The 50-year-old Finnish man whose love I squandered over lust

I met him, Joni, a gentle-mannered Finnish man one weekend, in July of 2021 when I was visiting Estonia with a small group of Nigerian acquaintances. It was through Grindr, and he was one of the rare ones interested in having a balanced conversation with me.

I kept in touch with him even after I returned home. We exchanged WhatsApp numbers and I think it was as early as in the first week of getting to know each other that we decided I would be visiting him in his Finnish home town of Turku. Eventually, in October, I made the trip. I got permission from my company to work abroad for a week. And Joni graciously granted me his place for this much-needed escape from my homely cage.

Joni is a very kind man. Perhaps, it was because I gleaned this that I decided to fly out to spend a week with a man whom I had never met, in Finland, a country that I had never been to. And this kindness, oh, the kindness did not change when I arrived. He showered me with care and attention and goodies all through my time at his place.

On Tuesday, the 3rd day of my stay with Joni, something promising appeared on my Tinder radar: Sebastian. Sebastian is this muscled, thick, long-haired and blue-eyed guy who had unexpectedly sent the first message after we matched. 

Yes, this guy was at a point on my hotness scale where I was sure that he had only matched with me absentmindedly and in reality does not want anything to do with me. So you can understand my excitement when it turned out that this guy messaged me first, and on top of that was matching my energy in the conversation. Every piece of interest that I put out to him, he made sure to reflect and build upon. 

This kind of reciprocation has almost never happened to me since I move to Europe (sad I know). As a result, I was in love heaven. It had been such a long time since anything remotely so good came my way in my search for companionship with another man.

By Wednesday, I knew that I would be meeting Sebastian, the man of my dreams. I sent his Instagram to a couple of my closest friends, telling them how I feared that this might be too good to be true. What could this blonde bombshell, Instagram influencer stud ever want to do with a plain Jane African boy like me? Am I missing something? Like, maybe he is an escort?

Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels

The heartbreak when I broke it to Joni that I would be leaving two days earlier than planned was palpable. But dammit, there was no way that I was going to miss this free gift of Sebastian's warm bosom that the universe had decided to reward me with after months upon months of connectionless sex back at home. No damned way! Even now as I write, I feel a tinge of sadness for my part in destroying what I and Joni might have had.

Talking about I and Joni, even before Sebastian entered into the picture, there was never going to be a "we". Nah, Joni is too old for me. Asides from that, I found that our conversations were quite unbalanced, with him doing most of the talking and me doing most of the asking. He could definitely have done a lot less talking and shown more of an interest in me with his questions and the ways that he responded to what I said. So, perhaps, the title of this article is a bit of a misnomer.

When I talk about Joni's kindness, you need to know that he:

1. bought me parting gifts, even after I told him that I was leaving him early to go fuck with a Tinder guy that I had met only because he was hosting me rent-free for a week;

2. made me food and drinks all through my stay with him;

3. bought all the groceries and never asked me for (or accepted) something in return;

4. I almost forgot this one, but he also saw me off to the bus station when I took a 2.5 hour to Helsinki to finally be with my Sebastian.

My weekend with Sebastian after I left Joni's place on Friday night was a blissful one. One that I remember with powerful feelings of love and warmth and togetherness, even today. Sebastian's body and company felt a lot like home and he opened it all up to me until my last morning with him when things turned heartbreakingly cold. But that's a story for another article. This article is about Joni.

Within a week of my return home, I realized that Joni had blocked me on WhatsApp, the online messaging platform where most of our communication took place. It felt bad but also well-deserving. I did not go out of my way to try and reach out to him, perhaps because I had no words. The morality of what I did is still unresolved to date. The fact that he gave so much and I gave so little in return.

During my stay with him, it was palpable that Joni wanted something more with me, even though he would not vocalize it or make a move. Perhaps, because it was also palpable for him that such a move would have been met with summary rejection from me; a risk that his fragile heart probably could not undertake.

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