I Couldn’t Buy Him Food When He Was Hungry, So He Is Not Talking To Me

Kwame has a habit of going off on the people in his life. Everybody knows this about him. They say he is proud. Some of his people nicely put it, “His head is full.” I didn’t even know what they meant by that until I saw it for myself. We would have a little misunderstanding and this guy would go completely silent on me. It would take days for him to calm down and talk to me.

I have tried to understand him but it is difficult. Different things set him off. Today, he could get angry because I didn’t answer his call when he needed me urgently. Tomorrow he wouldn’t get angry about the same thing. He would rather get angry that I didn’t respond to his text immediately after he sent it. At the end of the day, I walk on eggshells around him.

I am always careful not to do anything that would make him decide that he’d rather not talk to me. We have been at this for two years, and seven months but I haven’t gotten used to his behaviour yet. Neither has he attempted to change.

I don’t even think he will, considering that every single person in his life gets the same treatment when he is upset with them. When he calms down, he apologises and moves on as though nothing has happened.

I thought I could put up with him but something happened about a month ago that has me rethinking our entire relationship.

I was supposed to go meet him at his place after I picked up some items somewhere. He knew I would come to his place so he sent some money for me to buy dinner on my way over. When I got to the place to pick up the item, I got delayed. The moment I saw that I would stay longer than planned, I sent Kwame a quick text; “Hey babe, my package has been delayed so I might not be able to get dinner. Get yourself something so you don’t have to wait for me before you eat.”

True to the words in my text, I couldn’t get the food he wanted. The store had closed by the time I was done. I didn’t worry much because I expected him to get something for himself after receiving my message. That was until I made my way to his place and found him with a long face.

Whatever his problem was, I assumed it wasn’t about me. After all, I didn’t get anything wrong. So I greeted him and proceeded to his room to drop my stuff. Then I sat down and waited for him to get inside so we could talk. He chose to remain outside. So I went out to meet him.

With a voice as soft as cotton I said to him, “Baby, I’ve been waiting for you to come inside. Why are you outside?” He retorted, “Come around for what? You knew you wouldn’t be able to get dinner anymore but you didn’t call me. You texted me instead.” The most important thing is that I communicated the delay to him and he saw the text, right? Well, he didn’t see it that way. So I apologized to him.

I explained, “I was under a lot of stress when the package was delayed. So it didn’t occur to me to call you. That’s why I sent a text. To make things right, let me cook something for you.” It was after 9 p.m. but I was willing to prepare rice for him, but he said no. I offered to fry eggs for him but he turned that down too. “What about noodles? You like my noodles.” He shook his head and said, “Don’t bother.”

Later in the night, he went out to get something for himself and came back. When I tried to eat with him, he pushed my hand away. He said, “If you needed food, you should have gotten some for yourself on your way here.” I apologized again and promised to make it up to him, but he shrugged me off. I didn’t want to upset him any further so I left him alone.

I had assignments to complete that night, so I completed them and went to sleep. Normally, when he is done with work, he would come into the room to sleep on the bed beside me. However, I opened my eyes in the middle of the night to see him sleeping in the chair instead. “Come to bed,” I called to him. “Leave me alone,” he snapped.

I was still quite tired but I just left the bed for him and told him I was awake. That was when he went over to the bed to sleep.