Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.
The subjects of this week’s Love Life, Mofe (25) and Tunta (23), have been together for a year. They talk about how they almost didn’t get together because of her ex, and how even though they’re both polyamorous, they aren’t looking to date other people right now.
How did you meet?
Mofe: We met on Twitter in November 2020. I want to lie that she moved to me, but it’s me. I’m the one who took my eyes to the “market”. I slid into her DM barely five minutes after discovering her Twitter profile for the first time. I found (still find) her incredibly interesting, and I was very excited to get to know her better.
Tunta: I’d tweeted about how I take terrible selfies, and he said he wanted to take terrible selfies with me. I was like, “Who is this one now?” but I clicked on his profile and saw a fine boy. I also saw that we had a few mutuals so I responded. It was his avatar that made me even open his profile. I wanted to see the picture properly.
Mofe: We had mutuals?
Tunta: Yes. Just a few.
What did you think when he DM’ed you?
Tunta: I thought he just wanted to sleep with me. He’s a designer and it was a field I was getting really interested in, so I thought he wanted to use that as scope. I even told my friends that.
Mofe: They even gave me a nickname because she thought I wanted to use design to sleep with her, meanwhile what I was feeling felt like romance. I was a little apprehensive about leaning in fully into my romantic intentions. It’s the internet; things aren’t always what they seem to be. But I wanted this romance I felt to be what it seemed to be, A LOT. She’s a lot more than that idea I had in my head. She’s my favourite person to explore and explore life with.
Tunta: Mo the Explorer. God, when?
Mofe: See as I dey do romance for you. You no do any romance o.
Tunta: I’m shy, please.
Please, don’t jump. We need the steps that led to the exploration
Tunta: Well, I replied his DM, and with every conversation we had after, he seemed to care about me as a person, wanting to sleep with me aside.
Mofe: Add everything together.
Tunta: So, while he didn’t straight up say, “I want a romantic relationship”, his DM didn’t seem completely platonic to me.
Mofe: It wasn’t.
Tunta: But I was in love with someone else at the time and wasn’t looking for another romantic connection.
Did you tell him?
Tunta: I didn’t mention it because I didn’t feel the need to. The other guy and I had stopped talking when Mofe messaged me. But we started talking again then started dating in May 2021, so I told Mofe about the guy. He knew Mofe because they have a mutual friend, and for some reason, this Mofe boy was telling everybody about me.
Why were you telling everyone about her?
Mofe: It was love, but it wasn’t blind. It was certain. I’ve always been confident about the depth of the connection we shared. The love is absolute, and I’m not even being cheesy.
Tunta: I love you.
Mofe: I love you too.
You people have jumped again
Tunta: LMAO, sorry. I felt a connection too, but not romantic. I’ve cared about him since we met. There’s just this “Jenny say quan” to him. However, as time went on, we weren’t talking every day anymore because he was terrible at texting, I wasn’t interested in phone calls and he had a lot going on with school. I also think because we hadn’t met yet, he was less willing to talk.
You hadn’t met yet?
Tunta: I wasn’t keen on meeting him in person at first because I felt he went out too much and would give me COVID. There were like three different times we were supposed to meet in January/February, but something always came up on my end.
I wanted to invite him to my sister’s wedding in April 2021, but I thought it would be weird. We didn’t talk much again till the beginning of 2022.
Back to the relationship you got into in May
Tunta: The relationship ended a month later.. After, I posted something about how I still wanted to try a non-monogamous relationship on my WhatsApp status, and Mofe said I should mention it to my partner. I was like “I don’t have”.
Mofe: Scope to check if my suspicions were true.
Tunta: Mofe said he hopes I know he’d try non-monogamy with me. I said I do. Unfortunately, two weeks later, me and the other guy got back together. We broke up again in October, and I almost didn’t date Mofe because my ex once implied I’d cheat on him with Mofe. I thought it’d look weird.
So what changed your mind?
Tunta: The New Year of 2022 made us talk. I started ranting about the thing with my ex and how it doesn’t seem like we’re broken up even though we are. If I remember correctly, I actually told Mofe it’d be somehow if we get into a relationship because it’d be like I’d been talking to him to the whole time and “giving him hope”. He asked why I cared what it looked like or what the other guy thought, especially considering everything he’d said and done.
Mofe: I thought if it was stressing her that much, it was definitely not healthy for them to keep talking, but I also knew it was easier said than done. Feelings mostly just don’t disappear; detachment is a process.
When did you finally meet?
Mofe: On my birthday.
Tunta: He said he wanted to spend his birthday with me o. I didn’t want to go at first because I thought where he was staying at the time was far.
Mofe: It was far as fuck.
Tunta: But I went. Despite all the nonsense that tried to stop me that day. Do you believe my car got seized?
Mofe: That driver is an opp. I’m sure he somehow set you up.
Tunta: Some law enforcement officers stopped the driver and I and said we entered BRT lane. We didn’t, but okay. They sha seized my car. I was discouraged and in a terrible mood.
Mofe: When she got to me, she was frowning because of the annoying journey, but I was smiling because “see fine girl”.
Tunta: I wanted to knock you. I was wondering why he was smiling like that when I was annoyed.
God, when? What did having that meeting do for both of you?
Tunta: It made us start seeing each other at least twice every week. Then it became once because he stopped working remotely.
Mofe: It gave all it was meant to give. At that point, I just knew this is who I want to be with for life.
Tunta: God, abeg.
Mofe: I don’t think she realised it as quickly as I did, but she caught up.
Tunta: You’re right. I have no idea when I realised I’d fallen for him. It just clicked one day that I was in love, but it was on his birthday I realised there was something there and that I could be in a relationship with him. Mo on the other hand has been in love since.
Mofe: Yep, for a while. My love is very patient.
Tunta: God, am I the fattest bone?
Mofe: I don’t remember a specific time, but I knew I was in love. I wasn’t gonna be in those crush-type situations where it’s consuming you and the person you’re in love with just dey vibe dey go sha.
I didn’t think telling someone who’s in a monogamous relationship you loved them was useful for any of us. If it was gonna happen, it would.
And it happened! But how?
Mofe: We started dating in February 2022. At this point, she’d briefly met both my parents during my pharmacy induction, and I’d met her mum during the times I went to visit her in her house. We kinda knew where it was going, but I was stalling until I could take her out on a proper dress-up date to pop the question.
Tunta: Earlier in the month, he had said “we’re already together in my books” and I asked him what kind of book that is. He was like we’re already together, but he wants to do the whole dress-up date.
Mofe: Her own love no dey patient.
Tunta: Get out. We became official the day he met my dad. My dad was like “Are you going out?” That was his way of him asking if we were in a relationship. We said yes. Then later I was like “oya ask me out” because I knew he wanted to. He asked me to be his girlfriend, then I asked him to be my boyfriend. 2FA.
Mofe: I told her I’d think about it, but when I asked she said yes immediately.
Tunta: Liar. You said, “I already am”.
Mofe: Even though.
You’ve been together for a year. Can you tell us what you love most about each other?
Tunta: There’s a lot o, but let me try to make it short. He’s already pretty great but is always trying to be better. Plus, he’s a good friend, and he just gets me.
Mofe: The first thing that drew me to her as an individual is how kind she is. She’s very funny and thoughtful. When I was looking for a new job, she kept sending me vacancy announcements. She just puts you in her mind. I feel very loved by her. I’m her biggest fan and I love her very much.
I just wish she didn’t doubt herself. She’s a very confident person but sometimes she starts to question herself and when she gets into that funk, it’s sometimes hard for her to get out of, but she’s taking risks now and trying to get better.
Tunta: Being with him has made me a better communicator. The fact that he’s easy to talk to and doesn’t make me feel irrational even when I might be definitely helps. There were times before we became official that I thought I was giving him too much information, especially when I was talking about my ex, but I wanted everything out. Let everybody know what they’re entering.
I’m mentally ill, and I had a breakdown recently. I was saying absolute rubbish, but this guy didn’t make me feel like I was.
I’m happy I replied his DM because he’s a great person to have in your corner, and I’m extra happy I eventually caught up with him on the romance end. I love how we make each other better.
Did you still do the non-monogamous relationship?
Tunta: Yes.
Mofe: I’m polyamorous, and so is she. It was a mutual decision. We set up certain “rules” to guide us in navigating it. I think the effort we made to create a relationship where we could tell each other literally anything has made the open relationship seamless for us.
Do you have plans to date other people?
Tunta: Not at the moment but dynamics can change. We just have to talk about it.
Mofe: Exactly.
On a scale of 1-10, what’ll you rate your love life?
Tunta: 100.
Okay, I’m joking. A 9. He’s very beautiful and supportive. He has a positive outlook on life. The one I removed is because we’re not where I want us to be yet, and it’s because of both internal and external factors like finances.
Mofe: I’ll say 9. There’s always room for improvement. This is the best my love life has been since I’ve known myself. I’m having the time of my life with my favourite person.
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