THAT WARRI GUY

This might sound surreal or unreal. It might read like something that can only happen in the pages of a magazine, something that you’d not expect someone of my age to experience.

I am twenty-six years old, and I am gay. I have a thing for younger guys. If you are my age or a year older, I would not be interested, except maybe you have a body like Trey Songz. What a lot of people would not understand is that I have not had penetrative sex before. I have not gone beyond pre-intimacy. Now, don’t take this the wrong way; I am not ugly – heck, I know some not-so-good-looking guys who have sex virtually every day. It is not as if I don’t think about sex or something. I actually do, on a daily basis. It stems more from the fact that I have not met someone that I really like…

All that changed soon enough.

I have gay friends – acquaintances, over a hundred of them, on Facebook, whatsapp, BBM and 2go (yes, I am still on 2go). Most of them want to meet, but I am just not interested. One guy is even asking me right now why I have decided not to meet him.

The issue is that, no matter how good looking a person is, when I meet them, something just goes wrong, either from my end or his. Most of them want sex, and I just need a friend that I can talk to, someone that will listen. If sex comes in the process, good. But I always lay down a ground rule that no one should expect me to put out.

Sometime last year – August/September, I think – I stumbled on the profile of a guy on Facebook. His name is Sly and he is twenty-two or –three, a student of Computer Science in a private university in Delta State. Now this guy is not drop-dead gorgeous, but he is good looking with dark thick juicy lips and a bubble butt. He is also slim. He reminds me of May D. I’ve always liked May D.

And now, I fell in love with Sly.

I sent him a friend request, and he accepted. Subsequently, I added him on whatsapp and sent him a message. For days, I kept on going through his pictures on Facebook, and mehn, he had over 500 of them.

Now, I wasn’t sure if he was gay or not. Our conversations were mostly generic. We did not discuss anything about sex because I did not want to scare him away and I was okay being his friend. After some weeks however, I got bored and deleted his number. I had to do it because he was quite boring. He was not a conversationalist, and I love chatting with guys that actually have a lot to talk about. In fact, I love arguments.

Anyway, I actually forgot about him. Then one day, he sent me a message on whatsapp. Just ‘Hi’. That was all. And all the emotions I’d once felt came rushing back. I had no idea the things I felt for him were still there. He was the second guy I’ve ever felt so strongly for and actually thought of having a relationship with. The first guy was my childhood crush who was not gay. We fooled around back then, but we later grew apart. Or he grew apart. Deep within me, I still have a thing for him but he is no longer in the country.

So then, I realized that Sly meant a lot to me. I couldn’t let him go just like that. So, I gave his number to a friend of mine who is quite good in finding out stuffs and has very strong gaydar. After chatting with Sly for some time, my friend sent me the conversation, confirming to me that Sly was gay. Part of what Sly told my friend was: “Can you take care of my needs…” Now, I did not really think about this because I was too happy to confirm that he was also into guys.

After sometime, I chatted up Sly, and I asked him if he was into guys. He said yes. I asked him out. He accepted.

Now, it is pertinent to note that Sly is based in Warri…hmmm…while I am in Abuja. He told me that he dated an older man for two years. Actually, he said he worked for the man for some time and the man told him he liked him and he accepted. He said he is bottom. He also told me that he broke up with the man because the man made a promise to him and did not fulfill it. The promise, according to him, was he, the man, would give him the money he’d use to pay his school fees, which he’d misplaced. Sly said the man said the man did not give the money, which made him unable to write his exams.

When he told me this story, a massive alarm rang in my head. But like they say, konji can be a real bastard. I immediately silenced the alarm and told the Devil to get behind me.

So, I was officially ‘dating’ Sly. I liked him a lot. He was thuggish, rough-looking and rugged, and to put icing on the cake, he claimed he is bottom. Uh-lala! We planned to meet. He said he did not have any money to pay his fare to Abuja, and asked me to send money to him. I asked him to find out the price from Warri to Abuja. He told me he asked someone and the person said it would not be more than N3, 500. That was in December. I did not meet him then because I had to travel for the holidays.

By January, he promised that he was going to come after his examinations. Now, a lot of things happened in between December and January, and I saw numerous signs; like sometimes, we just stopped chatting like we usually did. He would read my messages and not reply. I would call him and he wouldn’t pick. The worst part is that he is one of those “K” kinds of people. You know, those people who would read your long epistle of love, and thereafter, reply you with a simple ‘k’ or ‘Ya’, as though you are not worth the effort of an ‘Okay’ or ‘Yes.’ I find this disgusting. I told him that I did not like it, but he kept at it.

The truth is, I really liked the guy. Yet, he kept on annoying me. He’d always snap pictures with girls, snapshots that showed him touching them in inappropriate places. We had an agreement, that we could date as many girls as we wanted, but we would be each other’s only guy. But the pictures disturbed me. And he never seemed interested in knowing anything about me. He never asked me any questions. I was the one always initiating our conversations.

Reacting to all this, I had deleted his number several times, only to find myself adding him back. I told friends about him and they all told me one thing. RUN. They said he was playing me and I would only end up being hurt. They also sneered about him not being worth the hassle because they didn’t think he was good looking. But he was gorgeous to me. I guess the juju that was used on me is quite strong. There was a time I decided not to send him a message for weeks. He wasn’t perturbed by that; he didn’t even bother sending me any message. I just had to eat the humble pie and sent him a message.

And then something happened very recently.

He said he was finally through with his examinations and was home in Warri. By this time, our relationship had gotten very strained, with me seeking his online company and him not giving enough of it.

It seemed as though, on that Sunday, I was looking for something definite, something to tell me to go to hell. I needed to be yanked off my feet and beaten back to earth. I needed to know that I had been in love with the wrong person.

So, that Sunday afternoon, I was asleep and then, I woke up with a start. And I decided to write a poem about how I felt. I did not edit it. I bared my feelings. Then I sent him a message on BBM and told him I had a poem for him. My plan was to send it to him and delete him. But I waited, long enough for him to respond that he was happy with the poem.

I felt hope flutter in my heart. I eased my thumb off the delete button. And then, I asked him why he refused to pick my calls or reply my messages recently. He replied with ‘Nothing’. I asked him when we would be able to meet. He said the following weekend, that he would come over to spend three days. He said he didn’t have the money to pay for transport. Naturally, I was expected to send him the money.

When I asked my friends if it was ideal to send him money, they asked me where he was from. I told them “Warri”. They said I should run, that Warri guys are bad, and that they sense bad news. They told me to tell him to use his money as fare to Abuja, and that I would refund him back. When I told Sly this, he would have none of it. He expressly told me he wouldn’t be coming anymore. I did not want to let this opportunity slide, because I really wanted to see him; I needed to know where I stood with him. I needed to know if what I felt was real. I needed to confirm if my suspicions were right. I needed something to make me forget him. He was playing with my heart and I did not like it.

So, I asked him if 5k would be enough to bring him to Abuja. He said yes. So, I sent him 5k the following Wednesday and he confirmed receipt. Then I asked him the name of the bus he would be boarding to Abuja. He said “G.O. Agofure”. I laughed when I read the message. It was then that I started suspecting that maybe I had just been scammed. I actually gave him the avoidance of doubt, but it dawned on me that maybe I had been scammed by a Warri boy. The reason I laughed was due to the fact that I served in Bayelsa State around 2010/2011 and G.O. Agofure in Ughelli in that time did not go to Abuja. The transport company only had Lagos and some parts of the South-South in its route. I told him that I never knew Agofure had started going to Abuja. He said things had changed. I wondered just how much things had changed in four years, bearing in mind that I had never seen any G.O. Agofure park in Abuja.

Anyway, on Thursday afternoon, I sent Sly a message. And this is how the conversation went:

Me: How far?

Sly: Not fine

Me: What happened?

Sly: I went to the ATM to withdraw the money to come tomorrow, and the ATM debited my account and did not pay me.

This is like the longest message he had ever sent to me.

Me: Hmmm. So, what are you going to do now?

Sly: I am going to the bank to rectify the problem.

Like an hour later…

Me: How far?

Sly: I have gone and they send I should go home and they would send me alert.

Me: Are you still coming tomorrow?

Sly: Ya

Me: So have you gotten the money yet?

Sly: No

ME: So, how are you going to come? That was why I said you should use your money to come and I would reimburse you.

Sly: Why are you so worried?

Me: You know I want to see you and I thought this would be our opportunity

Sly: Don’t worry

Some hours later…

Me: Are you coming?

Me: How far?

That was the last message I sent to him on Thursday night on BBM. He did not reply. I called him twice and he did not pick. Prior to that moment, I had already told my friends that I had been scammed, and they all had a good laugh about it.

On Friday morning, I expected a message from him asking me for directions. I got no such message from him. I sent him a message by 7 a.m. and he did not reply, but he was online because he was listening to music and I could see the updates on BBM. When I got to work, I called him and he did not pick. In fact, I called him about ten times and he did not pick. Till now, he has not called me back.

Am I devastated? I really don’t know. I am actually pained right now. In fact, I am thinking of doing bad things to him. Five grand is actually nothing to me. Well, it is something; at least I know I can get five guys to come to my house with it by just paying their transport. The reason I am pained and writing this is because he wasted my time. I don’t even know if anything he told me was true. Was he ever into guys? Did he ever have a boyfriend? Was he playing me all along? He knew I liked him so much; I made no secret about my feelings. I actually used the L word on him; he is the first person I’ve ever used the word on. For goodness sake, I just got me some condoms ready to ride that ass. I have not had sex before, but I was willing to have it with him. To say the truth he is the only guy I have ever thought of going all the way with.

Now, I don’t think if I will be able to meet any guy again. I decided to send him a strongly-worded message on whatsapp. And then I proceeded to block him, delete him from BBM, unfollow him on Instagram, removed him from Facebook, deleted his number and removed him from Skype. I don’t know if I will ever trust a gay guy again. The issue is that the guys I like might not like me, while the ones I don’t like are the ones that are on my neck. I don’t want to settle for anything less by being with just anybody.

Who knows, maybe this is a sign.

The truth of the matter is that no matter how painful it is, deep within me, I feel relieved. It is as if a burden has been lifted. The kind of feelings you get when you suspect something wrong but you are not sure and you are afraid that you might be right, the when you confirm, you cry, then you start laughing. Unfortunately, it cost me 5k to confirm that I had just been played by a Warri guy. I thought I was smart, but I met someone that was smarter and more patient than I was.

Written by Sinnex