Hmm, where do I even begin? The first time I met Tobi was way back in 2011 outside my Kingdom Hall. His family had just moved back to Lagos from Abuja and a mutual family friend was introducing him and his sister to me and some other kids there. We didn’t really speak much back then, he liked to form cool guy, but I ended up being close to his sister. I’ll visit them in the house during school breaks, and we’ll speak every now and then. And like the cliché teenage girl I had a crush on him, but he never knew of course, my pride wouldn’t let me expose myself! We stayed loosely in touch on social media, the usual commenting on each other’s story’s kind of thing. Years later, I moved to the UK but always visited home. Fast forward to October 2021 and my parents at the time were leaving in the same estate as Tobi and his family, just a few doors away. We got speaking then and it was almost like I was meeting and getting to know him for the first time. I spent some time with him and his parents, and I remembered why I had my schoolgirl crush on him all those years ago, he was a cool guy, very easy to talk to and made me laugh. During that trip home, he was organising a bbq that I couldn’t make. He mentioned I should come to the house that he’ll have made some for me. Spoiler: no meat or even chicken touched the bbq. Instead, rather than me being cooked for, he ended up talking me into doing a cooking competition to see who can make Indomie the best. I agreed because I knew that was an easy win for me, and like any serious food competition, we had judges including his sister and his mum. The winner ended up being me of course and don’t let him tell you otherwise, (mind you he once admitted it to me that I won it fair and square!) After that, life did its thing. I went back to the UK, and we didn’t talk much until summer 2022, I responded to a story of his on Instagram (I hate to admit it, but that was the girl in me trying to shoot her shot), from there we started talking every day. We genuinely became like best friends and just talked about any and everything; about our day, childhood, and I even admitted my schoolgirl crush! When I went to visit home October of that year, we made it official because he finally had the courage to ask me to be his girlfriend. I didn’t make him beg too much (just a little for the drama and for my younger self). And the rest as they say is history!

Our story is one of those childhood friendships where both families have known each other pretty much forever. We were always chill, nice vibes, although back then I always thought of Lola as Dami’s (my sister) friend. Our journey into a romantic relationship started as with most thing about me…food. I’m always cooking or grilling something and posting pictures or videos and Lola would respond, we would chat for a bit and I said I’d make something for her whenever she would come to visit. Lola had left Naija for the UK at the time. When she came in October 2021, her parents had temporarily moved 3 doors away from us while they renovated their place. I had promised to cook for her so Dami and I arranged to have a few friends over for games, I grilled some nice turkey and a few other bits but Lola was so busy catching up with friends and going out that she couldn’t make it. We then decided to have a “cooking competition” something easy, just noodles. By the time you read Lola’s POV you’ll see that she said she won. I choose happiness in our relationship so let’s agree that she won lol. She came to the house the following evening to say goodbye and with my mom and Dami we all ended up talking till late into the night. After Lola left I remember thinking wow…just wow. We continued talking about how lovely Lola is and I was just saying wow. The wow was me realising what was in front of me all this time. We kept in touch, she’s always been really good with keeping in touch and I made a more deliberate effort to stay in touch. Initially it was off and on, but after some months it was more consistent. Talking to Lola was so easy, our friendship grew as the months went by and I knew I wanted a relationship with her so I prayed to Jehovah to bless our friendship and help us be best friends. Everything seemed to fall in place. She was planning to come again in October of 2022 for a surprise party they were throwing for their parents. I had decided to ask her out then but Lola wanted to be clear about where we were headed with all our talk. By September she had asked me whether to bring a nice dress (i chose to understand this as her wanting me to ask her on a date). I told her to bring a nice dress. She did. The party for her parents was nice we all ate, drank and had a good time. After all the guests left, their family stayed out gisting, reminiscing old times, sharing jokes….it was a really nice evening. I know because I was the last to leave. Lola walked me to the car with Yinka (her brother) and after a few minutes of awkwardly standing with us he realised something more was happening with us. So he left, Lola gave me a picture taken by the James Webb Telescope something we had spoken about a while ago. The picture still hangs on the wall in my room. I asked her on a date the next day. Lola was so nervous when I went to pick her up she almost went into the wrong car. The date was easy, I was talking to my best friend and eating jollof rice. We talked and talked and talked some more and now, almost 3 years later…I’m getting married to my best friend.