On the Streets is a Naijaonpoint weekly series about the chaos of modern dating: from situationships and endless talking stages to heartbreak and everything it means to be single in today’s world.
After years of giving people the benefit of the doubt, Ope* (26) is finally taking a break from dating. Betrayals from people he loved and a brief romance that turned out to be a catfishing scam have given him more than enough reasons to question his instinct to trust people.
In this episode of On the Streets, he shares how these experiences have changed the way he sees love and relationships.
I’m single. I fall in love and trust people too easily, and it’s landed me in some awful situations. Until I find a solution, I’m taking a break from dating.
My first girlfriend was Maria*. We met in 2014 while in secondary school. We both schooled in Osun State, so our parents arranged for us and a few other students to travel back home to Kwara State during the holidays. We spent a lot of time talking on those trips, and eventually grew fond of each other.
Maria was a sweet girl; we started dating in 2017. The whole school knew about our relationship, and teachers even tried to keep us apart. In SS3, we were caught hanging out together after lights-out and got suspended. We couldn’t even attend our graduation.
All those experiences brought us closer. We’d fought so hard to be together that I thought our relationship would last forever. But things changed when we got into university.
I think the new environment and exposure changed Maria. Our first major issue happened in our second year of university. She’d attended a house party and slept with someone else. I only found out from a female friend who was at the party.
When I confronted Maria, she said she’d been drunk and wasn’t herself. She also claimed she couldn’t remember everything that happened. It was difficult to believe, but I forgave her because we were soulmates.
Not really. My trust was broken. I started asking more questions about her whereabouts, and she didn’t like it. We always had so many arguments.
Then, in 2023, Maria grew close to an ex-friend with whom I’d fallen out. They met while interning at the same firm. Before long, his name became a constant in our relationship.
I told her I was uncomfortable with their closeness, especially because he’d hurt me in the past, but she downplayed my feelings. Their friendship continued for months until my suspicions grew too strong and I went through her phone in July 2023.
I found out they’d been exchanging explicit photos and conversations. I’ll never forget the shock and dread I felt in that moment.
I did. She was defensive, and she spoke to me with little or no remorse. I felt really hurt and angry, so I said things I shouldn’t have.
Then she attacked some of my deepest insecurities. She insulted my looks, then reminded me that I wasn’t the kind of person she’d want to take out in public. We’d been together for more than six years, so hearing those words hurt me deeply, and I cried.
We broke up after that confrontation.
I tried to apologise afterwards and fix our issues, but she was done. Her refusal made me realise that I’d said those things only because I wanted to hurt her back, while she’d poured out how she really felt about me.
I took a few months to nurture the heartbreak, but I was soon back with a rebound.
I’d met Zainab at school, and we bonded over our relationship problems. It felt good to have someone who understood my pain. I could talk about my ex over and over without feeling like I was burdening her.
I don’t know exactly when my feelings became romantic, but as the months passed, Zainab took up my thoughts and pushed Maria aside.
When I eventually expressed my feelings, she was reluctant at first, but later admitted her feelings for me. We agreed to give it a chance and see where things went. By the end of 2023, we’d gotten ourselves into a situationship.
I was certainly more invested. I put in the emotional and financial effort, while Zainab gave very little in return. She’d reach out when she needed someone to talk to. Once she felt better, she could disappear for days. She also continued talking about her ex long after I’d stopped talking about mine.
I didn’t fully realise how one-sided things had become until our birthdays. I’m big on birthdays, so I went all out for her. I bought her thoughtful gifts and did a lot to make her feel special.
When my birthday came around, I expected at least some effort or affection from her, but nothing happened. She hadn’t made any plans to see me or even celebrate me online. By the end of the day, I felt hurt and called her. When I mentioned wanting a gift, she joked that I should book a hotel and she’d give me one there. It felt strange that my feelings weren’t even acknowledged.
Her actions really opened my eyes to how selfish and one-sided the situationship had become. Still, I let it go, and we continued talking for a while. But a few weeks later, she ghosted me again.
This time around, I was so upset that I blocked her for good. When she eventually reached out, I told her I didn’t want to continue the situationship. I’d assumed she’d put up a fight for us, but she gladly accepted to walk away. That even hurt me more.
I did, even if it wasn’t intentional. I’d separated from Zainab fresh out of uni, and I focused my time and energy on work. Before I knew it, I’d spent about two years as a single guy.
Then, in late 2025, I moved to Lagos. I didn’t know many people in the city, and a friend suggested checking out the dating app Tinder. I figured since I was lonely most of the time, it wouldn’t hurt to try.
. However, it took months of trial and error before I finally met Ella in February. Unlike many people I’d encountered on the app, she wasn’t sexual from the beginning. She was fun to talk to and shared many of my interests. We started talking regularly, moved to WhatsApp after two weeks, and before I knew it, I’d developed an interest in her.
In a way. She was always available to talk, and it was the first time I had experienced such stable communication from a potential partner.
Three weeks into talking, she had to travel home to Ibadan. We’d been talking about our plans to meet up when she got back, then she suddenly went offline for almost two days. I started getting anxious and wondered if she’d ghosted me.
When she came back online, she explained that her father was sick and she was caring for him. She also said she didn’t have enough money to buy data but had been too embarrassed to ask me for help.
I felt sorry for her and sent her ₦50k. After that, I occasionally sent her smaller amounts, usually between ₦10k and ₦20k. I also bought her the things she’d mentioned in passing and mailed them to her address in Ibadan.
But as the weeks rolled by, some things didn’t add up. Ella had been at home for nearly two months, even though she claimed to work for a corporate organisation in Lagos. I couldn’t understand how she could stay away from work. But I didn’t want to press her until she was back.
I’d told a friend about Ella, so I showed him one of her pictures. Then, while checking the photo, he noticed strange text in the background and thought it might have been modified with AI. He joked that I might be getting catfished.
I dismissed it at first, but he asked why we hadn’t met or video-called. And that was when it all started coming together.
Ella and I had been talking for over two months, and we’d never gotten on a call. I’d avoided it for as long as possible because of my speech condition. I didn’t want a repeat of my experience with Maria, so I was hoping we could just meet in person.
But my friend’s questions prompted me to call Ella. When I called, she declined, saying she was too shy to let me see the condition of her parents’ home. I told her I didn’t mind, but she still refused to pick up.
Her refusal seemed fishy, so I decided to investigate further. I checked the organisation she claimed to work for on LinkedIn but couldn’t find her. Then my friend ran a reverse image search on some of her pictures and found them under a completely different woman’s name.
The more I investigated, the more I realised that I’d been catfished.
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