Not every love story is going to end with a soft engagement post or a wedding hashtag on Instagram. Some love stories don’t even make it to the official label. They simply hang there, in that awkward space between hope and reality, like laundry on a tired line.
And the people inside them are left to figure out what it means to be deeply connected to someone who never truly chooses them.
There is a unique, quietly painful experience that comes with being the ‘almost’. It’s not quite heartbreak in the conventional sense. It’s more like a lingering bruise that no one else sees. Because on the surface, nothing exactly went wrong. Nobody cheated. Nobody screamed.
Sometimes there wasn’t even a real breakup. Just a slow, subtle drifting where you start to realise that for all your closeness, for all the inside jokes and deep midnight conversations, you were simply a stopover on their way to someone else.
People who’ve never lived it love to simplify the story. They’ll say, if they wanted you, they would have made it clear. Or they’ll tell you someone better is waiting. But the truth is not that neat.
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Sometimes you know, deep down, that you were actually good for them. That you were solid. That you helped them heal from old wounds, taught them how to open up, made them laugh again after seasons of darkness. You showed up. And still, they moved on. Not because you failed. Simply because they didn’t see you as their forever.
That kind of rejection is different. It’s not like being dumped for someone else in a dramatic, soap opera way. It’s more gentle, which somehow makes it worse. They might even thank you for being there. They’ll say things like, you’re so important to me, I don’t know what I’d have done without you. Meanwhile, your chest is tightening because you already suspect this means they’re leaving. Or they’re staying but not really choosing you in the way that counts.
It often starts with beautiful things. They tell you things they’ve never told anyone. They say you make them feel safe. They send you songs that make them think of you. They come over, lie in your bed, trace the lines on your arm, and talk about dreams for the future. But somehow, you’re not really in those future plans. Or you’re there in a vague, harmless way that feels nice in the moment but won’t survive real life choices.
You become the practice run. The person they test vulnerability on. The one who gently shows them what communication should look like. The one who listens without judgment. The one who accepts them on their rough days, when they themselves feel unlovable. And because you’re genuinely invested, you keep pouring into them. Even when you start to feel something is off.
Then one day, like play, you see it. Maybe it’s a story on Instagram with someone else’s hand in the frame. Maybe it’s a soft launch post with a caption like “found peace”. Or maybe it’s just them pulling back so obviously that your stomach sinks before your brain catches up. You go dey look your phone dey wonder if na the same person wey dey tell you last month say, “I don’t think anyone gets me the way you do.”
The worst part? You start replaying all the memories, trying to pinpoint the moment it turned. Was it something you did? Was it your over-availability? Should you have played harder to get? Was your love too much, too soon? You’ll dissect yourself in a bid to make sense of why someone could be so close, so grateful for your existence, and still not pick you.
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But maybe it was never about how much you gave. Maybe it was just that they weren’t your person, and you weren’t theirs. Simple. Painful, but simple. Love is not a reward for effort. People don’t always end up with who is best for them on paper. Sometimes they choose based on timing, or familiarity, or because their heart just goes somewhere else. No matter how logically you try to understand it, feelings don’t always line up with fairness.
Being the almost lover changes how you see relationships. It makes you cautious. You start rationing how much of your heart you expose. You start treating new connections with small suspicion. You dey tell yourself say, make I no too quick dey happy, make e no be like last time. You start learning to hold your butterflies by the wing, instead of letting them fly recklessly all over your chest.
Still, you know you haven’t stopped being capable of that same soft, tender love. That part of you is intact, even if bruised. You’re still the person who shows up, who listens deeply, who remembers small details, who gets excited to see someone’s name pop up on your phone. And one day, hopefully, someone will see all that and won’t just use it as emotional rehab. They’ll stay. They’ll build with you. They’ll choose you in a loud, intentional, no-questions way.
Until then, if you’re the almost, if you’re still sitting quietly with your own memories, replaying moments that look foolish in hindsight, know you’re not alone. Plenty people dey here too. Trying to figure out why love sometimes tastes like promise, only to finish as bitter aftertaste.
It’s okay to grieve that. To admit, I was good to them, maybe even good for them, but that wasn’t enough to make them stay. That doesn’t make your love wasted. It only means it wasn’t received in the way you hoped.
Someday, you’ll look back and realise that being an almost doesn’t mean you failed. It just means you were honest, open, brave enough to offer something real in a world full of half-hearted connections. And maybe that is its own kind of becoming.
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