As I was giggling and occasionally rolling my eyes, I suddenly felt personally attacked. Not because I have ever liked any of my “male besties” (I would say “blink twice if you believe me,” but he would probably sue me… or would he? 🙃).

But seriously, I was not blessed with the art of subtlety. If I like you, you will know. Your grandmother will know. Even your house girl, Chantal, will probably ask about me. A man I like will never make it to “bestie” territory because, unfortunately, my face, my energy, and my entire existence will expose me before he gets there 😭.

What made me gasp, though, was when this man started explaining how women bully men as a form of flirting.

(Btw, whoever leaked our girly strategies to this straight African man… count your days 🫵🏾.)

Because honestly? Flirting is embarrassing.

Like, excuse me? What do you mean, I look nice in my profile picture? Why should I have a fav color?

Sometimes, bullying a man is the only way a woman can regain control after feeling completely swept away. We all know that within 8 seconds of meeting someone, your brain is already making decisions about mating. Sir, relax. I have barely processed your existence, and now you are making me look a fool? Absolutely not.

And before men start bringing up the “double standard” argument - “Women can say the most awful things, and we’re just supposed to take it” - well, David, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m a princess 😂.

Why would you call me “Rutwe”? We literally just met.

(Okay, fine. I understand it now. But it’s girl math. Take it up with your dog.)

Then there are those rare men who know how to play along.

I met Josh at my friend’s birthday dinner. He was wearing a navy blue polo shirt (the man was clearly a slut), khaki pants, clean waves, and the kind of smile that makes you understand why women relate to SZA. And please don’t get me started on his scent. It was one of those fresh aqua fragrances with a little oud - clean and warm, ya know? 😏

I wore my purple mid-length dress with a flower detail in the front, kitten heels, and a high Barbie-like ponytail. Nobody could tell me anything that day.

I arrived 45 minutes late because I’m Rwandan and time is honestly a social construct. Naturally, I ended up sitting directly across from him.

The conversation started innocently. He recommended the fish and potato mash he was eating, and somehow, ten minutes later, we were arguing about Rich Dad Poor Dad and the entire world of self-help and red-pill content online.

I told him the book sounded interesting when discussed on podcasts, but reading it was a completely different experience. In my opinion, it was a little boring, and whoever recommends it probably does not know ball like that.

Obviously, he disagreed.

“You probably just don’t have the mental capacity to understand it,” he said.

“Arreh, you are so annoying. And you have friends who tolerate you?!”

“You seem to be doing a pretty good job.” He said with a lil smirk forming around the corner of his lips.

I rolled my eyes and changed the conversation.

Meanwhile, internally? I was doing backflips!

I spent the entire car ride home replaying that response, looking out the window, and everything😂.

But on a more serious note, African girls or any girl being “rude” as a form of flirting is not only about romance. It is also a test of humanity.

As women who move through the world being constantly fetishized, there is something comforting about knowing someone can see you beyond the surface. Beyond the face. Beyond the body. Can you actually enjoy the weird, awkward, slightly chaotic version of me?

Now, I know some people will argue that a man should discover those parts of you later, and I understand that. I actually agree to some extent.

But as a working woman, I simply do not have the luxury of spending three months slowly soft-launching my personality.

I need to know whether you are interested in the real version of me, or whether you just want to carry me around like a trophy while we have nothing to talk about and never genuinely laugh together.

Give me time to soft-launch the other parts of myself 😉.

Not the personality that makes up 90% of who I am.

Anyway, thanks for reading, les amis!

Lmk what you think.

Bisous 💋

I had finally accomplished goals I had been chasing for years, and to my surprise… life didn’t just stop there.

The only things I was looking forward to were Ingando - which, unexpectedly, became one of the highlights of my life.

Partly, because it was the first time I had ever been away from home long enough to feel truly free.

Mostly, because I met some of the loveliest people who became life long friends.

Would I go back?

Only if they came too 😏.

Then there was the partying.

That part? A complete disaster.

Growing up, I imagined parties as places where people laughed until their stomachs hurt, danced in sync, and made stories they’d tell for years.

Instead, I walked into Molato and was immediately hit by an atmosphere so aggressively horny that I never willingly went back.

Respectfully…

EEE YUCK!

As university started creeping closer and life became more serious, I found myself thinking about dating.

Not just what kind of guy do I want?

But something that felt much more important.

Who would I become around him?

Would he bring out a softer version of me?

A more confident one?

A happier one?

In high school, boys complimented all the predictable things.

Your body.

Your face.

The way your shorts moved when you walked up the stairs.

For some reason… the length of your hair 👀

Depending on who the compliment came from - and what my self esteem looked like that day - it was flattering.

But eventually I realized…

It wasn’t enough.

Then one day I stumbled across girls online who took themselves on solo dates.

Not the performative kind meant to make a situationship jealous.

Not the “look what you’re missing” kind.

I mean the genuinely self obsessed in the healthiest way possible girlies.

The ones who put on THE dress.

Did the makeup.

Wore the heels.

Booked the table.

And had an amazing time with absolutely no one else.

I wanted that.

I’ve never really struggled with doing things alone.

I’m the oldest daughter.

Hyper independence is practically part of the birth certificate.

So I started being intentional about making myself happy.

I’d wander through clothing stores.

Take myself to nice restaurants.

Go on long walks because, well… they’re free.

Visit cafés.

Sit with my thoughts.

People watch.

The point wasn’t to avoid being alone.

The point was to actually enjoy my own company.

The hardest part wasn’t doing it.

The hardest part was letting people know I did it.

I’d post a picture on my story, and get plenty likes, but sooner or later someone in real life would ask,

“Could never be me. What do you even do by yourself?”

Or my personal favorite:

“Ha! What will your relationships become? You’re going to date yourself forever.”

And for a while…

I listened.

I stopped posting.

Stopped mentioning it.

Started wondering if they were right.

Was I accidentally training myself to be alone forever?

Then I got a boyfriend.

(A lovely one. Now a lovely ex.)

I even told him I wanted to keep taking myself on solo dates while we were together.

But I never actually did.

Somehow it felt wrong.

Like it meant he wasn’t enough.

Or worse - that I’d end up having so much fun by myself that I’d hurt his feelings💀

Which, when you’re dating someone you care about, is pretty much the last thing you want.

But as years rolled by, currently 21, I realized that the whole time, I was asking the wrong question.

I kept wondering:

Who will this relationship bring out in me?

Will he bring out the jealous girlfriend? (GOD FORBID!)

The inner child?

The bossy bitch?

Those are still good questions.

But they’re not the first ones.

The first questions become:

Who can I intentionally bringing out in myself that will keep evolving as I grow?

Can I even truly comfort myself?

Can I completly fall in love with myself (flaws and all)?

Can I create a life that I genuinely enjoy living, even when no one else is invited?

So I started caring less.

Posting anyway.

Booking the table anyway.

Buying that dress anyway.

Taking the walk anyway with my headphone’s volume on 100%.

I learned ( and still learning) to bring out both my inner child and my baddest bitch all by myself.

Ironically, the more complete I felt on my own, the less I started looking for someone to agree with me.

Now I think about those comments differently.

The people who criticize your choices aren’t automatically the people whose advice you would follow anyway 🤷🏾‍♀️.

Everyone gets exactly one first life.

One chance to figure out what happiness looks like.

Mine just happens to include dressing up for dinner, ordering dessert for one, and genuinely enjoying the person sitting across the table.

Me.

And if one day someone joins me there, I hope they’re adding to a life I already love, not becoming the reason I love it.

And I hope I can offer them the very same!

💋

In modern terms, you would call her my first girl crush.

She was super tall and incredibly elegant. Soft, wavy hair rested perfectly on her back as she explained current political events to my grandmother, like she was casually hosting her own evening news segment.

My then 65-year-old Nyogokuru had insisted I call her that. She believed Mama Mukuru was just grand-mère in disguise, and she refused to answer to a translation when the original already existed. “Our ancestors named things properly,” she would say.

Mrs. Christina had just moved into the house opposite ours, and the neighbourhood had already conducted a full investigation. She divorced her French husband because she had a terrible temper and could not even bear children.

“Of course, a woman who writes political books does not usually keep a man for long. She made him feel like he was the woman.”

The house help said this one evening while collecting milk from my grandmother’s small shop. She always stayed longer than necessary, flirting with the abashumbas - cowboys and watching dirty videos on their phones.

But Mrs. Christina always looked sure of herself to me. Her outfits were coordinated. Her winged liner was always precise in a way that made her look like a cat. When she left, people would comment on how heavenly she smelled.

I wanted to be her so bad.

She only spoke French when she visited. Leaving very little room for anyone else. I could never tell if she thought nothing interesting would come from Nyogokuru’s mouth, or if my grandmother simply had a PhD in making people overshare.

Nyogokuru would sit quietly with her crochet. From a distance, you could not tell if she was judging you. She lured people in with ikivuguto (fermented milk) and jokes. Two hours later, they were confessing childhood traumas while she nodded and calculated complicated crochet patterns in her head.

One Tuesday evening, candle scent floating in the air, they were laughing on the veranda. Urunana had just ended on Radio Rwanda. The episode ended with a woman furious about being called grandmother after her 17-year-old son got his girlfriend pregnant.

“I mean, what is so wrong about being old?” Nyogokuru asked. “Threatening a girl for calling you Tate?”

Tate is another term for grandmother. Softer. Apparently, less vulgar than Nyogokuru. Because nothing hurts like accuracy.

“In this generation, Rwandan women are scared of being called old,” Mrs. Christina replied after swallowing her milk.

“A long time ago, an elderly woman would flaunt her age,” Nyogokuru said, tying off her crochet and turning fully toward her. “Age meant respect. What is so shameful about being yourself?”

“Maybe colonisation,” Christina answered. “Women are taught to look younger. To hide the pores and remain beautiful.”

Nyogokuru shook her head slightly. “It is deeper than that. Look at the children. Why don’t they speak Kinyarwanda? Some of my grandchildren live in Belgium and Germany. When they come back, I feel like I need subtitles. I am tired of speaking these languages. Our conversations do not get as funny as they could be. Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know them. Discussions usually last from 2 to 5 minutes.”

That one hurt me a little.

Then my grandmother did what she does best. She went straight to the source.

“Christina, let me be frank now. We have known each other for a few months now. Why do you always speak in French? I try to excuse you. I tell myself that maybe it is because you grew up in hard times in Kenya and later in France, with the threats of a genocide. Maybe speaking Ikinyarwanda would cause a certain level of fear for you. But then again, you have been back since 2005. In seven years, are you telling me you have not at least gotten the opportunity to learn your language? If, for instance, you were in Sweden for God knows what reason, it would have taken you at least three months to master Swedish. When it comes to your own language, why aren’t you willing to put in even a little effort?”

The air got tight.

“I do not know what to tell you, Mama Teta,” Christina said. “Maybe I am embarrassed.”

She paused.

“I am proud of being Rwandan. That is why I write about our history. But when I speak French or English, I feel like I belong to something bigger. It gives me comfort. And superiority.”

There it was. The word nobody likes to say out loud.

“As ugly as it sounds, I like knowing I am different. I am not like my ancestors, who were controlled by colonisers. When I do not speak my language, I feel like I am proving I cannot be fooled.”

She looked up.

“And you have seen the privilege. Tell people you only speak foreign languages, and suddenly doors open. VIP treatment. Respect. Immediate admiration. Be honest. Would you have paid this much attention to me if I walked in speaking only Kinyarwanda? You thought I was special because I was foreign in my own country.”

I was young, but something clicked.

Uvuga ikinyarwanda?
Kagufiya. I mean un poquito.

We say it jokingly. We say it proudly. We say it like it is cute. Like forgetting your mother tongue is a personality trait.

Self-hatred does not always look dramatic. Sometimes it looks like correcting your younger sibling’s pronunciation. Like answering in English when they asked in Kinyarwanda. Like acting surprised when someone intelligent speaks it

fluently.

It is subtle. It is rewarded. It even gets you invited to better tables.

But what does it mean to be embarrassed by the language your ancestors survived in? The language they loved in. The language they warned each other in. The language they buried each other in.

Ancestors put me on game.

Maybe the real colonisation is not that someone once controlled the land. Maybe it is that we now measure intelligence by accent.

So tell me honestly.
When did fluency in yourself become something to downplay?
And who convinced us that sounding foreign was the same thing as being valuable?

Fin.

I think flopping deserves more credit than it gets. Writing this feels like one, too. I expected this link to be ignored, so if you are reading this, thank you for surprising me.

I have embarrassed myself countless times. Asking out my crush. Holding a microphone at school assemblies and asking questions I immediately regretted. Posting pictures online that once felt bold and now feel mildly concerning.

People love saying “everything happens for the highest good”, which is a very nice sentence when nothing is going wrong. In the middle of failure? It feels fake and unhelpful. But over time, I started liking it. Not because it makes it feel better, but because I am reminded that life is not a solo performance. Other people are involved. Other lessons are loading. Sometimes the flop is not just for you, even if you are the subject of the situation.

I personally love failing. Not in an inspirational quote way. I love the anger that comes with it. The sudden survival instinct, that feeling that pushes you forward. It’s addictive! Yes, it is uncomfortable. Yes, it is tempting to sit there and feel sorry for yourself and ask God why me. But honestly, that has never solved anything for me. It is dramatic, unproductive, and a little boring.

In the book The Courage to Be Disliked, the authors explain that pity is often a form of a superiority complex. Wanting others to feel bad for you is still a way of centering yourself without changing your situation. When I read that, I laughed. Then I felt attacked. Then I closed the book and pretended I had always known that.

I really miss the days when failing was just part of learning. When missing the goal did not mean you were bad at life. When you could be patient with yourself because you were clearly a beginner. Somewhere along the way, we decided that growing older meant we should magically stop being bad at new things. As if being twenty-something came with automatic expertise.

It is easy to let ego take the wheel until you realize the people you are trying to impress are just as scared as you.

I think you should try to look like an idiot more; your smile will be more genuine. It’s time you remember who you are!

.