It began in the same way that most surprising things do: casually, almost as an afterthought. I wasn't looking for love. Not that kind. Not in that place. We met in our third year of university, in a Political Philosophy class that most of us only attended because the lecturer was too fine to ignore. He was my coursemate. One of those people you'd seen in the background for semesters, always half-smiling and well-dressed, but never truly a part of your world until one day, they just are. We had both arrived late for class, the back seats were crowded, and so we ended up sitting side by side in the front row, passing dry jokes about Plato and how Nigeria demonstrated that philosophers had certainly not prepared for vibes. That was the first time I actually looked at him—not glanced, but looked. And he looked back. There was no spark, no butterflies. Just a quiet, obvious shift. As if something had opened.

His name was Damilare, but he told me to call him Dare. And when he said it, it sounded more like a promise than a nickname. We started spending time together in the same casual way that university friendships start. We'd swap notes, laugh during group projects, and sit under trees, waiting for lectures that never came. However, the banter gradually became more personal. I learned that he always bit the inside of his cheek when thinking. How he preferred cold garri with Milo to any canteen food. He also learned that I talked to myself when I was overwhelmed, that I didn’t like loud roommates, and that I hated being misunderstood. By the second semester, we were walking to class together, saving seats at the front, and texting until our phones died. We had become inseparable. The kind of closeness People raise their eyebrows at but never question directly because it feels too innocent to interrogate.

We loved each other in the way that young people often do—openly, clumsily, with no sense of where it was going, but an urgency to keep holding on. He called me “baby girl” like it belonged to me. I shared my worst fears with him without flinching. I had never been so emotionally naked with anyone, and neither had he. And one evening after we’d both failed a test and were sitting on the hostel steps drinking La Casera, he looked at me, half-joking, half-serious, and said, “Maybe I’ll just marry you someday. I can’t marry who I actually want, and you’re the only person that doesn’t make me feel like I’m performing life.” I laughed, awkwardly. But I also filed those words somewhere deep inside me. I didn’t ask what he meant. I didn’t want to ruin the moment with truth. But I heard him. And I understood.

Over time, that closeness became tinged with something heavier. We didn't name it, but it felt like love. We'd lie beside each other in bed, not touching but so aware of every breath, every silence. He never crossed the line, but he remained so close that my heart ached. I'd watch him get ready in the morning and wonder if he knew how beautiful he was. I'd watch him flirt playfully with boys on Twitter and feel a stinging pain crawl up my chest. And yet, I stayed. Not because I acted foolishly. But what we felt was deeper than labels. I'd watch the way people responded to him online—playful, adoring—and how easily he played along, and feel something sharp crawl up my chest. And still, I stayed. Not because I was foolish. But because what we had felt deeper than labels. I thought maybe I was the exception. Maybe he was still figuring things out. Maybe love, if it was strong enough, could bend the rules of desire.

The truth is, we both loved each other. That is the part that most people will not understand. It wasnt one-sided. It wasn’t  a delusion. It was just that his love had a distinct accent. Mine was loud, needy, and romantic. His was meticulous, gentle, and unpretentious. I wanted to hold his hand at convocation and post his picture with a silly caption. He gave me lingering looks, late-night phone calls, and charm silences. And perhaps it should have been enough. But desire has its own lingo. And when you speak one language fluently, and the person you love speaks another, even affection can begin to feel like a faulty translation.

I knew Dare was gay before he ever admitted it. Not because he acted a certain way, but because he never allowed himself to fully want me. Because when I asked if he ever saw a future with me, he’d say, “In a perfect world, yes,” and laugh a little too softly. Because once, during a conversation about the future, he said, “The kind of love I want would get me disowned. But you—you’re the safest thing I know.” Still, I stayed. I held on to our jokes about marrying each other, hoping that maybe love could be enough to rewire desire. That maybe our bond could evolve into something more than longing without landing in resentment.

But reality is a patient teacher. It waits until you've run out of hope before gently laying the truth in your lap. That moment came during NYSC, after school, when we were both sent to different states but still spoke every day. I visited him in Ibadan one weekend. We were sitting in his flat, legs entwined, watching a rerun of Living in Bondage, when he paused the movie to say, "I have been seeing someone. A guy." He didn't look at me while he said it. He looked at the television like it held safety. My heart didn’t  crack—it collapsed. But I didn’t flinch. I nodded, said "okay," and leaned back, acting like it didn’t matter. But that night, as he snored beside me, I cried silently into my pillow, mourning something that had never fully existed.

I didn't hate him. No, I couldn't. The truth wasn't betrayal; it was clarity. He hadn’t led me on. He'd loved me in the only way he could. Fully, but not completely. Deeply, but not desirously. And that had to be enough. I went back to my place and, for the first time in years, I  let us drift. Not out of anger, but out of necessity. Because when love becomes a wound you keep licking, even comfort begins to taste salty. And I didn't want to be the person who slowly became bitter, who counted all the ways I wasn't enough. So I let the silence flourish.

Healing didn’t come quickly. I had to relearn what it meant to be wanted. I had to stop looking for his name in my notifications. I had to let go of the future I had quietly created in my mind. But, in time, something beautiful emerged. I realized that what Dare and I had was not a waste. It was not some depressing, foolish fantasy. It was real. It just didn't fit the typical mould of what people consider romantic love. And that's fine. Some loves come to teach, not to stay. Some loves stretch you wide open and then leave you more whole than they found you.

Eventually, we found our way back to each other—not as lovers, not even as almosts, but as something just as sacred. Friends. Real friends. Not the type that pretend history didn’t happen, but the kind that carry it like a map, aware of where they’ve been and where they can never go again. He found someone. A man who made him laugh loudly and hold hands in public. I met him once, and surprisingly, didn’t feel rage. Just a soft, quiet ache. Like a healed wound that still twinges when the weather changes. I, too, moved on. Met someone who didn’t make me feel like I was reaching. And yet, Dare remained—tucked inside, a chapter I’d never skip.

People enjoy categorizing things—straight, gay, platonic, romantic. However, Dare and I had lived somewhere in the middle. It was a deep, emotional intimacy with no sexual anchor. A love that fed and filled but did not consume. And perhaps that is a good thing. Because love that flames too brightly often doesn’t last. But what we had—and still have—is peaceful and enduring. It exists in voice notes, in liking each other's posts, in knowing that even if the world ever collapses, we'd still call each other first.

So yeah, I did fall in love with a gay man. And he fell in love with me, too. Just not in the way I had imagined. However, this does not make it any less valid. It doesn't take away the nights we stayed up till 3 a.m. talking about the future, or the way he held my hand after I got the news of my father’s death, or the softness in his voice when he called me "his person." We loved. Fully. Deeply. Differently. And sometimes that has to be enough. Because not all love tales are meant to end in weddings. Some end in memory. In healing. In friendship. In a love that refuses to be boxed. In a love that moulded us both—just not in the way the world expected.