Rizzla! Close to 12 hours after coming across this word for the first time, I can’t help but keep mentioning it🤣. Maybe it’s because my friend Vii, brought it up in our conversation earlier on today. As a matter of fact, re-read the previous sentence without the ‘maybe’ because why else would I be mentioning a new word every now and then? Btw check out her latest post “Doing the 5” because I know some of you are the reason we are still held up at our homes, instead of being busy in school (read kulaing hepi in Nairobi).

Earlier this week I posted this tweet on my Whatsapp status and added the caption “Kwani huwa mnadate aje?” It was actually a genuine concern because how do you have an ex that you’ve NEVER MET?!? About 5 minutes later my friend replied “aii, you’ve never dated online?” And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the muse for today’s blog.

Yeah you guessed right, or maybe not🥱. I actually have dated online, and no we never met. I’d totally forgotten this whole experience. Lakini hebu relax. It wasn’t on those dating apps/sites; rather, our dating site was a wozzap group chat. Imagine I was just in high school so I didn’t know better kwa hivyo hata tukipatana don’t bring up this storo. It was during the December holiday post either form 1 or 2 that this group was created. One of my classmates had this friend from a boys’ school in Western Kenya, and they both came up with this VERY BRILLIANT idea of creating a Whatsapp group chat ati ili the two classes create the ‘sister-brother class’ high school-typa bond (read crap).

I’m actually trying to figure out how my conversation with this dude started, and I honestly can’t remember. I probably replied to one of his texts on the group chat, or I made a comment that bambad him or…You know what? Let me stop stressing myself trying to remember because it won’t be tested in your WAEC exam anyway. (By now you should be knowing that I am/I was an avid consumer of Nigerian movies. Just in case I haven’t mentioned it before, now I have😏). Haya back to my story. One thing is for sure though, I did not slide into his DM. I mean si girls don’t approach guys🤷🏿‍♀️.

What was his name hata? It must have been Emmanuel. Otherwise, I don’t know and I’m not intending to find out. So let’s just use Emmanuel. Assuming he wasn’t catfishing me, he had the LOOKS! You know the TDH kinda looks? Those ones.

Being the naive girl I was, at times I feel like I still I’m, I didn’t decline when he asked me to be his vibing mate; I’ve purposefully not used ‘girlfriend’ because that is a not an appropriate word for a mediocre situation as this.

Emmanuel and Lennah are now ‘dating’. This was 5 or 6 years ago, so I don’t remember whether we had those long calls that leave your android phone as hot as an iron box or if we sent each other those lovey dovey texts or even how long it lasted. However I’m inclined to believe it didn’t last for more than a month, otherwise I would not be straining to remember these nitty gritties.

The only memory I have of this situationship is me creating a photogrid video using our photos. Then, Photogrid and kina Petrica (I’m not sure whether this is the right spelling) were the go-to apps when you needed to add some glam to your photos/videos. Tebu guess the song I used on this ‘romantic’ clip.

Just guess.

John Legend’s, “All of me”.

This whole experience is one I don’t regret. Thinking of it, I’ve made many stupid decisions in my life and I don’t regret any of them. As I type this I’m about to make another stupid decision but aiii si it’s these decisions that teach us. It’s these decisions that give us the best memories. It’s these decisions that we look back at, 5 or so years later and marvel at how much we’ve grown. It’s these decisions that shape us into the respected persons we are or aim to be.

A few friends shared their online dating experiences. They’ll be recorded in the books of coffeeserver_squad as the first ones to tell their stories here. You just laugh at them or at their stories/comments, whichever makes you happy😂.

FRIEND 1

“I have never met the guy till today😂😂😂”

FRIEND 2

“We never met😅😅 and definitely it felt stupid enough but we had all the time in the world to fool each other…we had just completed high school😅😅…sometimes it works but most times it’s just for fun😅…according to me”

FRIEND 3

“Let me tell you, I joined Kiwi in either class 6 or 7. The dudes there were HAWT!!! The first dude was all about the obvious questions…where are you from?…what do you like? You get? Then he told me that he would be coming to Kenya the following week. Well that, earned him a block🙄. Then I tried Afro-Introductions. This is an app with African dudes. To be honest, this ain’t the site with the good-looking boyz. And like everyone one else, I was also on Tinder…yeah that one that popped in your mind. I actually know of a vlogging couple that met on Tinder”

FRIEND 4

“In Primary School, there’s this guy I met on Facebook and we frequently texted. After one of the visiting days, one of my school mates, Joke* told me that her cousin said he knew me. I was interested to know who her cousin was, and she said Brayo*. From then, Joke* would always refer to me as girlfriend wa Brayo😹. As was wont to happen, my conversation with Brayo* soon got boring. It started becoming forced. In those years, I used to change my phone number on a regular basis and he was too proud to ask for my new number. Therefore, we were now only communicating via messenger. After KCPE, I changed my FB account and that was it for us. The break-up was a relief btw, because mimi nilikuwa nimechoka. On the brighter side tho’, Joke* became my friend. We’d not talked before then.

FRIEND 5

“💀💀😂😂 One word- HEH!”

FRIEND 6

“I even don’t have an exact count of the number of people I’ve dated online; but they ain’t ati many. They are like two or three. I found out that the second guy was my ex’s bro, so tukahidehide. The first one was pretty fine tho’. However, it just ended-hivyo tu. Saa hii tunaonana tu online. Mahn! Imagine we didn’t meet for the 6 months were dating! The last one, made me feel like I was dating myself. So I confronted him, but by then I was already done with online dating. Surprisingly, then he was now feeling me…but I was DONE with online dating.”

Anyway, if you still haven’t tried online dating and are thinking of jumping into the bandwagon, PLEASE be careful. You’ve heard of Buyer Beware, yeah? Online dating requires you to actually practise it.

~Bible Vibes~

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
1 John 4:18