Dear egosentrik,

I want you to throw this question publicly to your readers. I am a regular visitor to your blog and understand you discuss relationship matters here too.

I am 22 years old and a recent graduate from one of the Nigerian Universities. I live in Lagos with my parents and siblings, but my school is somewhere in the Eastern part of Nigeria.

My love problem started after I got ditched by a final year student who dis-virgined me in my year one. We dated for 2 years and in his final year, he invited me for a dinner in another address other than his house. At first I thought it was a restaurant, but as I drove nearer to the address, I realized it was a bungalow house. I parked my car in front of the gate and was afraid to go into the house as it was a strange occurrence to me. I rang Darlington’s phone (my ex-boyfriend’s name) and a girl picked and said she was coming to open the gate.

Behold a very tall dark complexioned chic wearing a bum Short and a pair of flat slippers stepped out with a beaming smile on her face and ushered me into the house. It was a 2 bedroom apartment and Darlington was sitting on the dinning table which is in thesame place as the living room of the house. He said hi to me in shaky voice and then my heart started racing and my blood pumping really fast. I straight away asked him what am I doing here and what is happening? I need answers quickly.

The lady quickly caught in and said “sweetheart, I’ll save you all the drama. She narrated to me how Darlington was her first love and how her parents sent her abroad to study, and that the 2 bed bungalow is their private meeting house in town as her parents are strict Christians. So she secretly comes to naija and spend weeks in that apartment with Darlington before going back to her parents home pretending she was just coming to Nigeria. She showed me her engagement ring and told me they were set to marry after Darlington graduates from University.

Darlington never uttered a word, meaning everything I heard was true and that he was using me all these while to satisfy his sexual urge as his main chic wasn’t in town. At that point everything started making sense to me, I remembered how he lied he was going home for 2 weeks in the middle of a semester and when I couldn’t reach him I called his younger brother, who told me he never came home. He sweet talked me out of it and lied he went on a business trip.

So to cut the whole story short, I swore never to date again. My parents are comfortable in life and made sure I never lacked anything. I changed my cars every year as far as I did well with my results. So for a whole year I was with no guy and that was the year I had my best results and dad rewarded me with a brand new car as my previous cars where tokunbos, cos dad always says a student doesn’t need a clean flashy car. But he broke all protocols and handed a brand new tear rubber to me.

So one evening, I was taking a stroll which I hardly do, cos I drove almost everywhere. I noticed this handsome guy (Izu), whose face looked familiar inside the campus. He smiled at me as if we’ve known each other for years. Anyway, we chatted anytime we see each other in school or anywhere at all. He wasn’t like any other guy I’ve met, he was cool, friendly and lovely. 2 months after we met he asked me out on a date and then we started dating. We became popular lovebirds in school, we drove in my car or his car. My life changed totally, he adored me as a lady and treated me with so much respect. So now we’ve graduated, I’ve moved back to Lagos while he has moved back to Enugu. We only communicate through the phone and it’s a bit of torture cos sometimes I’d like to be with my man but can’t cos of distance.

Something extraordinary had just happened recently, I bumped into this guy at Shoprite in Lagos. He looked very cool and handsome just like my Izu. I was almost going to call out to him thinking my boyfriend came to Lag without informing me. But I held my peace till I got a closer look at him and discovered he wasn’t my love Izu, so my mind came down. But I could not just take my eyes off him and likewise him, when our eyes met couple of times, he then smiled and said ‘hello’, I said hi and we got into a conversation. I told him he looked like someone I knew but never mind and we carried on gisting. We agreed to hang out the next day as he was really an interesting guy to talk to. We had a lot in common just like me and Izu, and I had this tingly feeling talking to him that day. We met couple of times, but nothing had happened between us even as I am writing this. But believe me I am developing a burning love and desire to be his girlfriend, cos he has asked me countless times to date him but I always kept saying, give me sometime to think about it. I thought of long distance relationship with Izu and and an intimate relationship with this new guy in thesame Lagos as me, with every quality I needed in a man.

Izu and I almost discuss everything, we hardly hide anything from each other. I started feeling guilty about not telling him of this new guy. So I summoned courage one night and told Izu about him. Izu was broken, I’ve never had a long silence from him like he did that night over the phone he could not speak. Then he broke the silence by asking if I said the guy was tall as him and looked very much like him? I said yes. He asked me the guy’s name and I said Chidi and Izu bursted into laughter and said “that might be my elder brother Chidi, people always said we look alike”. . He told me to hang up while he calls his brother to confirm. Honestly that was the longest wait of my life. Izu called back laughing and said it was his brother. To him it was funny, but those words came shattering my heart, if only I had known his brothers or even seen their pictures. Izu does not do facebook or twitter and hardly take pictures or even talk about his family. I remember he mentioned his elder brother that lives in Lagos and said he will visit him one day and use that as an excuse to see me. But he never called him Chidi, he calls his English name Andrew.

I know this is a very long story, but the whole plan is for you to understand my predicament and the confusion am facing right now. I am practically in love with two brothers. I’ve discussed this with Chidi who said he loves me and is here in Lagos with me and that his brother is far away in the East and probably seeing another girl. This issue is tearing these two brothers apart. But I’ve kept my sanity by not having any physical contact with Chidi, although we kiss sometimes but that’s where it ends.

Please egosentrik readers, help me I am confused.