Like all gents, I fell in love. There’s not so much good to remember about my relationship. It was hurtful and destructive. Well, for starters, she was a very pretty girl. Her radiant smile was soothing. There was nothing prettier than her big beautiful eyes. They shone like a miraculous fusion of stars at night with sunshine in the morning. She was everything a young man in love could wish for, confident, curvaceous and sort of good-hearted and smart. I fell in love with her. It was not my choice but my feelings were growing every day. I was emotionally attached to this beautiful girl.

She approved of my feelings and the relationship took off immediately. The more we communicated, the more I fell in love. I sometimes wished to say nothing when we met up. This would give me time to listen to her angelic voice, hold her smooth short hands, and admire her beauty until our hair grew grey. Until we grew up to be old folks with wrinkled faces, using walking sticks, and water flowers throughout our last years of living together. I learnt to trust her. I told her everything. I told her every secret there was to know in my life. She was my confidant. My everything. Little did I know that I was digging my own emotional wretched grave.

The relationship suddenly became an on-and-off thing. A dying-and-living fling. Things went south. Her interest in our relationship decreased. She made me feel insecure taking pictures of herself with guys who disliked me back in high school. She was in bed with those who had discriminated against me. My texts were shared with friends for gossip and amusement. Mind you, these were the texts with all my secrets and intimate sentences. I felt as though my dirty linen was displayed for the whole world to see. I typed many paragraphs on both Facebook and WhatsApp. She responded with words such as “wow”. I continued sending her my heartfelt paragraphs and her response was the letter “K”. And then she did not respond at all. I was hurt. But, I learnt that she was punishing me for her past life. She came with a quarter of her heart in our relationship while I brought my whole heart and soul. She had told me about guys who toyed with her emotions in the past. Her ex-boyfriends. She was bitter. I happened to be the person at which she lashed out her bitterness. I was crushed. All the signs that the relationship was toxic were there. I chose to ignore them and had my feelings destroyed.

Her love of myself was fading away. No, the love was always one-sided. She never loved me. Because of such a harsh introduction to love I became emotionally unavailable to all my other relationships. She was my first love and heartbreaker. The advice I have for lovers is; run away when the relationship starts being toxic to avoid emotional damage to yourself.

***

Tell us: Have you ever been in a toxic relationship?