Before Daniel became my boyfriend, he was my best friend for years. We did everything together and were almost inseparable. During our final year of campus, he asked me to be his girlfriend. I had a feeling that he would be the man that I spent the rest of my life with. We dated for a year and a half then broke up amicably. We had no bad blood and continued being friends though we weren’t as close as we were before.
Daniel got into another relationship after a few months but I wasn’t ready to get back on the dating scene just yet. As always, he would tell me about his new girlfriend.
“Sis, I tell you. Maya is the girl of my dreams. She’s perfect.”
Yea, I was back to being “sis” but I didn’t mind. As long as I had a good relationship with him, I was happy. I watched as their relationship became more serious by the day and it hit me that I might lose my best friend. He was serious about her and I knew that he wanted to settle down. That meant that he would start cutting off people from his life including the ones his girlfriend didn’t like.
I didn’t get along with her. Every time I visited Daniel at his place, she’d give me a deathly glare then lock herself in the bedroom until I left. It happened a few more times until I got the message and stopped going to his place. However, Daniel insisted that she was a great girl and I was simply happy that he had found someone to settle with.
As I predicted, he started cutting off his friends.
“Sheila, have you spoken to Daniel lately?” one of his close friends called to ask me.
“No. He’s ghosted you too.”
“Yea, I’m getting frustrated with him.”
I wasn’t that easy to shake off especially with the history that I had with him. He wasn’t going to get rid of me that easily. Whenever he’d go for days without talking to him, I’d show up at his workplace during lunch break and drag him to lunch. Apparently, his girlfriend learned about it and she started calling him over lunch and they’d talk the whole time.
It felt like I was fighting for his attention with his girlfriend when all I wanted was to have my confidant back. Eventually, Daniel got tired of being in the tug of war and made his choice of who would stay in his life. He picked her.
“Sis, you know I love you but Amanda is really getting on my case about you.”
“So, this is it?”
“I just want peace in the house.”
“Fine. You do what you want.”
That was the last time I saw Daniel in person. However, we still kept in touch over the phone. He called me occasionally and I shared funny videos with him on WhatsApp. Things seemed to be going great for a month then I got a text from him saying he didn’t want me to WhatsApp him anymore. Things were getting out of hand. It was one thing to refuse to meet me in person, now I couldn’t even text him. I knew his girlfriend had something to do with this change of behaviour but I didn’t say anything.
His friends had all given up on him and the few that were still in contact with him didn’t like the guy he was becoming. Even his colleagues were getting frustrated. I couldn’t understand how my charismatic friend had become such an antisocial homebody. So, I decided to host a small party at my place just to remind him how much fun his friends were.
It was a surprise party so he had no idea about it until the day of. Once everything was set, I sent him a WhatsApp message asking him to meet for lunch. I wanted him to get out of the house so I could convince him to come to my place since I knew he couldn’t agree while his girlfriend was around. We exchanged a few more texts before he agreed to meet me for lunch.
“It’s been a while,” I said as Daniel embraced me tightly.
“I know. I’ve missed you.”
I noticed he had lost a lot some weight and he looked unhappy.
“Everybody misses you. What have you been up to?” I asked trying to lighten his mood.
“I’ve been having problems everywhere, at work, at home, with my family. Nobody understands me.” He almost broke down.
“We can go to my place where we can talk comfortably.”
He paused for a minute to think.
“Okay. I just need to go back home and take a few things.”
Like the good friend I was, I offered to drive him there but I didn’t go in. I sat in my car for about 30 minutes without seeing or hearing from Daniel. His phone wasn’t going through and when I checked his WhatsApp, I noticed he had blocked me. Something had definitely gone wrong when he went back to the house. However, I wasn’t ready to face his crazy girlfriend.
I licked my wounds and went back to my place. We had a party without him and I haven’t heard from him since then. His colleagues see him around the office but he is getting worse by the day. They say he’s become isolated and seems to be sinking into depression. We later learned that his girlfriend was pregnant and they’re expecting a baby soon. This was news that he should have celebrated with his friends but he had blocked all of us on WhatsApp. We all heard the news through third parties who barely even knew him.
Nonetheless, we still keep trying to contact him and reunite him with his family and friends. No one, not even his mother, has managed to get through to him. Maybe the birth of his child will show him the value of family and friends.
More stories in the Singlehood Series:
She Found Out Her Best Friend Was Dating Her Ex-Boyfriend
I Got Out Of The Friendzone And Dated My Best Friend For One Month
My Relationship With A Colleague Proved That Business And Pleasure Don’t Mix
She Showed Up To Our First Date With Her Ex-Boyfriend
I Was Cooking For My Boyfriend During Lockdown And He Was Eating My Food With Another Woman
