I remember how Musa Othman used to ask me, almost every time we met, whether I had finally found a girl. He never asked in a serious, interrogating way. It was always humorous, as if he was checking whether I was still sane. Back then, you know how I was. I used to brush him off with a kind of careless arrogance. I would tell him, “All the girls in our college are like men. I can’t seem to find one.” I said it bluntly, sometimes even rudely. I never really explained what I meant, and maybe one day I will explain it to you properly, because I know that sentence can sound harsh. Musa never challenged me too hard on it. He would laugh. I think he sensed there was something deeper behind it, something I wasn’t articulating well.

What I meant was not that femininity was absent. It was more that the atmosphere felt rigid. The interactions felt stiff. Many of the girls I encountered seemed tough in a way that erased softness, as if everyone was trying to prove something all the time. There was a kind of boundarylessness in how some of them interacted with men and with me, blending into friendships that felt too casual, too unstructured. I have always been someone who believes that men and women are different, not in value, but in nature. And because of that difference, I believe there are lines that give dignity to both sides. Certain words are better left unsaid. Certain behaviors are better reserved. I never liked the idea of being “just friends” in a way that ignores that difference. To me, pretending there are no distinctions felt dishonest.

On the other end of the spectrum were the shy, quiet girls. I respected them deeply. There is something dignified about modesty and calmness. But I also knew myself well enough to admit that extreme quietness was not what brought me alive. Yes, I am naturally reserved. Yes, I can be introspective. But the people closest to me are not like me. My best friend Abdalwahab is loud, spontaneous, and adventurous. When I’m with him, I feel a different kind of energy in my body. My sister Kanno is similar, expressive, animated, full of movement. Around them, I don’t feel drained. I feel expanded. So while I appreciated shyness, I knew I needed someone with presence, someone with spark.

I remember clearly in January, the 20th or maybe the 23rd, when I attended Elmagboul’swedding. It was one of those gatherings where past and present collide. I was there with my family and my brother Mohammed. I saw old faces, people I grew up around. They were technically my brother’s friends, but in many ways they were part of my childhood too. Musa was there, of course, and he was determined to bring up the topic again. He kept insisting that I repeat my opinion about the girls in our college to the groups. And I did. I stood there, almost stubbornly, saying the same thing I always said: they’re too strong to be girls.

Looking back, I realize how limited that perspective was. It wasn’t that strength is wrong. It was that the type of strength I was seeing felt disconnected from balance. And then I met you.

You were different from the beginning. You didn’t fall into either category I had constructed in my head. You weren’t extremely shy in a way that felt muted or disengaged from life. And you weren’t overly rigid or boundaryless either. You weren’t trying to dissolve distinctions or prove toughness. You carried softness without weakness. You carried strength without harshness. You had boundaries, but they were graceful, not defensive. You were fun, but not careless. There was a centeredness in you.

What unsettled me the most is that you sat exactly in the middle of the spectrum I thought did not exist. And because that balance is what I had quietly been looking for all along, I instinctively wanted to avoid it. Not because I didn’t want it, but because I recognized it. There is something frightening about recognizing what fits you. It removes excuses. It removes distance. It forces honesty.

When I saw that balance in you, I knew this wasn’t just attraction. It wasn’t curiosity in the casual sense. It wasn’t “she’s my type,” because I’ve never really believed I had a type. It was something more definitive. It was the awareness that this is someone I cannot reduce to friendship. This is not someone I can place in a neutral category and move on. Either I move toward this fully, or I step away entirely.

With you, there was no middle ground of indifference. There was no safe emotional distance. It was either have you in my life in a real way, or not at all.

And that realization changed everything. eighteen years old me didn’t know this back then, but I wish if I could tell him that you ran fully into her at the end.