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I wanted to speak with someone who gave a persistent toaster a chance and Wade* (26) shared her experience with me.

In this story, Wade shares how her friend, Dami* (30), who asked her out several times over the course of their platonic relationship became her most toxic dating experience after only two weeks together.

As Told To Betty: 

Dami and I met through a mutual friend. Initially, I tried to keep my distance because I had a boyfriend, but he kept trying to be friends with me, and slowly, we became good friends.

We were really close for a good amount of time — about five years.  We talked about everything, knew everything about each other, and he quickly became my go-to friend. 

He always wanted to talk to me or be with me. He asked me out multiple times over the course of our friendship, but I turned him down each time because I was in a relationship. He showed me so much care and attention in our friendship that I started to think, “Why can’t we date instead of being just friends?” 

The problem with Dami and I was that our timing was always off. When we first met, I was in a relationship, so we couldn’t be more than friends. But when I left that relationship and realised I was interested in him, he’d gotten into a relationship of his own, and I respected it and kept my crush to myself.

I think that relationship was horrible for him and devastated him emotionally. When we talked about it after it ended, he said he had closed his mind to dating. That was when I told him I was interested in him, and I was willing to try out a relationship. My thoughts were that if it didn’t work out, we’d just go back to being friends and it wouldn’t be a problem. I was so wrong. 

We started out as a casual situationship in November 2023 because, again, he just had a bad break up. It felt like we were in a relationship, even if it wasn’t a serious one. We didn’t talk a lot about our expectations, but we were doing all the cutesy relationship things. 

Then, in early March 2024, I told him I’d like us to start dating officially, and his response was, “Haven’t we been dating?”. I was delighted, and I thought things were going to get better from there. Literally, two weeks after that conversation, he switched up entirely.

He became cold, avoiding me and my calls. It was unlike him, so I complained.  I even reached out to his friends, and they talked to him for me. Every time it came up, he’d promise to fix it and change it, but he also kept saying that I couldn’t understand him, which was surprising. We’d shared so much with each other over the course of our friendship that I could say that I knew him better than anyone else.

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Then, other problems started coming up. First, he said he liked me a lot but didn’t think we could get married because his family is Muslim, and I’m a Christian, and his father would never accept me. The thing is, I don’t have a problem with his religion. I told him that if we got married, I would be willing to convert, but not before then. One of his older brothers had married a Christian who converted when they got married — I was hoping for that, too. 

The more we discussed it, the clearer it became that this wasn’t about religion or getting his father’s consent. He just wasn’t considering a future with me. Instead of talking to me about it, his stance remained the same: I wouldn’t understand. 

Another red flag I noticed much later on was that he never got me gifts. Even over the course of our friendship, he’d never gotten me a single gift, not even a small one. He would give me money sometimes, but never more than fifteen thousand naira. I didn’t hold any grudges about that before, but the more he avoided my calls, the more everything became a warning sign that our relationship was going nowhere.

By September 2024, I was fed up with his odd behaviour, so while I was spending my birthday weekend at his place, I went through his phone for the first time. I found out from his messages that he was sleeping with one of the girls who worked at the bar he owned, and he was also crying in the DMs of his married ex from secondary school. I was devastated, but when I confronted him about it, he nonchalantly said that if his ex was serious about her marriage, she’d have blocked him instead of replying to his messages.

I was so angry and hurt that I left his house and waited a week to break up with him on his birthday and blocked him. After I sent the breakup text, I’ll admit that I was lowkey hoping he’d reach out to beg me like he did his ex. I already planned to give him a list of conditions before we got back together. But he never reached out, and so I unblocked him three days later. 

I confronted him about the terrible way he had been treating me and asked why he cheated instead of just breaking up with me. I thought he would treat me with some kindness since we had so much history as friends. He admitted that he didn’t want to break up and hurt my feelings so he tried — and succeeded — in making me initiate the breakup.

Honestly, his admission only made me feel worse about everything that happened between us and I withdrew from him completely. 

Thankfully, his nonsense didn’t kill my lover-girl spirit, and I’m now with a man who showers me with gifts and attention. What’s surprising is that since I started posting my new man, Dami has been reaching out to me aggressively everywhere that I haven’t blocked him, but affliction must not rise a second time. I remembered what he said about his ex and I haven’t even opened a single one of those messages. Good riddance!

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