“Men want to feel needed,” Kwame said, swirling the last of his red wine in the crystal glass I’d bought specifically for tonight. His words landed like stones in my stomach, heavy and cold. “And you, Amara, never need anyone.”
The special anniversary dinner I’d spent hours preparing sat half-eaten between us, candles flickering shadows across my carefully set table. Outside my apartment window, Nairobi’s evening traffic created a gentle symphony of horns and engines.
“That’s not true,” I protested, my voice smaller than I wanted it to be. “I need people. I need you.”
He smiled, that smile that had once made my heart race but now made my skin prickle with irritation. “Do you, though? You have your apartment in Kilimani that you bought without anyone’s help. Your Range Rover that you saved for. Your event planning business is taking the city by storm. You make decisions without even texting me. When your car broke down last month, you handled everything yourself.”
My throat tightened. Were these accusations? These things I’d been proud of, my independence, my competence, were they flaws?
“Those are… bad things?” I asked, genuinely bewildered.
“They’re not bad. They’re just… intimidating. Men want to take care of their women. What do you need me for?”
The question hung between us like smoke. What did I need him for? Not financially, my business had secured three major corporate clients last year. Not practically, I’d been handling everything from leaky faucets to difficult landlords since university. Not emotionally, I had my sister, my close friends, and my therapist.
But I loved him. The way his eyes crinkled when he laughed. He remembered every client crisis I mentioned. The comfortable silence when we read books on Sunday mornings, legs intertwined on my sofa.
“I need you because I choose you,” I said finally, reaching for his hand. “Because waking up next to you makes even Monday mornings beautiful. Because life is brighter, fuller, more meaningful with you in it.”
He withdrew his hand gently but firmly. “That’s not the same as needing someone, Amara. After a year together, I still feel like a nice accessory to your life, not a foundation of it.”
An hour later, he was gone, along with the small velvet box I’d glimpsed in his jacket pocket. Our one-year milestone had become an ending, not a beginning.
That night, I cried until my silk pillowcase was soaked. Then I did what I’ve always done when life knocks me sideways: I got up the next morning, applied extra concealer, put on my lucky blazer, and went to work.
“You’re being ridiculous,” my friend Nduta declared a week later, showing up at my door with ice cream. We sat cross-legged on my living room floor, the Nairobi night air warm through the open balcony door.
“He said I’m too independent,” I told her. “That men need to feel needed, and I don’t need anyone.”
Nduta rolled her eyes dramatically. “That’s such bull. He’s intimidated because you’ve got your life together, and he can’t control you. He wants some helpless kitten who’ll stroke his ego.”
“Maybe,” I said, unconvinced. “But what if he’s right? What if there’s something unwomanly about being this self-sufficient?”
“Unwomanly?” Nduta nearly choked. “Girl, it’s 2025. Our grandmothers fought so we could vote, our mothers fought so we could have careers, and you’re worried about being unwomanly? Please.”
But as weeks passed, Kwame’s words burrowed deeper. I began noticing the subtle dynamics in other relationships: how my married friend Sophie, a corporate lawyer who demolished opponents in court, always asked her husband to open jars; how my cousin Atieno, with a PhD in computer science, played down her technical knowledge so her boyfriend could proudly explain crypto to her. The small performances of vulnerability seemed to lubricate the machinery of heterosexual relationships.
Had I missed some essential lesson in how to be a woman?
Two months after our breakup, I ran into Kwame at a networking event. He was with a woman I didn’t recognise, petite with flowing hair and an effortlessly glamorous outfit.
“Amara,” he said, sounding genuinely pleased to see me. “You look well.”
“So do you,” I replied, meaning it despite the ache beneath my ribs.
“This is Shiro,” he introduced his date, who clung to his arm like a delicate vine. “Shiro, this is Amara, an old friend.”
‘Old friend.’ The demotion from “love of my life” to “old friend” in just eight weeks stung.
Shiro smiled sweetly. “Kwame has mentioned you. Your business sounds amazing! I could never do something like that. I’m terrible with organisation, and numbers completely confuse me.”
Watching their interaction throughout the evening, I began to understand what Kwame had tried to explain. Shiro needed him, or at least, she performed needing him with the skill of a seasoned actress. She asked his opinion on everything, laughed with wide-eyed admiration when he explained things, touching his arm and saying, “You make it so clear! I’d be lost without someone smart to explain these things.”
I left early, driving home through Nairobi’s glittering nightscape in contemplative silence. Was I wrong all this time? Should I learn to soften my edges, to ask for help even when I didn’t need it, to make myself smaller so someone else could feel bigger?
That Sunday, at my parents’ home for our traditional family lunch, I found myself watching them with new eyes. My mother, a university professor with dual PhDs, was hardly submissive. My father, a retired surgeon, was accomplished and confident himself. Yet their marriage had thrived for thirty-eight years.
“Dad,” I asked as we washed dishes together. “Do you ever wish Mom needed you more?”
He looked at me curiously. “What do you mean?”
“You know, that she was more… dependent on you? Less self-sufficient?”
He laughed, a deep rumble that had comforted me since childhood. “Your mother? Dependent? I think we both know that’s not in her DNA.”
“That doesn’t bother you? As a man?”
He dried a plate thoughtfully. “When I was younger, your age, perhaps, maybe it would have. Men are taught that their value comes from being needed. But that’s a very limiting view of love, Amara.”
“So what’s the alternative?” I asked, handing him another plate.
“Being wanted,” he said simply, his eyes drifting toward the living room where my mother’s laughter could be heard. “There’s a world of difference between being with someone because they can’t survive without you and being with someone because they’ve built a full, complete life and still choose to make you part of it. Your mother could live without me, she’s more than capable. But she wants me in her life. That’s a much greater compliment than being needed.”
Three months after our breakup, my business landed a career-defining contract, planning the annual charity gala for one of Kenya’s largest telecommunications corporations.
The night of the gala, I felt powerful in my midnight blue gown, directing my team with quiet authority. When the CEO personally thanked me for creating “the most elegant and seamless event in the company’s history,” pride surged through me intensely.
After most guests had departed, I slipped onto the venue’s balcony for a moment alone. The Nairobi skyline stretched before me, a glittering tapestry of lights.
“Impressive work tonight.”
I turned to find a man standing nearby, tall with intelligent eyes and a smile that created a single dimple. I recognised him as one of the board members who had approved my proposal.
“Thank you,” I said. “It was a team effort.”
“Your team, though,” he pointed out. “I watched you tonight. You’ve built something special.”
We fell into a conversation that flowed like water. His name was Jamal, and unlike most men I met, he asked genuine questions and listened to the answers.
“Would you have dinner with me sometime?” he asked as the evening wound down.
My hesitation must have shown because he added, “Unless you’re seeing someone?”
“No, I’m not,” I admitted. “It’s just… I’ve been told I’m too independent. That men find it intimidating.”
To my surprise, he laughed, not mockingly, but with genuine amusement. “Whoever told you that was telling you more about his insecurities than any universal truth about men.”
“You don’t find independent women intimidating?” I challenged.
“My mother raised three children alone while running a successful business and getting her master’s degree,” he said, his expression softening. “She taught me that strength in a partner isn’t something to fear, it’s something to treasure. Why would I want someone who needs me because she can’t stand on her own? I’d much rather be wanted by someone who could have anyone but chooses me.”
Something warm unfurled in my chest, not desperate butterflies, but something steadier, like sunlight slowly filling a room.
Six months later, as we sat on my balcony sharing wine and comfortable silence, I asked the question that had lingered in my mind since our first meeting.
“Does it ever bother you that I don’t really need your help with things? That I can change my own tires and fix my own internet and run my own business?”
Jamal looked at me thoughtfully, the setting sun painting his face in gold. “Need is about survival, Amara. Anyone can be needed. But to be wanted, chosen day after day by someone who has options, that’s the real gift.”
He reached across the small table, his fingers intertwining with mine. “Besides, you’re wrong about one thing. We all need others, just not always in obvious ways. You don’t need me to pay your bills or open your jars. But maybe you need me to remind you to rest sometimes. To challenge your thinking. To hold you when the world gets heavy.”
His thumb traced circles on my palm. “I need you too, not to cook for me or stroke my ego, but to push me to be better, to show me new perspectives, to remind me what courage looks like.”
As the last light faded from the sky, I realised that perhaps Kwame had been right about one thing: relationships thrive on mutual need. He had just been wrong about what form that need should take.
True partnership isn’t about dependency or making yourself small. It’s about finding someone who sees all of you, your strength, your competence, your self-sufficiency and loves you not despite but because of these qualities.
Someone who needs the real you, not some diminished version. Someone who understands that choosing each other freely, again and again, is the strongest foundation of all.
Check out:
We Broke Up Because She Was Too Independent, And It Intimidated Me
He Claimed She Was Too Independent
I Want A Low-Maintenance Girlfriend – Is That Too Much To Ask?
We Met At Heaven’s Gate Prayer Retreat. The Chemistry Was Not Holy
He Said I Was Wife Material, Then Married Someone Else
He Ghosted Her After Three Perfect Dates, Then She Saw Him At Church
