“How do people even fall out of love with you?” Owen asked. There was a great deal of confidence in his deep, caramel voice but that had no positive effect on my unbelief. Owen was a middle aged, black fellow who had spent most of his life in southern Nigeria and only moved to the east to complete his tertiary education. However, If he wasn’t Igbo by location, he was certainly igbo by nature. He had a rather strategic approach to everything and love was clearly not an exception. His lovely black hair complemented his thick, brown, African skin and one could easily tell that he wasn’t well off in age although his abundant facial hair could pose some deceit. A few minutes went by and I realized I still hadn’t provided an answer to his rhetorical question. I knew it was quite rhetorical but I had been faced with that question two years ago and now, from my wealth of experience, I had the perfect, rather sarcastic answer playing out in my head. “Well, the last person who asked me that question has fallen out of love with me now”. Somewhere in-between firmness and excitement, I unconsciously let out a mild smile. I’m not sure he noticed but I sincerely hope he didn’t. “Haha, challenge accepted!” Was his clearly over confident reply. Truth be told, I did not expect such a response. I’m not the same person I was two years ago and if someone had fallen out of love with me then, even for the right reasons, I had worked hard enough to avoid a reoccurrence of such an unpleasant scenario. But I wasn’t ready to challenge anyone either. At least, not some fine, smart, independent, “igbo” brother. I was right in the middle of serious career and academic decisions and the last thing I needed was some challenge in which my opponent had the unfair advantage of being perfect or really close to it.
Often times, when we come face to face with the fact that someone who literally promised to pause the entire universe for our sake has fallen completely out of love, our first instinct is to feel like onugbo (bitter leaf) and probably let out a few streams of eye-liquid in an attempt to neutralize the pain. Whether or not you loved them in return, the thought of the loss of attention is not easy to come to terms with. Ninety-nine point nine nine percent of the time, you would never admit that you had a part to play in the falling out process. You may have believed that you’re the best thing that could ever happen to another human being but *spoiler alert*, you’re not!
I think love is too broad a topic to dabble into. There’s really no right or wrong way to see things and frankly, it’s the most insane characteristic of a human being.
If someone falls out of love with you and they’re polite enough to tell you, then I think the person deserves some credit. First things first, they were never really in love with you. Love is not a pool where you jump in when you’re hot and jump out when you’ve had enough. Secondly, you were most likely the problem. When we begin to assume that we’re some sort of gift to the other person; “I mean, I’m doing him/her an honour by being his girlfriend/her boyfriend”; then we begin to get too comfortable and make zero efforts to keep up. The average human being appreciates a certain level of challenge. They can’t afford to wake up to the same situation every single day. They’ll get bored! If you were heaven on earth when they met you, better be heaven on heaven a year later! You need to constantly make a conscious effort to work on your personality so that when the feelings mellow down, (in any case this would surely happen), you’ll have much more than a beautiful face to offer. And if by chance, the choking “fall out of love” breeze begins to blow, your awesomeness would be the clean oxygen. Now I’m not sure that analogy made complete sense but I know you’re following because well, you’re a super smart person.
In summary, a relationship is a full-time career. If both parties constantly try to do better and be better for each other, I’m not sure anybody would think of falling out of love.
I’m not too sure how many “falling out of love” scenarios Owen had been faced with in the past and how he must have handled them but I don’t think he was completely clear about the nature of the challenge he was proposing.
Are you still reading to find out whether or not I accepted the challenge? Well, sorry to burst your bubble but this article is somewhat fictional. Who is even an Owen?
Have you ever fallen out of love with someone or vice-versa? Please share your experience in the comment section. You can be anonymous if you want.
Falling out of love has changed my mentality and perspective about falling in love……i have once been a victim and i cried like a woman but i came to realize something…..The #1 reason why people fall out of love is because they’re human. Yes. We are designed to fall out of love and i also realized The best way to feel love is to give it. I’m not talking about a codependent love where your good feelings are dependent on making someone else happy.
I’m talking about a real and true love that arises from a genuine desire to bring joy to your partner and offer support in the ways that feel loving to him or her. When you can reverse the conditioned mindset that love is something you get to the idea that love is something you give, miracles happen and I don’t think we will be having issues with falling out of love.
Wow! This is really inspiring, Temitayo. Thank you so much for sharing!
This is a really good write up, and I totally agree with the idea of making sure that one doesn’t fall out of love for you by making efforts to better yourself.
I really enjoyed reading this.
Thank you so much Benny with the Money! Do you like Trap music tho? or is that your birth name? :/
Lol jkkksss :>
Thank you for reading!!!
Hi Dikachi, I came across your blog and this post got my attention for obvious reasons. Nice write up you’ve got here, but I bet to disagree on this particular point. You really can’t prevent anyone from falling outta love for/with you, and like you said; love ain’t for immature minds, and was it really love?
TBH, I don’t really know what love feels like, I don’t know if I’ve ever fallen in love before, infact, what is love…? People talk about it passionately…it’s as if it’s the best thing in world.
I’d really like to know this feeling of love
Or maybe I’ve felt love, but didn’t know it was love I was feeling… Or is it just a crush feeling?
I know this sounds weird coming from me … But…
Hello Morpheus,
You’re certainly not weird! People mistake “love” for a lot of insignificant feelings (especially lust). When you eventually fall in love, I pray it’s with a good person!!!
Btw, can you send me an email with your real name if you don’t mind? Because you said “coming from me” and i’m not too sure who this is.
Thank you for reading!!!