For many women, the scariest part of turning a man down is watching someone who seemed kind, respectful and emotionally intelligent transform into a bitter or even threatening person the moment they realise romance (or sex) isn’t on the table.
We spoke to women who experienced that switch-up firsthand, and their stories reveal how quickly affection can turn into entitlement.
“I met an older guy through mutual friends at a church programme in 2018. He was polite, fun and easy to talk to, so I was happy to give him my number. After a few weeks of conversation, he asked me out. I told him I wasn’t interested in dating anyone at the time, and I hoped we could stay friends.
At first, he thanked me for being honest. But over the next few weeks, he became weird and demanding. He would text me, and if I didn’t respond fast enough, he’d send things like, “I’ll show you my red eye if you keep disrespecting me,” or “You never know whose paths you’ll cross again. Keep being proud.”
The messages went on for months. I told the friend who introduced us, but she just asked me to ignore him. Then, he graduated to sending voice notes on WhatsApp. I had to beg my older brother to give him a stern talking to before he backed off. “
“Back in my first year at a polytechnic, I struck up a conversation with a reserved young man at a canteen, and we became fast friends. He was soft-spoken, but after a while, I realised I liked him. He liked me too, because a few months later, he asked me out.
He’d invited me out that evening, and when we were walking back to my hostel, he pulled us under some trees on the side of the road to talk privately. That’s when he asked me out. I wanted to play it cool, so I declined, hoping he would ask again. Instead, his personality changed completely. He became physically violent and shoved me to the ground. I was so shocked. He seemed so gentle, but I was wrong. He told me he would show me pepper for turning him down. He threatened to tell his cult members about me and told me to watch my back in school.
I was terrified for my life; I didn’t know he was a cultist. I travelled back home for two weeks to give him time to cool off before going back to school. When I did, my roommates warned me to be careful because some cult-affiliated guys had been asking around for me. I had to sneak around school to attend classes for the rest of the year, and I wore a niqab during my exams so no one would see my face.
I was so relieved when the school year ended because he graduated and left campus for good.”
“A married coworker used to drop me off near my house after work when we had to work late. We lived in the same area, and I genuinely thought he was just being nice. One evening during the drive, he told me he had feelings for me and wanted us to date.
I thanked him for being honest, but said I wasn’t interested. Immediately, his tone changed. He started asking why I’d accepted rides from him if I wasn’t planning to date him. Then, he started yelling at me and listing all the things he’d done for me at work.
I remember telling myself to stay calm, and calculating how far away my house was from our location. Nothing physical happened, but I spent the entire ride feeling scared that things would escalate. I had never seen that side of him before. That was the last time I entered his car.”
“He was the kindest guy I knew, and I genuinely believed he cared about me because we’d been good friends for more than a year. He was my favourite male friend because of how he would compliment me when we hung out or when I shared an achievement.
When he asked me to be his girlfriend out of the blue, I told him I wasn’t interested in a relationship. Within hours, he started sending messages saying I was ugly and full of myself. The compliments switched to insults so fast, I got whiplash. It made me question whether any of the nice things he’d said before were genuine.
I blocked him and put a lot of distance between us, but that experience was jarring. I find it difficult to trust men based on what they show on the surface.”
“I met David* in my second year at university. He was a year ahead of me, but we became friends almost immediately because we both liked anime and were in the same department. He was always kind and helpful, so when he started texting me regularly and offering to study together, I gladly took him up on it.
About eight months into our friendship, he confessed that he’d been “in love” with me for a while. I told him I was flattered, but I didn’t feel the same way. He said he understood and wanted to remain friends.A week later, I started hearing that he was telling people I’d been leading him on for months. He claimed I’d accepted his help because I enjoyed the attention, and started a rumour that I had an STI and was hell-bent on spreading it to all the boys in our department. Those rumours really affected me. I felt like I was being stared at everywhere I went.
When I confronted him, he ignored my messages, but I noticed he was still watching all my stories on social media. I blocked him everywhere and never looked back.”
“I met him at a wedding in 2023, and we exchanged numbers because we had mutual friends. After exchanging a few messages on WhatsApp, he told me he was interested in a relationship. I declined because I was already dating my now-husband, but he laughed it off. He said that no matter what I did, I’d end up with him. He also made fun of my boyfriend, calling him a “small boy.”
I found his tone irritating, so I blocked him, thinking that was the end of it. Only for me to receive a message from him through another number. I blocked that one, too, but it didn’t stop him.
He spent the next year creating new WhatsApp numbers whenever I blocked him. He’d send long messages asking me to explain why I didn’t want to date him, then accuse me of being unfair when I didn’t respond. Text notifications made me anxious because I was afraid it was another message from him.
I told my friends and family about it and even changed numbers, but he always found my new number. I threatened him, insulted him, ignored him and reported to our mutual friends, but none of that worked. I was so scared it would escalate to physical stalking.
He finally stopped after I shared my wedding photos on my status.
What scared me was that throughout, he never seemed rude or angry. He just genuinely seemed unable to accept that I didn’t owe him further discussion and thought he could badger me into accepting his request. I even cancelled moving to Ibadan, where I met him, and chose to settle down in another state to avoid running into him by accident.
The experience made me much more careful about sharing my personal number with people I just met.”
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