The rain had only just stopped over Osu, Accra, and the street shone like wet black glass under the yellow lamps, with the smell of grilled tilapia and hot pepper drifting from a chop bar where a radio played an old highlife tune. Kwabena sat at the corner table with his phone in his hand and a bottle of cold malt sweating beside his elbow. He was a quantity surveyor, and he had been seeing a lovely woman named Esi for eight months.
She had just told him, plainly and without any heat, that she was happy with him. Instead of feeling glad, he found his thumb moving across the screen of its own accord, scrolling through profiles of strangers, as though something in him needed to confirm that the exit door was still there. He did not even want to leave. That was the strange part.
“My brother, you are looking at that phone like it owes you an answer,” said Maame Adwoa, who sold roasted groundnuts from a basin beside the chop bar and noticed everybody’s mood before they did. Kwabena laughed, a little embarrassed, and confessed that he was happy but restless for no reason he could name.
She poured a paper cone of warm groundnuts into his palm and shrugged. “When the market is too wide, a man forgets what he came to buy,” she said. “Choose slowly, but when you choose, close the door behind you and make a home inside it.”
He sat with the warm nuts in his hand and the old highlife in his ears, and for the first time he asked himself what he was truly scrolling for.
Twenty Truths for Anyone Living in the Age of the Swipe
1. Notice what your thumb is really looking for
The scrolling rarely begins with a plan to leave. It begins with a small hunger for attention, novelty, or reassurance that you are still desirable, and the phone feeds it in seconds. Pause the next time you reach for the screen and ask, “What am I hoping to feel right now?” Often the answer is boredom, loneliness, or a bruised ego, none of which a stranger’s photograph can heal. When you name the hunger, you can feed it properly, perhaps with a conversation, a walk, or an honest word to your partner. Awareness turns an automatic habit into a conscious choice.
2. Understand that an endless menu changes how you taste
When options seem unlimited, the mind quietly keeps one eye on the next possibility, and contentment becomes harder to hold. This is not a flaw in your character. It is what constant choice does to anyone’s attention. A good person in front of you can start to look ordinary only because ten thousand faces are available behind them. Remind yourself that variety is not the same as depth, and that a relationship’s richness comes from time invested, not from the size of the pool. Let the ordinary beauty of one real person win its fair hearing.
3. Treat “optional” as a feeling, not a fact
Commitment feels optional because leaving has become so easy to imagine, not because the cost of leaving has become smaller. Real people still carry grief, confusion, and lost years when bonds break. Think about what you would actually be giving up: shared history, private jokes, the person who knows how you take your tea and which silence means you are worried. A swipe takes a second, but a life built with someone takes years. Keep that difference clear in your mind, especially on the restless nights when the screen makes everything look reversible.
4. Look honestly at what you do with doubt
Every relationship has seasons of doubt, and the modern habit is to treat doubt as an instruction to look elsewhere. Doubt is more often a signal that something between you needs attention, such as tiredness, unspoken hurt, or a dream that has gone unshared. Before you search outward, search inward and ask, “What am I not saying here?” Then say it, gently, to the person who can actually respond. Many couples find that the restlessness they thought was about each other was really about pressure, routine, or loneliness that could be addressed together.
5. Be wary of the small, secret doors
Few people decide to be unfaithful in one dramatic moment. It usually begins with tiny private habits, like hiding a screen, keeping a dormant account, or lingering in conversations you would not want your partner to read. These are small doors left ajar, and drafts come through them. If something would feel uncomfortable to explain, treat that discomfort as information. Closing those doors early is an act of self-respect and of care for the bond, and it is far easier at the first crack than after a wall has formed.
6. Remember that attention is the new currency of love
In earlier times, presence was mostly physical. Today a partner can sit beside you while your mind is entirely elsewhere, and they feel the absence keenly. Give your partner your full, undivided attention for even ten minutes daily, with the phone out of reach and your eyes on their face. Ask a real question and listen to the whole answer. Attention is something no algorithm can give your partner on your behalf, and its steady offering tells them they are chosen each day again.
7. Learn the difference between a spark and a foundation
Early excitement is wonderful, and it is not meant to last at full intensity. Many people mistake its fading for the death of love and go chasing the feeling again with someone new. But a spark is simply the beginning of the fire, and a foundation is what holds the house when the rain comes. Ask what your relationship has built: trust, patience, shared memories, a way of solving problems together. If those are present, the quiet may be maturity, not decline. Nurture it with small surprises and honest affection.
8. Notice how quickly you are tempted to curate yourself
Dating apps and social media reward polished versions of us, and that habit can leak into real relationships. We show only our strengths, hide our fears, and then feel lonely because nobody truly knows us. Commitment asks for the unedited version. Practise telling your partner one unpolished truth each week, such as a worry, an embarrassment, or an old wound. Being known is the actual reward of staying, and it cannot be built behind a filter.
9. Do not confuse being chosen with being validated
A flood of notifications, compliments, or matches can feel like proof of your worth, but it is borrowed confidence that disappears when the screen goes dark. Real worth is steadier and comes from within, supported by people who know your faults and remain. If you depend on strangers’ approval to feel desirable, your partner will never be able to fill that bucket, however loving they are. Build your sense of self through honest work, rest, friendships, and faith, so that your relationship can be a home and not a source of constant reassurance.
10. Give your partner the chance to be repaired, not replaced
Think of the radio on Mr. Owusu’s workbench. Most relational problems are not signs that the person is wrong for you, but that something needs opening, dusting, and tightening. Before concluding that things are finished, ask yourself whether you have truly offered a repair: an honest talk, a change in habit, a counselling session, a season of extra effort. Some bonds do need to end, and that is a serious matter requiring wisdom. Yet many are discarded simply because replacement felt easier than repair.
11. Be careful with the stories you tell your friends
Venting is healthy in small doses, but a steady stream of complaints can harden your heart toward your partner. If you only describe their faults aloud, you begin to see only their faults. Choose a friend who encourages you toward reconciliation and not toward escape. Speak well of your partner when they are absent, and let your private frustrations go to them directly first. Your words shape your own perception more than you realise.
12. Accept that real love includes boredom
Some evenings will be plain, with nothing special to report, and a mind trained on constant novelty will read that plainness as failure. It is not. Ordinary evenings are where trust is stored, where a person can finally put their feet up and be fully themselves. Learn to enjoy small routines, like shared meals, quiet drives, and the sound of someone moving about the house. Contentment is a skill, and it grows with practice.
13. Let go of the imaginary perfect option
The unseen stranger on the screen has no unpaid bills, no bad moods, no family worries, and no morning breath, because you only know their best angle. Measuring your real partner against a fantasy is unfair to both of you. Remind yourself that every person you could meet would bring their own complications. The question is not who is flawless, but whose flaws you can live with, and who is willing to grow alongside you.
14. Speak your needs before they become exits
Unspoken needs ripen into resentment, and resentment quietly makes the exit door look attractive. If you want more affection, more time, or more help, say so plainly and kindly, in a calm moment. Your partner cannot respond to a need they cannot see. Many people discover that what they thought was a reason to leave was simply a request they never made.
15. Singles, practise commitment before the person arrives
Commitment is a muscle that grows through small promises kept: showing up when you said you would, finishing what you start, treating dates as people and not as products. If you are single, notice how quickly you disengage when someone is imperfect, and ask whether you are protecting yourself or merely keeping every door open. Kindness and clarity with those you meet will prepare you for deeper bonds when the right one comes.
16. Husbands and wives, renew your choice on purpose
Marriage is not a single decision made at the altar but a daily one. Say it out loud sometimes: “I would choose you again today.” Mark the ordinary milestones with a meal, a note, or a walk. Couples who speak their commitment often find it grows more real, because the word keeps being made flesh in small acts.
17. Create phone-free pockets in your day
Decide together on moments when screens rest, perhaps during meals, in the first half hour after you arrive home, and before sleep. This is not about suspicion. It is a mutual gift, a way of saying that your relationship deserves protected space. Be gentle when either of you slips, and simply begin again.
18. Learn to stay through the awkward middle
Every relationship passes through uncomfortable stretches where the early thrill has faded, and the deeper trust has not yet arrived. Many people leave in this middle, never discovering what was on the other side. If you are in it, be patient and keep showing up with kindness. The awkward middle is often the doorway into the most secure kind of love.
19. Seek help early, without shame
Counsellors, pastors, imams, and wise elders exist because relationships are hard for everyone. Seeking guidance is a sign of seriousness, not failure. A neutral voice can help you hear each other clearly and notice patterns you cannot see from inside. Reach out before the hurt becomes a wall, and treat support as a strength you are choosing for your bond.
20. Choose with open eyes, then build with open hands
Commitment is not blind. It is a decision made with full awareness of the alternatives, followed by steady work to make the chosen path a good one. Decide what you value, choose someone who shares it, and then invest without keeping one foot out of the door. A relationship grows in the soil of consistent effort, and your commitment becomes real each time you act on it.
