On: The Peaceful Asshole (In Me)
I have never lacked the ability to tell myself when I am being an asshole...
If there's one thing, I am grateful for about myself is being able to spot my own bullshit when it stares me in the face. I have never lacked the ability to tell myself – privately, most times – when I am being an asshole and how that act of assholeness would most likely come back to bite a chunk out of my ass sometime later. Now, this does not mean I believe in karma. At least not in the traditional sense of the word. I mean, I don't necessarily believe that wicked people would always get what's coming to them because of some divine code of retribution logged somewhere in the cosmos. Nah, I think that's just “comfort talk” for most of us to help us deal with the pain and trauma of being at the receiving end of some sort of moral injustice. I mean, it feels hopeful to think that someone who hurt you would be hurt sometime later in their future too and get to feel the sort of pain you felt when they hurt you; but a lot of times, that's not even karma, that's just life – everyone gets hurt, eventually.
Nevertheless, this brings me back to my point of being able to stare my own bullshit in the face. Therefore, I believe it would not sound like I am being self-righteous when I say I never go out of my way or interact with people with the intention of hurting them or breaking hearts or being wicked or exude some other villainy attributes. I would like to think that a lot of times those outcomes are because of the interpretations of the other person. Let me digress by giving a hypothetical example, say, for instance, you and I have been friends for the longest and you've never asked me for money yet, however, there was this one time in the past when I had asked you for a loan and you were kind and generous enough to give me one, but, on the day when you had eventually asked me for a loan, instead of giving you one, I told you I didn't have. The truth is, I probably, at that moment, did not have any loan to give to you, but as a human, chances are that drawing on the past instance of when you had provided me with a loan, you may likely feel hurt or slighted by my inability to "have a loan to give to you” now when you needed it. Your response of feeling slighted by my action (or inaction) is just human nature. At the back of our minds with every kind or seemingly selfless act that we churn out, we hope that it is something that could someday be reciprocated, which is where, I believe, the whole concept of karma was birthed – a way that we could feel at ease with ourselves when we are treated badly for our goodness, simply because we believe that those who do not reciprocate such acts would get what's coming to them.
So, hoping I have clarified my stance of what I think about karma, let me get back to why I feel there's a slight but profound difference between that and being able to know that your assholeness will come back to bite you in the ass. It's simple: being an asshole for the most part is almost always a conscious and thought-out effort. You almost always feel it in your gut that you are about to do something asshole-y and yet when you weigh the consequences of not doing that asshole-y thing with doing it, doing it almost always seems more logical. So, in other words, with being an asshole you are fully aware of what you have done, and whilst the reason for doing it may seem justified and necessary, it still doesn't take anything anyway from the asshole-lity of the act.
With that established, let me rewind the clock to a year back when I met someone on Instagram. This lady had watched my Pulse Tango video where I was on a blind date with Tolani Baj and for some weird (but understandable) reason, she liked my personality. She searched my name, googled me and shit, and was able to find my Instagram handle and so she reached out. Now, before I proceed, it is worth mentioning that this story is more about me than about her, but for some background and emotional context, which I believe would help you understand her own actions, you should know that before reaching out to me, this beautiful lady, let's call her R, was just recently out of a situation-ship where the guy she was with, loved her but told her that he couldn't commit to her because he felt he was not good enough for her (yes, you are more than welcome to roll your eyes at that cringe-worthy line). So, basically at the time of reaching out to me, this lady was still very much healing from the hurt of being in love with someone who was not ready to commit with her although he claimed to love her.
Now, cue my entry into the equation. At the time of her getting in touch with me, I was free as a bird. Well, I have always been free as a bird, but just for dramatic effect, I would say, I was so free as a bird that I was basically on a Tinder transactional sex spree (yes, roll your eyes at that too, I don’t care, some of us pay for sex and enjoy it. Pfft).
Anyways, back to the story, this lady, R, reached out to me on IG and as a great conversationalist that I am, we hit it off almost immediately. She was legit my type and when I mean my type, she was beautiful, had gorgeous boobs, sitting pretty; she was tall, and she could also hold a conversation that wasn't bordered around the rhetoric of "have you eaten?". As such, we kicked things off from the jump, so much so that the day after she contacted me on IG, we were already making long calls on the phone. I was my usually flirty self and making jokes and she was just enjoying the awesomeness of my personality. I think at one point during our many conversations at the start, she even said something like "Mehn, that Tolani Baj geh has no idea what she missed...” (Okay maybe she didn't say that but fuck it, I want to believe she did). Anyhoo, the long and short of it was that in three days or more, myself and R had gone from "hey, I watched your YouTube video and I like your personality…" to "Hey, I can't wait to lay next to you and feel the pulse of your something something inside my something something..."
In other words, in a few days, feelings had begun to fester, and I would love to say that these feelings appeared more in her than in me but that would be dishonest. The reason why I could probably have gotten away with saying that if I did, would be because she was the type of person to wear her emotions on her sleeves. I remember she told me that she felt something for me the very minute she felt her emotions moving in that direction, but I, in turn, told her I felt something for her simply because (and this is the catch) she told me first and I did not want to leave her hanging. And honestly, the reason why that was my response to her opening herself up to me was that as much as I may have felt something for her, the truth was, I was still very much tethered to my "free bird" antics.
Nevertheless, I very much enjoyed her vibe and our conversations but in the space of a week, I found myself beginning to feel suffocated. And don't get me wrong, this suffocation was of my own doing because I had, in a fit of passionate sexual anticipation, agreed to both of us starting something. Yes, we had had a discussion and I had told her “Let’s see where this goes" (note to other men, never say that to a woman who wears her heart on her sleeves. It's going to end badly).
So, indeed I was beginning to feel suffocated, but it was from the fumes of my own lecherous desires and unplanned stupidity. See, the truth is, she didn't live quite far, and I was hoping to get laid – yes, that was it. I had reckoned that saying “let’s see how it goes" would not be interpreted in terms of "let's start a relationship" but sadly she interpreted it exactly that way. Thus, feeling suffocated because I had boxed myself into a relationship with this very great person simply because I could not find better words to describe the fact that I just wanted to have fun and get laid, I had a choice to make – an asshole-y choice to make, I should add.
The choices were: end the – now two weeks long – relationship before it went any further and know for a fact that I would be deeply hurting this person with my actions and words or stay put in it and hope that along the way something comes along that messes up the relationship and I'd have an excuse to call it quits.
I'm sure it is no shocker which of the choices I ended up making. Yup, both were very asshole-y and terrible but whilst the first felt cruel in its instantaneous “ripping the band-aid” feel, the second, on careful consideration, just felt diabolical. I thought about both, and every minute spent thinking was me wasting every minute of her time in making her believe in the illusion that I wanted more with her than my actions had conveyed. So, I was confronted with my own bullshit, and I made the decision to be an asshole, fully aware that it would come and bite me in the ass sometime later.
I broke things off with her. I told her the truth was that I just wanted to get laid and nothing more. I explained that I didn't want to continue our "relationship" in a lie even though I knew that with this she was going to hate me. I told her; I can live with her hating me because I deserved it. She cried. She really cried. And although she never said this to my face, I am certain she probably would have thought to herself at that moment and said "Maybe that geh Tolani Baj dodged a bullet."
We stopped talking - I mean, I stopped talking to her, so as not to dredge up any remnant feelings she might still be harbouring for me. I kept my distance and made peace with my assholeness.
Fast forward to about a couple of months later and I met someone else. Well, not met-met but we met online. Struck up a rapport and discovered that we enjoyed each other's company. This time, I learned from my mistakes. I didn't say anything about "let's see how it goes" or some other shit, we just vibed and I invited her over to my place and one weekend she showed up, and let's just say, we had shawarma after some under-the-sheets cardio.
It was awesome. I'd call her at the end of workdays, and we'd talk and laugh and then plan another visit. She'd tell me how stressful work was and I'd encourage her to keep pushing and looking for other opportunities. She told me of her last failed relationship with a man who wanted to control her and tell her never to wear trousers on some deeper-life-type shit and how she told her mom, who had set her up with him, that she was not going to be trapped in a relationship or a marriage with that sort of a person. In all of these, I'd empathize with her and as I did, I'd feel a bit closer to her. Without a doubt, feelings started to develop on my end, and I say, "on my end" because for the most part I always did the calling and reaching out so much so that at one point, I decided "wait a minute, Mifa, why not try not calling for a few days and see if she'd even notice." And so, I did. And she did not (notice, that is).
A few days of no calls turned to a week and then some. But being sort of enamored by her, I decided to swallow my pride and call her, thinking to myself "well, what if she's sick or busy and could not get to her phone or something" yes, it sounded stupid, especially since I followed her on Twitter and would often see her tweets and retweets. But I was in my feeling and any excuse to call her was an excuse I gladly took. So, I'd call her, and every time I did, we'd have a normal conversation as though she hadn't noticed that I had not called her for a week. I'd play along and not say anything. Sometimes, I'd call her, and she'd take her call and say "Mifa, sorry, I am sort of busy now. I'd call you back" and then...crickets...she wouldn't call back until I'd call her again sometime later and she'd just pick up and we’d continue the conversation like nothing happened.
I was pained but couldn't say anything because I reckoned if I were being honest, she didn't owe me anything. Yes, we had our moments of passion and the likes, but we never defined anything. But there I was feeling terrible that she wasn't giving me any attention as I felt I deserved. I got so pained I even wrote an open letter on my Substacks page to her without mentioning her name, hoping she'd read it (she still hasn't). But then some weeks back, I called her after a long while of not calling or talking, and just as expected we spoke as though there was no long history of absence or silence (at least on her part) between us. We made arrangements for another weekend visit and once again, I felt optimistic. I reckoned this was my chance to speak to her about the way she had been acting and how it hurt me. I was going to call her out on her being such an asshole...and just then the word "asshole" hit me. And memories of R and my actions towards her flooded my thoughts as I was confronted with my own bullshit coming back, as predicted, to bite a chunk out of my ass.
At that moment, I realized that with this new person, I had no right to confront them about anything simply because I felt I deserved more out of our rapport than they were willing to offer or even wanted to offer. With R, I had ended things on the grounds that I would rather have her hate me than lead her on and now I was with someone new who obviously wanted nothing more than the casual arrangement that we had and yet by feeling slighted and hurt by her distance, I was seemingly begging for her to lead me on.
Indeed, my bullshit had come full circle. At that moment, as they say in pidgin, my eye clear. Tough as it was to confront my own BS, I did and I realized that with this new person, I needed to swallow my bloated sense of self-importance and be realistic. And so, I did.
That weekend, she came over and after what I would describe as a "less than satisfactory" cardio session under the sheets, we ate, chatted, laughed and she left the next day. It's been two weeks now and neither of us has called each other yet somehow, I feel at peace.
And yes, that's the lesson to all this, I believe that the moment you are able to recognize and confront your own bullshit, often the one good consequence of this action is the sense of peace that comes with it.
We all like to think our actions are often in the best interests of ourselves and those we care about but more often than not, it is the former that rings true. And the minute you understand that and make your peace with it, especially when the consequences of that come back to confront you, the sooner you can move on without necessarily dragging the baggage of regrets with you.
Cheers.