“He was never a software engineer nor a tech bro; he only just ‘dreamt’ of becoming one. He didn’t have any job like he claimed, he was only always on cheap midnight data.”
On today’s episode of “Why The Ship Sank“, Bisi (23) shares how she thought her boyfriend, Alex (25), was naturally nocturnal and the nature of his “tech job” excused that he wouldn’t have time during the day except at night.
How Did You Meet Alex?
He used to be my senior in secondary school whom I had a little crush on sha, but we never really conversed until I met him again in my school. He was convocating and of course, I had friends in his set I wanted to celebrate with. So I bumped into him that afternoon. We had a chitchat and exchanged numbers.
What were your first few conversations like?
The first time I got a “Hi” from him was actually at midnight, but I didn’t read any meaning to it because it seemed normal. While I wasn’t online at the time, I came online later in the day and saw a text from him.
There was a particular midnight I was active, this was about 3 days after we exchanged numbers, and that was the first time we had a really long conversation.
He told me was a nocturnal person and doesn’t really know how to function during the day. Told me that the nature of his job also requires him to stay more active at night. So having stayed up all night, it only made sense to take the day to sleep and be inactive.
What does he do?
He’s a software engineer. At least so he said. And at the time, he was building a software with one of his friends (Amos) in Australia. The time difference was also a factor. Midnight time in Nigeria was when Amos was most active.
It did make sense to me because even from school, Alex has been this very intelligent person. So I honestly didn’t doubt him.
What was the average number of hours you talked for?
I tried my best to stay awake all night, so we could talk for 5-6hours straight. I was a student at the time; just got into 400L but we were on break. It was easy to stay all night when I knew I wouldn’t be going anywhere during the day.
But things changed when I resumed. I couldn’t truncate my sleep for him any longer. Communication deteriorated.
So how come you guys managed to date when there was barely any communication?
We started dating towards the end of my final year. But before then, there was a period where we didn’t communicate at all. One night when we spoke, we decided to have a physical conversation. It was during that physical conversation he asked me out and promised to keep communication intact during the day.
Did he change?
Well, somehow. He knew what my timetable was like, and fortunately, I had fewer classes in my final year. So he’d call to hear from me like once during the day. The call could last 15 minutes or more.
If there’s one thing about Alex, it’s that he’s so damn good with words (and I’m a words of affirmation girlie). I’d wake up to reassuring messages from him, updates on his software and some other “jobs” he had going on.
I didn’t know it was all lies.
How did you find out?
Through Amos, actually. I stumbled on Amos’ LinkedIn profile and sent him a connection request. We all attended the same secondary school together but he left for Australia after Year 2 in Uni.
From his profile, I could see he was also a software engineer and had something he was building. In my head, I quickly thought “oh, the app he’s building with my boyfriend”. Mumu me.
Hours later, Amos accepted my request and I was finally able to text him. Thankfully, he still remembered me so I didn’t have to do a long intro of myself.
Then I said “how are you active by this time when you should be resting? My boyfriend told me how hectic the software building is, and how much toll it’s taking on you both”.
His response: “sorry, who’s your boyfriend?”
Me: “Alex nau. From school…your best friend”.
Him: “oh wow. Alex? First off, I didn’t even know you two were dating, but how would I know when Alex and I haven’t spoken since I travelled? Anyways, congratulations but we’re not building anything together o! Maybe it’s not my own Amos sha”
I didn’t even know what to respond with, I just said “okay”.
I couldn’t even wait till midnight, I put a call through to Alex. I do not like normal calls, only WhatsApp, and as usual, he wasn’t online. So I bought enough airtime because I knew I was about to cuss on someone’s son. After 3 rings, he picked up and said “hey baby, missing me?”. I first gave him a heavy curse. He was shocked. So I started….
At this point, he couldn’t lie. That’s how he started confessing. He was never a software engineer nor a tech bro, he only just “dreamt” of becoming one. He didn’t have any job like he claimed, he was only always on cheap midnight data. He wasn’t nocturnal per se, but having slept his life all through the data, it was harder to find sleep at night.
I felt like a fool for the first time in my life and ended the relationship there.
