It was the day before Christmas, and I found myself home alone, contemplating how to spend my day. While I usually enjoy being alone in the house, this time was different. As I scrolled through my Twitter feed, I came across a series of retweeted birthday photos that caught my attention. I couldn’t help but wonder about the identity of this beautiful lady, whom I had never seen before. I may have even accidentally liked the tweet, although I can’t recall for certain.
Before this, I had been searching for a fulfilling relationship, but my interactions with previous women had not been successful. They were either not ready, uninterested, or not showing signs of seriousness.
So I decided to forward the tweet to a friend, expressing my intention to message this lady. First, I examined her Twitter profile but couldn’t gather much information. I then searched for her on Instagram using the same username. To my surprise, we had many mutual followers, leading me to believe that she might attend my church or have attended my university. My guess turned out to be correct.
Her Instagram profile provided more insights that helped me understand her better. Through her bio, feed, and story highlights, I could already get a sense of her personality. The only uncertainty was whether she was still in the UK or had returned to Nigeria.
Even before reaching out to her, my intentions were clear. I had a list of qualities I was looking for in a person for a successful relationship. I also checked her LinkedIn profile and discovered that she had recently completed her Master’s program at the University of Bath with distinction. However, her location was listed as Kaduna-a significant challenge.
It was already past midnight, and I decided to watch “ How to Ruin Christmas “ to pass the time, as I didn’t have many activities planned for the day. The details of that day are somewhat hazy in my memory, but I know for certain that this lady occupied my thoughts for the most part. So, I took a leap of faith-I visited her Instagram profile again and tapped the follow button 😬.
As I prepared for bed, I received a notification-she followed me back. It took less than five minutes. I felt thrilled, and it contributed to a good night’s sleep 🙃. The next morning, on Christmas Day, I noticed some activity on my Twitter account. It was Adetoro; she had searched for me on Twitter and followed me!
After a few minutes, I messaged her on Instagram, as we both had more content there to initiate conversations with. I carefully crafted my first message to ensure it would capture her attention, although I didn’t think too much about it. When meeting people online for the first time, I usually have a specific type of message, depending on the context. In this situation, I had to achieve multiple objectives with a single message.
To my surprise, she responded immediately, as if she had been anticipating my message. We exchanged texts, and I could already sense several commonalities between us. She had just returned from the UK and mentioned that she was in Kaduna, only visiting Abuja when necessary. In my mind, I was already contemplating how a relationship with her would work, given the distance. Before putting my phone down, I made sure to obtain her number that morning.
To be continued…
