The topic of how young Nigerians navigate romantic relationships with their earnings is a minefield of hot takes. In Love Currency, we get into what relationships across income brackets look like in different cities.

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Interested in talking about how money moves in your relationship? If yes, click here.

How long have you and your partner been together?

“Together” isn’t the word I’d use. Kunle and I are in an exclusive situationship, but it started in March last year, during my final semester of university. 

Exclusive situationship? How did that happen?

I kept seeing him around campus and bumping into him outside school, too. We both smoke, so whenever I needed a cigarette, he seemed to have one, and whenever he needed one, I did. That became our thing.

Around the time Kunle and I started hanging out, my friends warned me that he was a fuckboy, but that only drew me to him. I’d been in this slow talking stage with someone else, and I needed something casual to make my life exciting, so fuckboy Kunle was perfect. He also seemed chill, so I figured he wouldn’t cause me any problems. 

About two weeks into us talking, a few people went to a popular hangout near school for the weekend. We saw each other there and had a drunken makeout session.

This was the day we exchanged numbers and started texting, just to show you how unattached we were at first. When the topic of what we were doing came up, he told me, “Don’t catch feelings,” and I said that worked for me. Then we planned to meet at a hotel near school, and we started sleeping together.

What was the dynamic like?

At first, it was a very standard “friends with benefits” situation. We’d meet once a week at a cheap hotel near school, have sex, smoke, and then Kunle would listen to me talk about my life. I’m the sort of person who is always in one mess or another, so Kunle constantly had to be brought up to speed on my drama. I think the fact that he was such a good listener was what first attracted me to him.

And then, just a few weeks into this no-strings-attached relationship, I caught feelings. It was April, a few days to my birthday, and one thing about me? I hate my birthdays. Things just never go right. I told Kunle this, but instead of pushing it aside, he said we could go out and make a whole day of it. I thought that was sweet.

So, we left school the day before, stayed at a hotel, and spent the whole day together. By the end of that night, I understood that I liked him. He also claimed he liked me too, and we agreed to sleep with each other only.

But, funnily enough, this was also the night that Kunle’s bad money habit really shone through.

Bad money habit?

He would make me pay for things like the hotel, promising to pay me back, but he never did. Our hotel outings weren’t cheap for me, especially as a student with an ₦80k allowance. An overnight stay cost ₦25k, so most of the time, Kunle and I used the hotel’s hourly rate, which was ₦5k. But even at that, it was a lot. 

He did this with cigarettes as well. I would buy a ₦2k pack, only for Kunle to take half of them without a word. 

One time, he asked to  “borrow” my pack for the night, promising to return the rest. The next day, however, he said he’d smoked everything with his guys, and there was nothing to return.

So clearly, this had already been a pattern, but what happened on my birthday was particularly bad. 

What happened?

We went out for ice cream, and Kunle made sure to get an extravagant order: a cone with extra sprinkles and lots of toppings. I thought, as the celebrant, he would pay for both of our ice creams, but when it was time to pay for the ₦12k bill, Kunle pushed it on me.  

He didn’t give an excuse, but promised that, on his own birthday the following month, he’d take me out and spend on me. 

I wish I could tell you I fought or something, but now I liked him, and because I’d had such a good day, I paid for it without a second thought.

That’s… interesting. Did this bring up any money conversations?

Not any serious ones. As I said, we were in a situationship, so technically our money wasn’t tied to each other, you know?

The closest we came to seriously talking about money was when I told him about my savings. I’d saved up over the summer because I wanted my final semester to be extravagant, and I mentioned in passing that I had about ₦150k. I wish I hadn’t, because I suspect that Kunle used that as an excuse not to pay for things.

One time, I was walking somewhere but realised too late that the place wasn’t within walking distance, and I didn’t have cash for a ride back to school.  I stopped at a filling station, and the attendants felt so bad for me that they gave me ₦1k. When I told Kunle, he wasn’t sympathetic. “How are they dashing someone with over ₦100k in her account ₦1k?” he asked bitterly. That’s when I realised he was listening closely to everything I said about money.

He was also the sort of boy who talked a lot about what he’d buy for you, how he’d take care of you, and more nonsense he never actually followed through on. I later heard stories from friends about him doing the same thing to other girls.

These things should have done it for me, but they didn’t.

Why?

Because once I liked him, they became easy to overlook. I’m also pretty empathetic, and Kunle always had a sob story. He said his parents were toxic and that he’d lived on the streets for a while as a child. How do you demand money back from someone like that?

He also painted himself as selfless. He’d say he sometimes didn’t eat all day, then bought food for his guys when they said they were hungry.

That made me start asking if he’d eaten, and if he said no, I’d send him money. The first time, I sent ₦2k, and he slyly said that it was too small. So after that, I sent ₦4k here and ₦6k there. 

I started feeling like his sugar mummy, and I think he saw it that way too. 

One time I went to hang out with some mutual friends of Kunle and I. I got high, and one of Kunle’s friends started kissing my neck in a way I didn’t like. I messaged Kunle to say his friend was making me uncomfortable. He came, stopped his friend, and looked really upset. But later that day, he told me I owed him lunch for saving me. 

He wasn’t joking.

That’s insane. How long did this go on?

We were in this situation for the three months I was in school. I started keeping tabs on everything he said he’d pay for and didn’t. At one point, he owed me about ₦30k, and my savings, meant to fund the best school year of my life, were quickly disappearing into Kunle. Sometimes, I would spend so much that my monthly allowance would run out, and I would have to ask my mum for more. She couldn’t understand what was draining my finances to the last drop.

Between the rooms, the money I sent him and everything else, I’d estimate that I spent ₦120k to ₦150k on him. I was a student, so that was a lot.

What made it worse was that he started to expect that I’d just buy things for us. He once told a friend, “Why would I buy cigarettes for myself when she’s here?”

Dear God.

I finally had my eye-opener one night in  June.

He wanted to go to the hotel for an hour. It cost ₦5k, but I was down to my last ₦3k in my spending account. I told him he was paying for the room, and he agreed. 

But when it was time to pay, he claimed he’d thought he had ₦5k on him but had given some to one of his guys and only had ₦3k. Reluctantly, I said I’d cover the ₦2k difference. Suddenly, his story changed. He claimed he actually only had ₦2k because he’d left ₦1k in his room. But once we got back to the hostel, he’d give it to me.

 In the end, he paid ₦2k, and I paid ₦3k. I showed him it was the last of my spending money, and he promised he’d pay for the next one.

That night, we had sex without protection, and when I asked him to at least try to pull out, he refused. His reasoning was that I’d take Plan B anyway. I was already angry about paying for the room, but that made things worse. When we got to the hostel, I told him to give me the ₦1k he’d said he had there so I could pay for a ride to the pharmacy, but the boy said he couldn’t find it. The pharmacy was a ₦200 keke trip away, and he wouldn’t even pay for that. I woke up early the next morning and walked there myself, furious. 

I called a friend, who’s a fuckboy himself, and told him what had happened. He said, “This boy doesn’t like you at all. Even I wouldn’t do this to a girl who meant nothing to me.”  

That was when I understood something had to change.

Did you confront him?

Not directly. I just wanted to cut him off. But he owed me a lot, and I brought it down to ₦50k. He sent ₦30k, saying it was all his parents had sent as allowance. I took it as him trying to make amends. When I asked if he’d eaten, he said no, so I sent him ₦4k back out of the money he’d just sent me. I decided to give him a second chance, but I didn’t plan to stay exclusive to him anymore.

Did things get better?

Lol.

On one of my last days of school, we went to a hotel for the last time.  I just wanted to have fun and spend time with him, but he didn’t even kiss me; he just tried to sleep with me. I was already upset, so I left the room and went to sit with one of his friends. I rested my head on his shoulder, trying so hard not to cry. We were in a room with a glass door on the hotel’s veranda, and Kunle was outside with another guy, so he could see us.

Then I got a text from him: “If you kiss him, just block me. Don’t talk to me again.” I was sad, on the verge of tears, and all he cared about was whether I kissed someone else. I didn’t reply. I left, found two of my friends, and cried to them. 

As silly as it all was, our relationship didn’t exactly end. After I left school, he kept trying to see me, but I made it clear that if I was meeting him, I wasn’t paying for anything. We’ve met up and slept together a few times since, on outings he actually contributed to, and we still talk occasionally.

At some point, he had the audacity to ask, “If I asked you out right now, would you refuse?” After everything, I said yes, I’d refuse. He looked shocked.

And what about his debt?

By the time I left school, he still owed me ₦13k. Eventually, I told him to forget about it, because he always seemed to be going through some money-related trouble, and I no longer wanted to be tied to him that way.

Things are just okay now, I guess. I left school, and I’m currently doing NYSC. We’re still technically in a situationship if we’re still open to sleeping with each other, but for the emotional side of things, I’m done. Besides, I haven’t seen him in a while. 

But I think that will soon change because, a few days ago, he said he’ll come see me.

Interested in talking about how money moves in your relationship? If yes, click here.

*Names have been changed for the sake of anonymity.

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