Joyce Oduor
Six years on, the certainty has gone — and something far more honest has taken its place
By Joyce Oduor
At 24, I knew exactly the kind of man I wanted to settle down with. Had you asked me then, I would have answered without a moment’s pause, almost as though I had been waiting for the question my whole life. I had clarity, structure and language. I could describe him in detail — his personality, his values, how he would communicate, even how he would make me feel. It all seemed so certain, so neatly arranged. Back then, love felt like something you could define in advance, a carefully constructed idea that reality would eventually catch up with. There was comfort in that certainty, in the belief that if I knew what I wanted clearly enough, I would recognise it the moment it appeared.
Now, approaching 30, the same question lands very differently. When someone asks me what my type is, I laugh — not because I find it funny, but because I no longer have an answer that arranges itself into words the way it once did. It is not that I do not know what I want. If anything, I understand it far more deeply now than I ever did before. The difference is that what I know no longer exists as a list I can recite. It lives somewhere internal, somewhere instinctive — something I feel rather than explain.
These days, when I meet someone new, I give them about twenty minutes. Not in any rigid or formal sense, but there is an internal window during which I observe, listen and pay attention without forcing anything. I am not trying to interrogate or impress. I am simply present, watching how a person shows up when they are just being themselves. Within that short time, certain things begin to surface in ways that are difficult to ignore. I notice whether someone is self-aware, whether they communicate clearly and honestly, whether they carry a sense of steadiness within themselves. These are not questions I ask directly — they are answers that emerge through tone, response and presence. There is a quiet kind of clarity that comes from paying attention without expectation.
If something feels off in those early moments, I no longer try to rationalise it away. I do not tell myself to give it more time, or to wait and see whether things might improve. I used to do that. I used to allow people room to grow on me, to explain themselves, to become what I hoped they might be. I invested in potential, in possibilities that had not yet taken shape. Sometimes it felt hopeful. More often than not, it led to disappointment. Experience has a particular way of teaching you what not to ignore.
Now I do not wait for alignment to develop. I expect it to be present from the beginning — not in a perfect or complete form, but in a way that feels real and grounded. If it is not there, I disengage. It does not always look dramatic from the outside. Sometimes it is simply a quiet withdrawal, a shift in attention, a decision made inwardly before it is ever expressed. It may appear abrupt to others, but to me it feels honest, like honouring something I have learned not to overlook.
I have also grown more attuned to energy in ways I did not fully understand before. There are things you cannot always explain logically but feel immediately — misaligned energy, forced chemistry, subtle pressure, or something as small as an interaction that feels slightly unnatural. These things register quickly now. I do not dismiss them as overthinking or oversensitivity. I trust them. Even something as minor as how a person holds a conversation or occupies a room can tell me more than words ever could.
What unsettles me most, though, is the pressure that often surrounds these interactions. The reminders about time, the pointed references to age, the language of the so-called biological clock, the expectation that I should now be more willing to compromise simply because I am nearing a certain stage of life. I find it deeply uncomfortable, offensive even. Not because I am unaware of time passing, but because I refuse to let it dictate something as significant as who I choose to share my life with. The notion that I should overlook what feels wrong in order to meet an external timeline does not sit well with me, and I suspect it should not sit well with anyone.
I know that from the outside, this might read as though I have become more difficult, more selective, perhaps too quick to walk away. But that interpretation misses what is actually happening. I have not become harder to please. I have become more precise. I no longer need a detailed description of my type because I am no longer operating from theory. What I once understood in words, I now recognise in feeling. I know when something fits, and I know when it does not — often without needing to explain why.
So when I laugh at that question, it is not because I am lost or unsure of myself. It is because I have moved beyond needing to answer it the way I once did. What I am looking for has not disappeared. It has simply changed form, becoming something quieter, sharper and far more difficult to put into words.
Joyce Oduor teaches at Lily Senior School, Mwihoko.
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