A lot of men don’t like being loved by a woman.
They think they do. They sing about it, write poems, cry on park benches. But when it comes – raw and real and all-consuming – they retreat. Not always immediately. Sometimes, they smile through it, say “you’re just too much” with a kiss on the forehead. But they retreat, eventually.
Who am I to talk? I’m only a woman. Only a woman who once handed over the whole orchard instead of rationing fruit. And what did I learn? That love, when it’s loud and honest, is often unwanted. At least, not from women like me. Not in the way I offer it.
“They don’t want to be loved,” I once told Ifeanyi, the last man I tried to love without restraint. We were in his car, engine off, outside my compound. The streetlight flickered like it was embarrassed.
“They want admiration. Not love. Respect, not rawness. Flattery, not feeling.”
He laughed – not cruelly, but like I’d told him a joke with too many layers.
“You think too much,” he said.
“No,” I replied. “I think just enough.”
He reached for the gearstick. “Let’s not ruin the night.”
That was his way. Always exiting. Never engaging.
Later that night, I watched my daughter sleep, her chest rising and falling like gentle tide. Her fingers curled around mine even in sleep, trusting I’d still be there. That’s the kind of love I know how to give. Present. Constant. Undeniable.
“Mummy?” she mumbled.
“I’m here,” I whispered.
“Don’t go.”
“I won’t.”
And I meant it. With her, I’m allowed to love out loud. She needs love like water. No mystery. No strategy. Just presence. God knew what He was doing when He gave us children. A safe place for all this excess love.
The next afternoon, I sat in the kitchen with Ada, my older cousin, peeling oranges. Ada, with her sharp opinions and sharper knives.
“You spoil that girl,” she said, not looking up. “Let her cry sometimes.”
“She’s four.”
“Exactly. That’s when you start toughening them. This world doesn’t like soft women.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s why I let her be soft now. Before the world teaches her to lie. Every woman should have a place to be soft.”
Ada clicked her tongue. “Na this kind talk make Ifeanyi ghost you.”
I smiled. “No. He ghosted me because I loved him. And he didn’t know what to do with it.”
Once, Ifeanyi told me, “You’re too intense. I feel like I’m under a microscope.”
“I just see you clearly,” I said. “It’s not the same thing.”
“There’s something wrong with love,” Ada said.
“No, there isn’t,” I said. “It’s us who let this world bend us out of shape.”
She was quiet for a moment. “So, you’re okay with that realisation?”
“I guess I am.”
Most men don’t want to be seen. Not really. They want to be reflected – clean, bright, controlled. Mystery is safer than clarity.
Distance is safer than devotion.
That’s why they fall for the ones who hold back. Who laugh just enough and then go home. Women whose eyes carry secrets, not softness.
Those women understand the game. They breathe on their own. They don’t send long messages or cry in front of them. They wait. They observe. They evolve according to his needs.
And he? He fights for them. Craves them. Kills for them, sometimes.
That’s the perfect symbiosis. He gets to feel powerful. She gets to hold the reins, invisibly.
But I…
I’ve never performed distance well. I tried once. I tried to wait for him to text first. Tried to laugh breezily. Tried to be chill.
I hated every second of it.
When Ifeanyi stopped calling, I didn’t chase him. I just picked up my daughter and danced to highlife music in our living room. She laughed until she fell over. I laughed with her.
Later, styling her hair into afropuffs, she looked up at me in the mirror.
“Mummy?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Do you love me?”
“So much.”
She grinned. “I love you back.”
That’s the kind of love I’ll keep giving. The kind that doesn’t need to apologize for itself.
We don’t learn, so we suffer. But I am learning.
And that, I’ve decided, is enough.
Meestique,
_The Empathic Social Observer.
The Empathic Social Observer 