May 10, 2010 – I had a very interesting night last night. Not memorable, just interesting. I know that because I woke up this morning in the same clothes I went out in, my hair smelling of smoke and my eyes unable to open fully. Which is exactly why I prefer staying home watching movies and drinking tea on a Saturday night. The whole process of getting all dolled up and spending a good portion of my salary on drinks always leaves me feeling a bit hopeless and extremely hungover.

My friend had a birthday party in Westlands so I made an exception to my ‘no going clubbing on Saturdays’ rule and decided to be a team player. The night got interesting when I ran into an old girlfriend of mine and we began discussing how pathetic our love lives were. During the discussion we found out exactly how small Nairobi is when we realised that a dude I used to sleep with has been using the exact same tired lines he used on me to try and get her in bed.

The random texting, the invites to go ‘watch movies’ at his house followed by the sudden “Oh this TV is broken lets go upstairs and watch the movie in my bedroom’ lines were so familiar it hurt. As in a whole year later and the guy hadn’t changed his pick-up strategy one bit.

I’m not sure what pissed me off more. The fact that he was trying to sleep with my friend or the fact that those same tired lines had worked on me once upon a time. It didn’t help that our relationship had ended on a sour note and I was still holding on to a bit of resentment. Either way, I remember being extremely upset. So I did what any scorned woman would do. I told her he has bad breath (which she already knew), sleeps around and lasts an average of 6.5 minutes in the sack.

After that conversation I was more determined than ever to find a chips funga for the night. Since I hadn’t spotted any prospects at the party I got out my phone and sent a suggestive text to an ex of mine, which is never advisable. Deep down inside I think I was just hurt by the realisation that my love-life was nonexistent. Not my sex life…my love life. 

See, for women there’s a huge difference between having sex and making love. Sex is what we have on nights when we’re lonely and have had one too many drinks with a random clande. Love-making is what we do with people we care deeply for. It’s an experience which we wish could last forever, not because of how it feels but because of what it means. Making love is what leads to those embarrassing moments when a tear falls oddly down our cheek or we whisper ‘I love you’ in your ear then pretend we didn’t when you pause to ask a shocked “what did you just say?”

I had that once but I screwed it all up. So every time I get a brutal reminder of that fact I do stupid things like drunk-texting my ex. Needless to say, I woke this morning with a throbbing headache, bloodshot eyes, and no chips funga. Which brings me to my new-found realization – we can never truly make progress in our love lives when we have unfinished chapters from our past still waiting to be written.

Closure is something that is not easy to do but it’s extremely necessary if we are ever to move forward and have successful relationships. Lack of closure is the reason why I turned down two blind dates this week. It’s the reason I still get upset when I hear that someone I used to sleep with is now sleeping with other people and its most definitely the force behind drunk-texting one’s ex.

So I’ve made a resolution to leave the past in the past and accept my present reality. Sometimes you have to let go of something to make room for bigger and better things in your life. If that means trading in my sex life for a love life, then so be it.