Love bombing

The cement has not set

I am writing this from a plastic chair at a kibanda in Juja, nursing a chai that has more milk than tea, watching my boy Dennis type and delete a paragraph for the fourth time. He met her on Saturday. It is Monday. The paragraph begins with “My love, I just want you to know...” Bro. BRO. You do not know her. You met her juzi at the Weekend warm up at Artcaffe Gastrobar. Everybody looked beautiful that night. Even my landlord looked beautiful. Sit down.

This is the thing nobody warns you about when you start dating in Nairobi as a man with eyes. You will watch your friends, grown men with jobs and Sacco loans, transform overnight into love bombing Al-shabaab missiles aimed at women who barely know their full names. It is mutually assured destruction out here, and the casualty list is long.

I have seen Brian, a man who has not texted his own mother in three weeks, send a “Good morning sunshine, hope your day is as beautiful as your soul” message at 5:47am to a lady he met at a car wash in South B. Five forty seven. AM. Brother, even God was still resting. What soul? You met her between the vacuum and the tyre shine section.

Then there is Kev, who runs a small mtumba stall at Toi Market and lives, frankly, on the edge. The man met somebody at a wedding in Ngong on a Saturday. By Wednesday he had sent her three thousand shillings on MPesa “just because.” Just because what, Kevin? Just because you wanted to skip three meals this week? The girl did not even ask. She probably has her own Matatu Sacco. But Kev wanted to make a statement, and the statement was “I am financially unstable but emotionally available.” She blocked him by Friday. He cried at Choices.

And it is not only the brothers. Let me be fair, because writing about Nairobi dating without mentioning the sisters is like writing about Mombasa Road without mentioning the trailers. There is a particular kind of lady who, after one date , will start sending you photos of houses . “Babe, imagine us here.” Imagine us where? I still split rent with my cousin in Donholm. Why is your imagination on a quarter acre in Syokimau when I have not even told you my real shoe size?

I watched my cousin Patrick get love bombed once. She cooked him pilau . She brought it to his bedsitter. In a serving dish. With cucumber kachumbari in a separate Tupperware. The man has not been the same since. He kept calling me saying “Bro, she even brought a serviette.” But you could see it in his eyes. He was gone. By date five she was asking for his ID number “just for something” and his mother’s name “for fun.” Patrick now lives in Nakuru.

The pattern is always the same, whether the bomber is a he or a she. It starts with intensity. Long voice notes. Pet names that arrive uninvited like a Jehovah’s Witness on a Saturday morning. Surprise visits to your gate. “I was just in the area, babe.” You were not in the area. You took two matatus and a boda from Embakasi to Westlands. Be honest.

Then comes the future talk. Week two. They are mentioning your unborn children. They are asking what tribe you are, not out of curiosity but out of planning. They want to know if you go to church, and if yes, which one, and if the pastor would be available in October. October of what year, madam? Slow down. I have not yet introduced you to my WhatsApp status, let alone my pastor.

But here is what I have come to understand, sitting on this plastic chair, watching the chaos unfold around me like a slow motion accident on Thika Road. Love bombing is loud, but love itself is quiet. It does not announce itself. It does not arrive with sirens and surprise breakfast. It arrives the way the rains arrived in November after we had given up on them. Slowly. Then steadily. Then suddenly everything is green.

The people I know who are actually happy, the ones whose relationships have survived job losses, miscarriages, the 2017 election, the pandemic, and the cost of unga, those people did not love bomb anybody. They showed up in ways that matter. They called when they said they would call. They remembered the small things. That she gets cold in matatus and you should always sit on the window side. Small things. Small habits.

Love bombing is a man trying to build a house in one weekend. He pours all the cement at once. He stacks all the bricks in a hurry. By Monday morning, the whole thing has collapsed because the foundation never set.

So Dennis, my brother, if you are reading this from across the kibanda where you are still typing that paragraph, please. Delete it. Send her a simple “How was your day?” Then do it again tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that.

That is how you build something that will not fall down when the rains come.

And in Nairobi, the rains always come and evaporation is our drainage system.