After Kolade*, a producer who recently started releasing his own music, broke up with his girlfriend, she refused to stop calling him. So he blocked her number everywhere. Sometimes she would call with other numbers. Other times she would blow up phones of their mutuals. But he began to get worried when he started to suspect that she had hacked his phone.
In an interview with Zikoko, he opened up on being stalked by an ex, why he could not involve the police, and why he ultimately had to speak to her again.
This is Kolade’s* story as told to Dennis.
Our relationship was built on a lie. I had my fair share, and she had hers. I was not interested in a full-time committed relationship. But I wanted someone. Someone that I could call mine.
In our fucked up society, we are told that not being ready for full-time commitment is something to be ashamed of, something for singles to be wary of. And so it wasn’t something I said when I approached ladies.
To be fair, I never cheated. But I was not looking for a long commitment either, which some might call another form of cheating.
My relationship with my ex-girlfriend was doomed from the beginning. So when we finally broke up I was not surprised. I was expecting it.
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But then she started calling me nonstop. Once my phone’s battery drained with her calls. I thought it would be rude to block her initially. When she called I watched the phone ring unending.
After we broke up she could not see me. I made sure of that. I told the people around me that we had broken up and she didn’t want to let it go. I was done.
You see, it wasn’t a particularly nourishing relationship. It was filled with half-truths and gaslighting, too dark, too personal. I feel ashamed talking about what she did to me. It was all the more reason I didn’t even want to speak to her after we broke up.
Eventually I took the step of blocking her. That was when she started blowing up my friends’ phones. Any mutual that we had, received at least a call from her. She said she was sorry and that she wanted to come back and continue our relationship.
There is an incident that rings through when I think about those long months when she terrorised my phone with calls. It had been three months since we broke up, and I had finally taken the leap to block her. All of a sudden, my phone lit up.
Someone was calling me on a video call. But it was not an app like WhatsApp and iMessage where anyone had called me before, talk more on video call, without as much as a text. She was calling me on Telegram. This was an app that I only used to get sure codes from punters so I could bet on football matches. Calling someone on a video call on Telegram is out of this world wild. Of course, I didn’t pick.
At this point, strange numbers started calling me. She had started using other people’s phones to call me. It just would never end.
It was now December, and seven months had passed since we broke up. I rebounded with someone who you can call a friend, a situationship I had been with before. A woman that I cared about, who knew me and knew that I was not looking for something serious.
It was our game. When we started dating, we cut each other off. When we inevitably became card-carrying single pringles again, we rebounded. It was convenient. She didn’t even live in Lagos, which made it all the more fun.
I didn’t tell anyone we were together in December. It was just between us. But something unusual happened. She called me in January telling me that she received a threatening call from a woman, who she thought was my ex-girlfriend. She said the person warned her to stay away from me. Told her that I was her boyfriend and that she should watch her back. She said the person told her that woman to woman, she would not let her man go.
She said that she was surprised then scared a bit and denied ever being with me. But she said the person had details of our chat and was telling her things that only us knew. She told her that it was nothing serious and she was not interested in dating me.
I was startled. That was when it dawned on me that my ex-girlfriend might have hacked my phone. Because there is no way she would have known.
At this point, I had no choice but to unblock her and call her. I didn’t tell her I knew that she called my situationship because I didn’t know how she would react. I personally was already getting worried about her, because it had been almost eight months since we broke up. But I told her point blank that we were not getting back together and she should let our relationship go. She said she had heard but she still asked if we could still be friends.
I didn’t want her to have access to me. But I always knew it was the only way she could give me my peace of mind. I didn’t trust that the authorities would have taken the case seriously. So I told her we could be friends but she needed to stop blowing up my phone. I told her if she blew up my phone I would block her again.
Since then the calls have reduced and she sends me messages regularly to check up on me. Sometimes she still blows up my phone, calling nonstop if I don’t pick. But now she apologises for doing that.
As a musician I always use things that happen in my life to write songs. But this incident with my ex I used it to write only one song. I am still not in the right head space for a committed relationship right now. But with the PTSD from the experience with my ex, I want to be very careful with who I date next, so I don’t fall into the same situation.
The actual name of the subject of this story has been changed
