Meeting Wifey

I ghosted on y'all.. I apologise.. I hope I have not lost my readership.

It has been an anxiety-filled few weeks - I had several things lined up which I couldnt afford to fail at.
It was our 4th wedding anniversary 2weeks ago. Nothing spectacular, no celebration, but we have had a fine run.
Wifey told me yesterday that one of the best decisions of her life was getting married to me, and it lighted up my mood a great deal.

So here goes, how I met my wife.

One vice which i picked up while growing up was reading softsell romance magazines. I read all sorts from hints, hearts, tickles, better lovers, mills and boons etc
I read all those naughty magazines all through secondary school and continued into higher institution. In fact a guardian caught me with one such magazines, reported me to my parents and i got into trouble, but i didnt stop.

I enjoyed reading all those raunchy stories and the hookup section where guys/babes sent in requests to be hooked up to boyfriends/girlfriends.
I got busy with studies at school and somehow I dropped the habit. However in my final year in 2005, i was bored in the hostel one day, and decided to send a request to one of such magazines. My request went like "I am a 20 year old virgin, i need a girlfriend because I have never had one". So i put in my phone number and waited.

The calls started coming in few months later. I spoke with all sorts of girls from far and near. Some called out of curiosity to know if I was truly a virgin, some asked how I got the boldness to place my number in a magazine..but of course, i used a fake name, and only my number was real. Interestingly, ladies from the eastern part of naija called the most, and girls from the northern part called the least.
I really loved the attention I was getting, although i struggled to remember names. Sometimes I would forget I was chatting with Sandra and mention Sophia's name, but the girls didnt seem to care. They wanted love, they wanted a boy to call their own. I needed the attention too because I was too geeky and broke to woo a girl in real life.
I maintained all sorts of chat friendship with several of them.
During my NYSC, out of adventure, a certain girl called me and she was so bold to come see me in Edo state all the way from Akwa-Ibom state to spend time with me. I sent transport fare to a couple of others too, but they ate my transport fare and never showed up.

Circa May 2007 when I was back in Lagos after NYSC, a 17 year old girl called me. We got talking and she told me she was a 100L student in one of the private universities in the east. She was with a group of friends in their hostel and they read my request and placed a bet who would be bold enough to call my number. She called me and gave me a fake name. That stranger girl who called me in May 2007 is my wife of 4years today.

Here is how it went down.

Slowly, we started a friendship over sms chats. I was at work in September 2007 when she sent me an sms that she would like to discontinue the friendship because she had found a boyfriend. I had no issue with that because I had other chat friends, so I moved on and stopped texting her. 

On valentine's day in 2008, I got bored again because I still did not have a girlfriend. So i called her again to checkup on her. She told me that she had broken up with the guy. So I asked that we continued where we left off and she agreed and continued the back-and-forth on sms.
August 2009, we had gotten intense and decided to meet physically. So i booked a flight (my first time on a plane) and met up with her in one of the state capitals in the east.
I liked what I saw and we had a memorable weekend. At that point, we officially had something going.

In 2010, I booked her a flight to Lagos to come meet my parents and sent her the itinerary.
She came and met with my parents (with her parents having no idea of her trip. The risks young people take!). My parents liked her.
In 2011, She invited me over to see her parents, and I went also, and her parents received me kindly. So we continued the long distance relationship while she schooled in the east and I worked in Lagos.

She eventually completed her studies in 2013. She further travelled overseas for her Msc in 2014.
I must confess I was not totally a saint while we dated. I had flings in Lagos to keep body together, and we had series of issues about that. That was one habit which eventually came to haunt me later in marriage. Would I do a long distance thing again? I'm not sure.

Wifey returned back to the country from Msc in December 2015, I proposed to her a day after she got back to Nigeria, and we got married in 2016.
Sad part was that my mum didnt make our wedding day, and none of my wife's parents met my mum as she passed on before we put a ring on our 9 years relationship.

Looking back, my wife is one of the best girls I ever dated. We have had our issues too, but we have learnt our lessons and putting in the work to make it work.