My friend’s boyfriend in our undergraduate days used to slip sweet, handwritten notes into her bag. We would take a book from her bag and find a beautiful note saying how much he loved her and how she had saved his life and given him hope. We were all jealous and wanted that kind of love.

The first day she told him “I love you too” while they were ending a call, he drove from his house to hers by a few minutes past 11 pm to look at her and have her say those words again to his face. It was the stuff movies are made of.

When she threw a surprise birthday party for him, which we all helped organize, he sobbed in front of us and his friends. He called her his life, his world. Some of us cried. We couldn’t get over the fact that, in front of his friends, this big boy cried for the woman he loved.

They fought during one of our ASUU strikes and broke up. Somehow, they made up a week before the strike was called off. He drove to her state to see her to solidify the reconciliation.

A few weeks later, my friend returned home and was surprised to find everything neat. The strike lasted for six months, so she expected dust to make the place uninhabitable. Her boyfriend told her he had come a few days earlier to clean the house in anticipation of her return. He even filled her jerry cans with water.

We were oohing and aahing, calling him boyfriend of the year. We just dey tap. I go love oo😍

A few days later, the landlord saw her and started shouting that she wanted to secretly move out. He asked why she had brought people to pack her things during the strike. My friend was surprised and denied it.

An oversabi neighbour then told her that her boyfriend had come to the house with some men and taken everything away. Apparently, the reason her place was so neat despite the six-month strike was because he had come with her spare key and packed everything he had bought for her when they broke up. He then returned it some days later when they reconciled.

This guy came to her house and packed everything he bought for her, from electronics to clothes. I’m talking table, TV, home theatre, room divider, gas cylinder, even the rug in her room and the carpet in the kitchen. He took the rug and carpet, removing them from the ground and exposing the German floor. Her shoes, handbags, clothes, dishes, and glasses—everything he bought, even the Jerry can—he took them. That’s why he returned them with water. Akpa sense🤣

He was shouting and calling her ashawo, and some neighbours heard.

This same guy cheated like his life depended on it and gave her multiple STDs back to back.

This same guy slapxped her so hard she lost her hearing in one ear. Till date.

This same guy Tbillz-ed her. Told all her friends and his that her mother is a witxch who controls her father and her family is yada yada yo and she is a sluxt and he will never marry her.

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The moral of the story: recognise love bombing. Don’t let romance blind you.