January 2023 – Istanbul, Turkiye

To my surprise, I woke up the next morning (afternoon) to texts from the Young Nigerian letting me know he had made it home, telling me he had had a good time, and wanted to see me again.

I texted him back with one eye open and told him I would like to see him again too.  I let him know my friend would be leaving the next day, but that I was going to Albania two days after that.  He suggested we get together between her leaving and my going to Albania and I agreed.

The next day he called and we chatted for a while about what we were each doing in Istanbul, a little bit about each other, and all the other normal conversations that would take place on a first date if it hadn’t essentially taken place in a city-wide rave.

He was definitely more open and at ease over the phone and seemed much less stiff than when we met. 

I said goodbye to my friend the following day and he came to my Airbnb the next night, since I was leaving for Albania the day after.  We ordered take out, put a movie on and just talked for hours.  He told me about his family, how he always wanted to travel more, but how hard it was with a Nigerian passport. He told me about his dating adventures in Istanbul and how he almost ended up married to an uber wealthy-might-have-been-royalty woman from Dubai, but she was too dull for him.

Well, sir… I may not be uber wealthy, am nowhere near royalty… but am certainly not dull.

He seemed both confused and enthralled by me and kept telling me how crazy I was.

I added fuel to that fire by (after a few drinks) coming up with a grand scheme of using his image to con middle aged American women in to sending him (us) money al a Michael and Angela, and Baby Girl Lisa/KimBahLee and SojaBoy.

Not privy to my many 90 Day Fiancé references, I of course made him watch several clips.  He immediately shot down my plan declaring: I am NOT having sex with them.

After I clarified that would not be required and he wouldn’t even need to meet them, he was back on board.

After take out, hours of talking, a grand con artist scheme, and several drinks while sitting on the couch together, he hadn’t made a single attempt at or even suggested anything physical, so I was starting to think this might just be a fun new friend.  

But then as it got really late I said I was going go to bed. I told him he could spend the night and offered him the “baby bed” (twin) in the second bedroom.  He looked at it, laughed and told me he would be sleeping with me.

And that is what we did, went to sleep.

Proving himself full of surprises, the Young Nigerian woke me up in the morning and made it very, very, verrrry clear this was not a “just friends” situation.

As I was goofy grinning and getting my bag together, I realized I hadn’t gotten Lira for my taxi to the airport and said I needed to go to an ATM.  The Young Nigerian told me not to worry and that he had Lira.  

Again, full of surprises, when my taxi came, he got in it with me.  When I asked him what he was doing he said, “taking you to the airport”. 

If you are at all familiar with Istanbul, you know that this is not a 15 minute ride to the airport.  With traffic, this can easily be an hour ride, which he was taking there and back to escort me.

He not only took me to the airport, he carried my backpack and walked me all the way to security.

If there are two things that stand out in the Istanbul airport, it is a 6’1” freckle faced American and an equally tall, striking Nigerian.  So when he went in for an extended “see you later” kiss, I could feel every eye within glancing distance on us. And let me tell you, I was not mad about it.

I said I would see him when I got back, thanked him for the ride to the airport and coming along and headed off to my flight.

We sent a few texts over the few days that I was in Albania and made plans to hang out the day I got back, but that was postponed due to my flight being delayed.

My friend, Baby Jay see: Bachelor #5), came the next day to visit, and though we enthusiastically invited the Young Nigerian to join us, he declined.  He was not shy about his jealousy of Baby Jay and a few times alluded he did not believe we were just friends.

I wasn’t entertaining his foolery, and told him I would see him after Jay left if he decided to stop being ridiculous. 

I did see him after Jay left, a few times. While it was fun, it was clear The Young Nigerian was looking for more than I was offering.  I was heading to Mexico next, and he told me he was applying for a visa to go to Mexico with hopes of that getting him to Canada or the US next.  I told him that was great, and hoped it wasn’t on account of me being there, he assured me it wasn’t, but said it would be nice if we were there are the same time.

I left Istanbul and we loosely kept in touch.  He texted me a couple of weeks later to let me know his Mexican visa had been denied and he would be staying in Istanbul.

We fell out of touch for a while, but I would get random texts from him saying hi and asking where I was.  One of these texts happened to come a few days before I was heading to Antalya for the month of July.  He told me he was devastated I hadn’t told him I was coming to Turkiye.  I flippantly told him to book a flight and come to Antalya.

A week of so later, he sent me a long text explaining why the timing just wasn’t good for him to come to Antalya and how sorry he was that he couldn’t make it happen.

That was probably for the better since I already had bachelor #28 on the line.