Heartbreak Anniversary.- Issue #9

Tech bros chop breakfast too.

How are you?

Welcome back. 

Yonno for the past 2 weeks, we’ve been talking about frontend development. Backend guys are jealous and I even need us to take a break from serious talk. 

Let’s talk about something fun. Something like🤔… heartbreaks!

People often say ‘tech bros are hoes’, ‘if she’s a tech sis, focus on yourself’ etc, but in reality, techies are humans too & for what it’s worth, this breakfast usually does go round.

So, I sat down to talk to 3 techies who graciously told me about their heartbreak experiences & how they had to maintain beauty while chopping heartache.

But there’s a way we’re going to do this.

Close your eyes. For real😒. Close your eyes. Now imagine that you and other subscribers to the newsletter are attending an event. Done? Great. Let’s start.

MC: Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the Heartbreak edition of our Consonance Club event. To kick start things, let’s call on Samuel to lead us in the theme song. 

Samuel: Ladies and gentlemen of the tech industry, I believe we all have our pamphlets? Please turn to page 2021, hymn 009. Heartbreak Anniversary written by Giveon. On the count of 1, 2, 3…..Go!

MC: (after the hymn has been sung) Please let us now welcome Precious of Consonance on stage, as she interviews our 1st guest. (Applause.)

Precious: Welcome to the show Tayo. Please share your story with us. 

Tayo: My girlfriend broke up with me sometime in April last year. Over the phone.

P: Ah. Over the phone😭?

Tayo: In her defence, we had not seen each other in a while, so we mostly communicate on the phone. 

P: Oh okay. What caused the breakup?

Tayo: Well, it really can’t be attributed to one thing. But I remember she complained I wasn’t always calling or showing care like I used to before. 

P: Eeyah. 

Tayo: You know, I think we both knew it was going to happen at some point, because I’d tried to break up earlier but we tried to patch things up.

P: Well, that obviously didn’t work out. How did you take it?

Tayo: Guyy. I was sad o, but I felt it was a necessary sacrifice. I was going through a rough patch at the time and needed time to clear my head. 

I usually don’t show emotions but alaye, I cried. 

P: Hard guy in the mud.

Tayo: 😂My sister! Anyway, I stumbled on a heartbreak thread on Twitter where people shared movies and songs that made them cry. I wanted to let out all my emotions, so I dug in.

I watched Miracle in Cell No 7. Mo de sun yati.

P: To our non-yoruba speaking friends, that means he cried like crazy.

P: How did you balance work & heartbreak?

Tayo: Plot twist. I got fired

P: Whuttttttttttttttt?

Tayo: It wasn’t because of the heartbreak though. It was the pandemic. The timing was just coincidental. I was fired a few days after the breakup. 

P: So, how did you get over it?

Tayo: One way I deal with disappointment is to focus all of my energy on working or building something.

3 months after the breakup, I left Lagos to a place that had 24/7 electricity, abundant food and I had cash. I started life all over again.

No job, no boo. Just me and my aspire to perspire. 

P: Maddeaux.

Tayo: I worked on my CV, built a product and tried to launch a startup from it.

P: Enajiiiiiiii🚀

Tayo: Anyway, immersing myself in work helped me realize I wasn’t thinking about her that much again. I used the momentum to land a job in a top multinational fintech company.

P: Oshey.🙌Thank you for sharing. 

MC: Right about now, we’ll go on a commercial break. When we come back, we’ll have our next interview session.

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P: Welcome on stage Habeeb. Tell me your story. 

Habeeb: Precious, I left my apartment open and went to work. I came back before I realized. 

P: Mad o😂.

Habeeb. See ehn, React Use Effect began to look like her name.

P: You donminit.🤧

Habeeb: 😂My work playlist had some of ‘our’ songs. You can imagine me zoning out every 30 minutes.

Eventually sha, it got easier. I went out more, met different people and I started to forget about her.

My work mojo came back bigger and better. I did some of my best work after the breakup. 

P: Wawu. What caused the breakup though? 

Habeeb: I’m Muslim and she’s a Christian and we were getting serious. I think it just got to a point where we knew we had to face the issue, so I understood. It was hard though. 

P: 🤧Thank you for sharing your story with us.

MC: Alright. We’ll soon have our last interview, but we’ll have the band play Waje’s ‘I Wish I Didn’t Have A Heart” first.

P: Welcome to the show. Please, share your story.

Vicky: I was working as an intern in a startup in Lagos. What happened was that the guy japa-ed.

P: Japa-ed keh? To where?🤯

Vicky: He & his entire family moved abroad.

P: Wa to the wu.🤯

Vicky: December came & I was missing him.  Long distance really sucks. There’s nothing like love from Lagos to London. 🤧

P: Preach sis!😶

Vicky: So, on the 25th, I called him and I was like Merry Christmas babe blablabla…

He now said we need to face the fact that he was not coming back to Nigeria and I wasn’t going over there anytime soon. So, we decided to break up.

P: Wait. You people broke up on Jesus baiday? Jesus baidayyyyy????😤

Vicky: 😂Yes, o.

Anyway, work started the next week, as per January things. I remember one Tuesday, while at work, he sent me a message and no jokes, I ran to the bathroom and I was crying for like 15 minutes.

P: Aww. How did this affect work?

Vicky: I was sad but you know as a Lagos babe, I need my money😂. I could not afford to lose the job. So, I stayed focused at work and let out my emotions every day after 5 pm. It was shitty sha. Everybody was having fun, doing carol and house parties. Me, I was there missing someone that eventually broke up with me.

Anyway sha. Netflix was my savior in that dark time. It took a while but we thank God for life.

The CC event ends with tech bros and sis exchanging contacts and pleasantries. There’s a spirit of comradeship in the air. It was a union of heartbreakers and the heartbroken sharing small talk. The sharers and receivers of emotional breakfast bonding after a successful event.

(Curtains fall)

Alright, open your eyes now. Thank you for reading this newsletter today. See you next week!👻 

PS: Names were changed for anonymity. 

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Stay productive!

Precious from Consonance.