When Adanna* (24) met Daniel* (24) at a birthday party, she didn’t think it would lead anywhere, but a brief fling transitioned into a relationship. Everything was going well until Daniel left the country, and they had to open their relationship. In this story, Adanna expresses the anger and confusion she felt when she realised her boyfriend had a problem with her kissing a man but not a woman.
This is Adanna’s story, as told to Sofiyah
In 2024, Daniel and I met at a mutual friend’s birthday party. After awkward introductions, I thought that was the end, but then a conversation about SK8 the Infinity came up, and we both had a lot to say.
Daniel is the kind of person you can talk to for hours without ever getting tired. I realised this after we exchanged contacts and started speaking more.
We were supposed to be a fling because we didn’t think we had time for a relationship, but our feelings didn’t care about that. Daniel was easy to fall for, and I was thrilled when I found out the feelings were mutual. A week after this realisation, he asked me out on a date, and that was when we made it official.
For a month, everything was wonderful, blissful even. Being with him made me feel giddy, and it felt like the universe knew and hated that for me because, on a random day, his visa application was approved. After he told me, I had a hard time processing it. Yes, I was happy for him because this was something he’d been working towards for a long time, but at the same time, I was mad at the country and its cruel government. The japa wave seems to derive joy from taking my loved ones away from me. I thought him moving to an entirely new continent would be the end of this amazing thing we were building, but one night, we sat down, had a lengthy conversation about the future of our relationship, and agreed to give long distance a try.
At first, the long distance was calm, and for a while, I thought, maybe this would be okay. Unfortunately, I was wrong. We started having these little fights about how I always put my job first before anything or anyone else, and that confused me a lot. Even before he left, he knew how much of a workaholic I am, and I couldn’t comprehend why it suddenly became a problem.
We were still navigating that without everything crumbling down when the topic of sex came up. He made a comment expressing his frustration at the lack of sex, and I replied, “You know you can sleep with anyone you want, right?” From there, we talked and decided that it would be best to open the relationship, but before doing that, we had to set a major ground rule.
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We agreed it would be safest to use condoms and avoid having sex with anyone who hadn’t been tested. He also wanted to include a ‘no sleeping with friends’ rule, but I reminded him that I need to be friendly with someone before having sex with them, so we adjusted that. I was completely okay with the entire thing because sex isn’t a big deal to me. I’m demisexual, and people in Lagos have never been interesting enough for me to consider dedicating time to forming connections before sleeping with them.
Once the relationship was opened, things went back to normal for a while, but then I went to a party with my friends and everything fell apart. While at the party, I was updating him about what was happening. I told him that the shots were useless, and I’d get a joint from a friend instead. After getting the joint, I got a little high, and I ended up making out with said friend in their car. It wasn’t surprising to me because there’d always been an attraction between us, so it was only a matter of time.
After the makeout session, I told Daniel about it, and because my friend has a unisex Yoruba name, he assumed it was one of my X mutuals who’s a girl. When he replied, “That’s good for you and her. I love it”, I corrected him. “Her? No, it was a guy.” His next response confused me. He said something along the lines of, “I’m not comfortable with you being intimate with someone while intoxicated when that person is the cause of your intoxication.”
I wasn’t only boggled by his words, but I was also angry. I’ve been smoking for years, and he, more than anyone, knows I can handle my alcohol and weed. I trust my instincts and judgment, and I know that I’d never do anything I didn’t want to do, no matter how intoxicated I was. When I said all of this, he proceeded to invalidate me by speaking to me like I was his younger sister, and I slowly realised he wasn’t interested in understanding me. He was just fixated on the fact that I kissed a guy, and wanted to make it a whole issue.
The entire conversation convinced me that he either had a fetishisation of some sort or he never saw women as his competition because he didn’t raise any concern about intoxication when he thought the person I was with was a woman. The sudden change of tone when he realised that it was a man completely weirded me out, and that was when I knew it was best to end the relationship. If he thought I was only going to be kissing women, despite knowing that I don’t have a preference, he shouldn’t have agreed to opening the relationship.
When we opened the relationship, I never made a fuss about whoever he wanted to sleep with because, to me, sex is sex, regardless of gender. Anyone who has a problem with that isn’t for me, and will never be for me.
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