ARDENT
Chapter 6: I Love Dating
SEWA'S P.O.V
Sunday night I filmed a different video. After spending hours after church service planning the content for one.
Not the one I planned. Not Why I Love Dating in Abuja: Season Two with the taxonomy and the calibrated laugh and the performance so polished you could not see the seams.
A different one.
I did not plan it. I sat in the content creation room at 9 p.m. with The Alchemist on the couch beside me and the ring light on and I pressed record and I said:
I have been making this content for three years. Dating content specifically for two.
And boyyyy am I good at it — I know I am good at it. The numbers confirm it. You confirm it in the comments every week.
But I sat down to film something on Saturday and I stopped mid-sentence because I did not believe what I was about to say.
And I thought, if I do not believe it, I should not say it. So today I am not going to tell you why dating in Abuja is chaos and I am thriving.
I am going to tell you that I am twenty-five years old and I went to church for the first time in three years last Sunday and something shifted and I do not have words for it yet.
And I am reading a book that is rearranging things in my chest. And I asked myself this week who I have been performing for and I did not like how long it took me to answer.
I still haven't been able to answer it.
That is all I have today. I do not have a conclusion. I do not have three tips. I just have this.
And I hope that is enough.
P.S: I sense that a lot of you just might I follow me after this. Honestly, that's chill. I am evolving and if watching this no longer serves you, please by all means, go ahead.
Less than 60 seconds
I posted it at 9:23 p.m.
I put my phone face down and went to bed.
Monday morning the comments section is a different country.
I open it at 7:15 with my rooibos on the rooftop and I read for twenty minutes without moving.
@chiamakaoflaylay:
Sewa. This is the realest thing you have ever posted. I have watched every video for two years and I have never felt like I was watching YOU until right now.
@abuja_diaries_ng:
“I asked myself who I have been performing for and I did not like how long it took me to answer” — I needed this today. Thank you.
@tolu_writes:
The shift you’re describing. I know that shift like madtttt. Keep going, girl.
@datingseriouslypodcast:
Can we have you on the podcast? This energy is the conversation we need.
@anonymous_viewer_2847:
This is the first time you looked scared on camera. It made me trust you more than all the confident ones.
I put my phone down.
I pick it up again.
I read the last one three more times.
This is the first time you looked scared on camera. It made me trust you more than all the confident ones.
Inside: What does it mean that the most honest thirty-seven seconds I have ever posted is performing better than two years of polished content.
I already know what it means.
I am not ready to say it out loud yet.
The Damilola date is Tuesday at 7 p.m.
Nkoyo Restaurant, Maitama.
His choice this time. Different from Sage, quieter, the kind of place that is trying less hard and therefore succeeding more.
I arrive at 6:58 in a forest green wrap dress and simple gold necklace and I have not stood in front of the wardrobe for four minutes because the green was the first thing I reached for and I trusted the reach.
He is already there.
He stands when he sees me.
“You look great”, he says as he pulls out the chair for me to sit.
“Thank you”, I say. ”So do you.”
He does. Navy suit. No tie. The white shirt opened to reveal a healthy amount of his perfectly curated chest. Which will send many ‘girls’ into frenzy mode.
He has the ease of a man who knows how to dress without requiring confirmation. We sit. We order. The conversation begins.
And it is — good.
It is genuinely, measurably good.
He asks about my week. I tell him about the Geneva documentation and the Ambassador’s trip and the clause in paragraph twelve that became the issue in week three exactly as I predicted. He listens with the focused attention of someone who is interested in competence and recognises it when he encounters it.
“You love your work”, he says.
“I love doing it well”, I say. “They are not the same”.
“What is the difference?”
“Loving the work means the work is enough. Loving doing it well means I need the work to be worth doing well. I need it to matter.”
He looks at me.
“Does it? Matter?”
“Yes”, I say.
“Nigeria’s diplomatic relationships matter. The documentation that supports them matters. The clause in paragraph twelve that nobody else flagged matters.”
A pause.
“ I just—”
“What?”
I look at the candle between us.
“I want the thing I do with all this energy to be the thing I was made for. You know”, I say.
“ Not just the thing I am good at.”
He is quiet for a moment.
“That is a brave thing to want”, he says.
“Or an inconvenient one.” I say.
“Brave things usually are inconvenient. At first.”
I look at him.
He is good. Damilola Bashorun is genuinely, consistently good. He says the right things with the ease of someone who means them. He is present. He is not checking his phone.
And I am sitting across from him with the candlelight between us and the food excellent and the conversation real and there is a voice — quiet, patient, the one I have stopped turning the music up to cover — that says:
This is good.
But is this it?
I do not know.
I really do not know.
We leave at 9:30.
He walks me to my car.
“I would like to see you again, Sewa”, he says. “Properly. Not as the third date but as the beginning of something with a name.”
I look at him.
Inside: He is asking you to define it. He is the opposite of Dele. He is asking where this is going before three years have passed. He is doing the thing you said you wanted.
Why does it feel complicated.
Outside I say:
“Give me a few days.”
He looks at me. Not hurt — careful.
“Okay.”
“I mean it”, I say.
“I am not — I am not running. I just want to be honest with you and I am not ready to be fully honest yet.”
“I can work with that”, he says.
He shakes my hand. Same as before. Firm, brief, clean.
He goes to his car.
I get in mine.
I drive home with the voice sitting in the passenger seat like a person who has been waiting for a ride.
Wednesday. Fewa sends a voice note at 3:26 a.m.
Voice note. 0:47.
Sewa! I watched the video. I watched it four times. Four. Sewa, you looked — you looked like yourself. Not the content-Sewa. Just you. I wanted to call you but it was late and I know you need sleep so I am sending this and I want to say — I am proud of you. For posting it. For saying that. I know it was not easy. Also—
A pause.
A breath.
—also I have been praying for you. I know I am not the most vocal about faith things but I have been praying for you specifically since last month. That the right things would find you and the noise would get quiet enough for you to hear them. I think it is working.
Another pause.
Call me this weekend. Love you, Sis.
I listen to it twice.
I am on the rooftop. 4:40 a.m. The Abuja sky doing its gradient.
I have been praying for you specifically since last month.
Fewa. Who is doing his Masters in AI Tech Systems in Manitoba. Who calls on random Mondays. Who has his father’s eyes and somehow learnt my mother’s directness and grew up in the same house I did and chose a different response to it — not the taxonomy, not the noise, something quieter and more deliberate.
I pick up my phone.
I call my mother.
She picks up on the second ring.
“Adéṣẹwà, o ṣaaro ọ. It's too early"
“Good morning, Mummy. I know. E ma binu pe mo ji yin. Are you awake?”
E ma binu pe mo ji yin : A Yorúbá sentence that means, “Don't be angry that I woke you”.
“I am always awake at this time. You know this”.
“Have you watched the video?” I say. “My video. From Saturday night”.
“Fewa sent it to me”, she says.
“He sent it to you?”
“He sends me your videos.”
A pause.
“He has been sending them since the beginning. He thinks I do not understand YouTube like you guys but you know me. I understand YouTube.”
Something in my chest. Warm and slightly undone.
“My Queen”.
“Yes, Ade Mi.”
“What did you think?”
A pause. Long enough to be thinking rather than avoiding.
“I think”, she says slowly, “that I have been watching you perform for years and this was the first time I watched you simply speak.”
Another pause.
“And I thought: there she is. That is my daughter.”
I am looking at the Abuja sky.
“Mumm”.
“Yes, my dear.”
“Are you — do you ever regret staying?”
The silence this time is the longest yet.
“Adéṣẹwà”.
“I am not asking to wound you. I am asking because I am twenty-five and I am trying to understand something. Actually , a lot of things”.
“What are you trying to understand?”
“The difference between love and maintenance”, I say. “And whether I know which one I am looking for.”
My mother exhales. Not the dismissive exhale but he honest one. The sound of a woman deciding how much of a thing to share.
“I stayed”, she says, “because leaving felt like failure and staying felt like strength. And I was wrong about both.”
A pause.
“Staying is not always strength, Ade Mi. Sometimes it is fear wearing strength’s clothes. And I was afraid — of what people would say, of what your grandparents that never wanted your dad and I to get married would say, of what it would mean, of who I would be without the structure of it.”
Another pause.
“By the time I understood the difference it was—”, she stops. “It was a different calculation.”
“Are you okay?” I say quietly.
“I am at peace”, she says. The same answer as before.
“But Sewa — the reason I told you not to settle is not because I regret you. I would do every difficult thing again for you. The reason I told you not to settle is because I watched myself choose fear and call it loyalty for twenty-eight years and I do not want that for you. I had to raise Fewa after your dad's mistress, his mother, died without leaving a relative behind.”
Her voice is steady and entirely honest.
“I want you to choose from love. Not from fear. Not from the mathematics of what leaving costs. But from love.”
I am very still on the rooftop.
“From love”, I say.
“From love”, she confirms. “That is the only math that matters.”
“Yes, Mum”.
“As educated as I am, you would think I shouldn't have stayed with your dad but I did. At some point, it became just a transactional relationship and I let it be that. I know the entire situation was toxic from the begining but I couldn't leave. For you. Your father would have fought and won custody over you. You were too young for me to leave you in such a situation.”
She paused.
“I don't want that for you. I trust that you will marry once and marry well. You won't make my mistakes.”
“Thank you, Mum. For staying. For sacrificing all of that for me. I love you, My Queen”.
We sit together in the early morning — Jos and Abuja, her rooftop and mine in different cities and the same sky.
“Call me on Saturday, Ade Mi”, she says eventually. Back to her register. And eat properly.
“Yes, My Queen”.
“Good girl.”
“Mummmyyyyt, shey you know I am a grown woman now”, I say as I grinned from ear-to-ear.
“Ehn ehn. You will always be my baby girl oh.”
“Yes, yes. I am the love of your life”.
“Yes, you are. Idunnu mi. My joy”.
Saturday.
Romeo texts at 4:47 p.m.
Romeo Olusiji - CCI Wuse:
I watched the video.
I am at my desk. The Ambassador has approved the Geneva documentation. The fifteenth issue was resolved. I have been quietly excellent all day.
Sewa:
Everyone has watched the video apparently
It has 103,000+ views
That is not my usual demographic behaviour
Romeo Olusiji - CCI Wuse:
How did you feel when you filmed it?
Sewa:
Terrified
And then immediately lighter
Like I had been carrying something and I put it down
Romeo Olusiji - CCI Wuse:
That is what truth does.
It is heavy going in.
It is lighter coming out.
I read that again. And again. And again.
Sewa:
Someone in the comments said it was the first time I looked scared on camera and it made them trust me more than all the confident ones
Romeo Olusiji - CCI Wuse:
They’re right.
Sewa:
That is a strange thing to be right about
Romeo Olusiji - CCI Wuse:
Is it?
Think about the people you trust most.
Are they the ones who are always confident or the ones who are honest about when they are not?
I put my phone down.
I pick it up.
Sewa:
The honest ones.
Romeo Olusiji - CCI Wuse:
Yes.
How did the rest of the week go?
And then something happens that has not happened before in the weeks since Adetokunbo Ademola Street.
I tell him.
Not the summary version. Not the highlights edited for a general audience. I tell him about the Damilola date and the give me a few days and the voice in the passenger seat on the drive home. I tell him about Fewa’s voice note and Mum's choosing from love not from fear. I tell him about sitting on the rooftop this morning with the sky doing its gradient and the question sitting with me and not running from it.
He reads everything. I can see the read receipts coming in as I send each message.
Then he says:
Romeo Olusiji - CCI Wuse:
Can I ask you something honestly?
Sewa:
This Man. Yes. You always ask honestly
it’s mildly exhausting
just kidding though
Romeo Olusiji - CCI Wuse:
What are you afraid of?
Not the surface answer.
The real one.
I look at the message.
Inside: The real answer. He is asking for the real answer. Not the taxonomy. Not the chaotic-dating-life content. The thing underneath.
I type slowly. Really slowly.
Sewa:
I am afraid that I will choose correctly and it will still not be enough.
That I will do everything right
Choose from love, choose clearly, choose without the fear mathematics
and it will still end the way my parents ended.
Not because of anything I did wrong.
Just because that is what happens.
I press send before I can take it back.
Three minutes pass.
Then:
Romeo Olusiji - CCI Wuse:
That is the most honest thing you have said to me.
Thank you for being honest with me. Thank you for opening up about it.
Sewa:
Don’t make it a moment
Romeo Olusiji - CCI Wuse:
Womam, I’m not making it a moment.
I’m receiving it.
There is a difference.
Sewa:
Mr. There is a difference
Romeo Olusiji - CCI Wuse:
🤣🤣🤣. Really? That's my new nickname. Like that's the best you can come up with?
Sewa:
Yes na.
do you know how often you say it?
Romeo Olusiji - CCI Wuse:
Okay. I'll find one for you too.
And Sewa, the fear you just named is real.
It is also not a reason.
Because the alternative to choosing from love out of fear of loss
is not choosing at all.
And not choosing is its own loss.
It just happens quietly so you can tell yourself it was peace.
I stare at the screen.
Inside: My mother.
It was a different calculation.
Staying is not always strength. Sometimes it is fear wearing strength’s clothes.
Sewa:
How are you this clear about things
Romeo Olusiji - CCI Wuse:
I am not clear about everything.
I am clear about the things I have had to sit with long enough to understand.
Sewa:
hmmm
What have you had to sit with?
A longer pause than usual.
Three minutes. Four.
Romeo Olusiji - CCI Wuse:
Can I call you? Now.
Sewa:
yes.
The call came in and we started discussing.
“Hi, Adesewa.” He started.
“Drop the formalities joor. But yeah. Hi, Romeo” .
“This woman”, he said and I could hear the smile in his voice.
“So, I called to answer your question.”
“Okayyyy. Let's have it”, I say.
“My grandfather died before my dad was born.”
A pause
“I sat long with the question of what it means to be a man who loves well like my dad when he didn't have a dad. Without a model for what that looks like for twenty-seven years of his life and he raised my twin sister and I to be the adults we are now.”
Another pause.
“God has been the answer. But the sitting took time.”
“My grandfather was a pilot. He died in a crash. So, Big Fifi raised dad all alone in Birmingham. My parents met at the University of Sussex and got married after graduating.”
“Oh, wow”, I say.
“I love listening to them tell us their love story. It never gets old. My mum is Italian. How both of them found each other and got married shows that they are a match made by God.”
He laughed.
“They had my twin sister, Juliet, and I in Sussex and when we turned five, we all moved to Nigeria.”
“Wait, what? Rewind. I somehow missed the part where you said twin sister before. And her name is Juliet! Could this get any more… what's the word? Sorry, you can continue”.
“It's fine. Laugh all you want. Yes, I have a twin sister and her name is Juliet. My parents are romantic romantics. And I love love. So, when they had us, they somehow went with their favourite love story’s main characters.”
“Wow! I love your parents already.”
“Wait till you meet them”.
My heart skipped many beats when he said that but then I called my entire body back to the group chat.
Inside: we are just friends. Nothing more.
"Where was I? Yes. We moved to Nigeria when God told my dad that it was fine to return home. Mind you, my mum had never been to Nigeria but then, she came. And they've been here together ever since. Every day, they keep exemplifying to us what it means to love and be loved.”
“Romeo. You have such a beautiful family. It feels refreshing listening to this and —”
A pause.
What I am about to say is weighty but I'll say it.
“Thank you for telling me that. I've been so surrounded with marriages that didn't work and all of that but listening to you now…”
A pause.
“It shows me what's possible. It's helping me see things from a different perspective. I only knew about beautiful marriages from movies but never thought it exists in real life”.
“Thank you for asking and for listening. I don't even know how we got here but thank God we did.”
“Thank you, Romeo. I have to go now. I need to shoot content.”
“Bye for now, Adesewa. It was great speaking to you”.
“Same here, Romeo. Bye”.
And with that, I am filming again.
The content creation room. Ring light on. The wardrobe rail behind me. I press record.
“Okay so”, I say.
“Last week I posted less than 60 seconds of honesty and over 100 thousand of you showed up. Which tells me something. So I am going to keep being honest. I don’t know where this series is going. I don’t have a plan. I just know that the performance was getting heavy and I needed to put it down.”
I pause.
“Quick reintroduction for the new family members. Hi, I am Sewa Coker. Sewa with the vibe. Sewalicious Sewa. I am twenty-five. I am asking myself questions I should have started asking earlier. I am reading a book about Personal Legends and sitting with a question about choosing from love versus choosing from fear. I am — in process.”
Another pause.
“I'd say I am in that phase where it seems like the sage in me went on a very long vacation and now I am learning a lot of things anew. I am seeing things from a different perspective. And I am challenging everything I have believed all my life. And it is terrifying but I am willing to go through it.”
A pause.
“It feels like a lot but I'll navigate it. I am learning to go to God more, than people. So, I'll stop here. That is the video for today. That is all I have. Au revoir.”
I press stop.
I watch it back.
I look scared again.
I post it.
A few moments later…
Ọrọoluwa calls me.
Ọrọ 💕:
Sewa, I just watched the new video.
SEWA.
Sewa:
I know
Ọrọ 💕:
Who is this woman and what has she done with my best friend who had seventeen backup plans for every emotional situation?
Sewa:
Omo she is on sabbatical
apparently
Ọrọ 💕:
Is this Romeo’s doing?
Sewa:
It is nobody’s doing
It is mine
He just — he creates a kind of room
where the honest thing is the easiest thing to say
and the rest follows
Ọrọ 💕:
Sewa.
Sewa:
I know.
Ọrọ 💕:
I need to meet this man.
Sewa:
Ahn ahn he's just my friend oh
How is Mautin?
A pause. Longer than usual.
Ọrọ 💕:
How do you know about Mautin again?
Sewa:
You said his name once and moved past it at speed
Girllll, I have known you since JSS1
I know all your conversational tells
Ọrọ 💕:
He is.
Good.
He is very good.
Sewa:
Ọrọoluwa Adekunle.
Ọrọ 💕:
Don't start.
Sewa:
I am not starting anything
I am simply noting that you said
“he is very good”
in thattttt tone
Ọrọ 💕:
Goodnight Sewa
Sewa:
It is 4pm
Ọrọ 💕:
Goodnight.
I laugh.
The real one. The one that comes before permission.
I put the phone down.
I go to the kitchen.
I start cooking.
Not because I am stressed.
Not because I am avoiding anything.
Because it is Saturday evening and the apartment smells like cedar from the candle I lit this morning and outside Abuja is doing its Saturday thing and something in my chest is quieter than it has been in a long time.
Not silent.
Quieter.
The kind of quiet where if you listen carefully you can begin — just begin — to hear what has been trying to speak underneath all the noise.
I stir.
I listen.
Narrator's Nook
Can you guys see that Romeo didn't choose to be Romeo. It's a family something. 🤣
And for those who want SEWA to be his Juliet, sorryyyyy. He has his Juliet.
That asideeee, can you see it? Can you feel it?
Sewa is growing.
Am I the only one who noticed her “Okay so...” pattern in her YouTube communications. This woman and doing things her own way.
I don't know why you guys have a beef with Romeo oh. The guy is just a guy.
Well, well, well .. See you with a new episode on Saturday. (Maybe.) You guys energy in engagement is not motivating me oh.
I knew there was chemistry there!!!
He keeps calling her “woman” in that soon to be finished man tone.☺️
I honestly don't think Romeo is for her romantically. I think he's more like a light on her path.
Let's not forget Damilola o.
Sewa is shedding and I love it for her