Overview

This is a personal story about my current journey through campus dating life. It describes a journey from the very beginning of my relationship with the one true actual serious boyfriend. A journey that involves, experiences tough lessons learnt, and even a shift in my perspective on dating, on having a relationship that actually works, and fills you with joy and genuine purpose. A story shared with a purpose in heart to bring a shift in what dating looks like in this current generation, from complicated, to an experience that brings about growth, fulfillment and true happiness.

This great campus love story begins with the happening of one grand collision.-a collision that happened on a Sunday morning, at a church entrance. So, as I guiltily dashed out of church as the service was going on, to attend to  my mum’s call requests ,  ’ Him’ , together with his squad, were hastening their steps towards the church entrance ,trying to catch the last hour of the  ongoing service. At that intense point of collision, yes, our eyes did lock, but, our minds and hearts didn’t. Cause internally, were busy judging each other. He probably thought to himself, ‘Who’s this girl who has more important things to attend to than to actually stay and listen to the word of God?’ And my thoughts towards him were no better. I mean, who is this guy who has no respect towards God, coming to church this late, literally half an hour towards the end of the church service. Regardless, we put on facades, masking all the judgy thoughts and attitudes we had towards each other, exchanged smiles and short greetings… Only greetings, not contacts. Because no respectable guy asks for contacts of a girl he just bumped into at the church door. Please men, don’t do that. Because you won’t earn that from a girl, especially one who accords herself some self-respect.

So fate has thing of eventually working out things that were meant to be. In two weeks’ time, we collided again, at an outdoor school event, and this time, it felt right. This marked the beginning of the sprouting of a beautiful friendship, that with time, bloomed into what I call a partnership, yes, I just called it a partnership. As I go on, you’ll get to understand why it’s not just a relationship, but a partnership.

It took a whole year before our friendship budded into a relationship. He is my first actual true boyfriend, and still is. All this is by the virtue that it takes quite some time before I can accord such level of trust and love to a person, most especially a guy. I’m one who is always careful, one who always chooses the pure slow burn as opposed to the crash and burn that a lot of girls find convenient. Honestly, it’s merely just a personal choice and way of life. Eventually he did earn my trust and love.

With time, I came to realize that there’s a lot this dating scene, and I will willingly put out my perspective on what dating life has been and will always be for me, a perspective that was introduced to me by this awesome guy writer called Joshua Harris.

So, I decided to explore dating in a different way. I sought to have a friendship based relationship as opposed to a romantic based kind of relationship. A friendship based kind of relationship is not based on the feelings, romance and attraction between the two people, but rather the common interests, attitudes and goals, that’s what brings the two together. Dating for me, hasn’t been about cuffing and owning each other. The truth is romance based kind of dating focuses on tying each other down, cuffing and chaining each other. Each other’s time, each other’s attention, thoughts and even affects other present friendships. It’s the kind of love that blinds. It stifles individual growth and consumes up each other’s energy that should have been directed to the service and preparation for the future. Friendship based kind of dating does not entail planning your lives around each other yet none is certain about what the future holds, whether you’ll get married to each other or not. It entails learning to understand that it’s okay to relate, care and share lives with other people. That’s what growing each other means. As much as we are together, we still individually stay single at heart, giving room to explore, study and tackle the world. I usually visualize this romance based kind of dating as the couple being face to face, focused on each other, their intimacy, while friendship based kind of dating is more of side to side, focused more on a common goal outside of them.

True love is selfless. It gives, it sacrifices, it dies to its own needs. I have found myself experiencing the peace and power that comes from such a pure love. I don’t believe in making unwarranted emotional, physical and spiritual claims on someone. These kind of attachments are deep, and cost you your heart, pieces of your heart depending on how many guys one commits to, before meeting the ultimate husband, who gets what’s left of the broken heart. So that’s why I wouldn’t make the pre-mature risks.

 Happiness is key in any relationship, but I’ve also realized that dating won’t always be about the sweet goodnight texts, the valentine’s gifts, holding hands while walking down Kimathi Street and parading each other on social media. No. Dating is about growth. And growth is painful, because sometimes the sun becomes too hot for this growing shoot….and sometimes the rain beats too hard, it almost crushes you. What’s happening behind the scenes? How are you dealing with the imperfections, how do you sort out your differences? Dating has been about listening empathically to each other, seek to understand each other’s point of view, talking out issues and resolving out our conflicts through mature discussions. Never opt to sweep things under the carpet, for they will re-surface someday, this time more fiercely. Finally, accept what you cannot change. It’s called tolerance.

Love. I often love to ask myself questions like; if this guy was to be crippled by a car crash in a road accident, or if his face was to get burned by acid, would I still feel the same about him? Would I still see him in the same light? Is it about his gorgeous looks, his well-aligned white teeth, his light skin complexion, OR, is it more about his beautiful heart, his kind and positive soul, his wise words, his valuable companionship. The answers my heart gives to the above questions confirm that love us indeed the foundation of this relationship, and not lust. Remember in 20 years, the fineness will turn to wrinkles, and you’ll be left with the character, the heart, the mind. So, is he just a lover, or he is also a friend? Is that love patient, kind, or is it just self-seeking and one that keeps a record of wrongs? (1cor 13:4-18.). Most of the time the world takes us to a silver screen on which flickering images of passion and romance play and as we watch, the world says, ‘This is love’ but God takes us to the foot of a tree on which naked and blooded man hangs and says, ‘ This is love’. And the latter is how I choose to define my type of love.

My dating life has also been about the difference in maturity levels between me and him. Maturity is the balance between courage and consideration. And when I say maturity, put the physical aspect aside. I’m talking about intellectual and spiritual maturity. Being able to match up to each other’s level of thought, level of language. Challenging each other to greater heights, competing in book reading, teaching each other what we’ve learnt. Praying for each other, and with each other, sharing our spiritual challenges, cause we are both aware that God’s position in our individual lives matters more than anything else. And He comes first. Always. So we work to be better, to honor Him.

Finally, speaking the same financial language. We challenge each other financially, we do businesses together, celebrate our profits, track our savings, and he is always careful to monitor my expenses especially on food, which has forever been a weakness for me.

By now, I bet we are on the same page on why I had earlier called it a ‘partnership.

Whether this relationship lasts a lifetime, or just one extra month, that doesn’t count, what matters in my heart, is this partnership that was founded and built by true friendship will yield to great things in life for the both of us.- separately or unanimously.

God makes everything beautiful at its right time. According to His will.

WRITER: KANYASYA