.

Bread crumbs—that was his real game all along. Always enough attention to keep me interested, never enough to truly show up. Pulling no shows, calls rang out, and texts delivered with no reply. I was disappointed, but I still found myself checking my phone, refreshing, hoping. Whenever he resurfaced, it was one excuse after the other. Then he pulled a bigger disappearing act.

That’s when the switch flipped. The anger grew, not just at him but at myself. This wasn’t love; it was theft in charming clothing. I was duped. He exploited my generosity, knowing society had already trained women to excuse bad behaviour, to “understand” men, to give chances. And how, even knowing better, you can still get played, because hope makes fools of us all.

Unlucky for him, I have fangs and I bite. I used my connections. Got his family involved, and that’s how my money came back to me. I should have felt triumphant, but the bitterness lingered—because it wasn’t really about the money. It was about how easily I had excused him, how quickly I had turned my own doubt into defence of his nonsense.

Even then, I hadn’t seen the last trick. Desire always seems to find a new costume.

There was the one who thought marriage was the ultimate mic drop. Barely days into knowing me, he started painting futures. Talking about how he couldn’t wait to marry me. Saying wife like it was a magic word that would make me melt, make me pliant, make me his.

My stomach clenched. My face smiled politely, but inside, everything went stiff. The sirens went off immediately. Because marriage isn’t neutral here—it’s bait. He said “wife” like it should undo me, like the word alone was enough. And in his mouth, I could hear the weight of all the times it had worked before.

On paper, he was packaged right: good job, nice house, steady income. But the more he spoke, the shine wore off. He didn’t talk about love. He talked about ownership. He laid out marriage like an offer letter: I’d move into his house, build his home, and keep it clean. I told him to hire a cleaner. He didn’t like that.

He wanted submission, obedience, a power tilted always in his favour. He said it plainly, as if it were something to be proud of. I almost choked on my laugh. Was this supposed to impress me? As if he were offering stability in exchange for the silencing of me. Even in bed, his fantasy was to be “the leader.” He loved the idea of me—small, pliant, waiting to be chosen.

It was absurd enough that it made me laugh; I laughed even as my chest tightened, even as my body screamed no. Because marriage isn’t the flex it used to be. Not to me. Not to the women I know who are paying their own bills, building their own lives. He thought “I’ll marry you” was a promise. I heard it as a threat: I’ll shrink you.

And that’s the thing—men like him don’t just picture marriage as a union; they wield it as control. It’s not about partnership, it’s about stripping women of autonomy under the guise of security.

I didn’t bite. But the fact that he thought it would work says everything about the world I live in. A world where men still believe marriage is a gift they bestow, when really, it’s just another way to take more than they ever plan to give.

Maybe that’s what it means to date as a woman now. Not waiting to be chosen, not fooled by declarations, not shrinking to fit—but choosing for myself, eyes open, stepping forward, with men still not at the centre of my life.

What these encounters have left me with isn’t immunity, but clarity. I see the patterns—the hunger disguised as love, the promises that collapse in daylight, the futures dangled like bait. Knowing better doesn’t mean I go unhurt, but it means I can hold my core and stitch myself whole again.

The stories may begin with men, but they end with me. With my laughter, with my refusals, with the lessons I carry forward. They end with the certainty that even in the mess of desire and contradiction, I remain whole. I remain mine.