Wandering & Wooing: Apparently, I’m One of the Angels

Written by Joni Roberts

Traveler, storyteller, and public health advocate

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Hebrews 13:2

Girl.

Let me tell you about Wycliffe.

We met in Kenya, and within about fifteen minutes, this man had me questioning whether he had memorized every romantic verse in Scripture before breakfast.

“I would ask how you’re doing,” he said, “but even the blind can see.”

I laughed.

Okay.

We’re opening with lyrics.

Then he looked at me, shook his head, and said, “Your neck must be so heavy.”

Now, I have heard a lot of pickup lines over the years, but this one was new.

“My neck?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “It must be exhausting carrying the weight of men coming at you from the left, the right, and the center. You are so beautiful they cannot help but talk to you. Being single must be exhausting for you.”

Y’all.

I had never heard that one before.

I almost gave him a standing ovation.

Because what kind of poetic foolishness is this?

The man was committed to the assignment.

Before I could recover, he continued.

“You know, you are like one of those angels the Bible talks about. The ones that walk among us. You are so beautiful. So jovial. So unique. There are some people you spend time with and you just do not want that time to end. You are one of those people.”

At this point, I was thoroughly entertained.

Listen, I have traveled enough to confidently say that Black men have game. They do not simply call you beautiful. They build an entire storyline around your beauty. They paint pictures. They create metaphors. They write poetry without ever picking up a pen.

The lyrics were lyric-ing.

And honestly, I appreciate a good compliment. I love a big head. Swell it, please. Tell me something creative. Make me laugh. Give me a line I have not heard before.

As long as we are both clear that it is performance, I can appreciate good writing when I hear it.

Then came the plot twist.

Wycliffe had a wife.

And two boys.

“I don’t do married men,” I said.

“No, no, no,” he replied. “You do not understand.”

“I think I understand.”

“No. The marriage is not a real marriage.”

I blinked.

“You have a wife?”

“Yes.”

“And two boys?”

“Yes.”

“Then I understand perfectly.”

Apparently, I did not.

Because he spent the next several minutes trying to explain the complexities of his situation. The marriage was not what I thought it was. Things were not good. It did not really count. There were problems.

Sir.

You have a wife.

That is the data point that matters to me.

This was not the first time I had heard some version of this explanation.

In Sierra Leone, it was, “I’m married, but she is misbehaving.”

In Senegal, it was, “Yes, but I can have a second wife.”

In Kenya, it became, “The marriage is not real.”

Different country.

Same script.

There is always something wrong with the wife.

She has changed.

She does not smile anymore.

She is misbehaving.

She is no longer appealing.

The relationship is not real.

The marriage exists, but apparently only on a technicality.

And somehow, every explanation leads to the same conclusion:

So, what about us?

I told Wycliffe again that I did not do married men.

He was not discouraged.

Not even slightly.

“No, but Joni,” he said, “we have to make this work.”

We?

Sir, there is no we.

There is you, your wife, your two boys, and me trying to finish a conversation.

When he realized I was not changing my mind, he pivoted.

“Well, if I cannot have you, can I at least have a piece of you?”

Excuse me?

A piece?

Which piece, exactly, are we discussing?

Because this is not Costco, and I am not handing out samples.

“No,” I said. “It is all or nothing.”

He kept trying.

“Maybe you could just hate me.”

I stared at him for a moment.

“In order for me to hate you, you would have to be in my life.”

This man was searching for any available category.

If he could not be my lover, perhaps he could be my friend.

If not my friend, then someone I disliked.

If not someone I disliked, then at least someone whose number was saved in my phone.

Any form of access would do.

And he was pushing hard.

The next day happened to be my birthday. He wanted to work with the hotel to arrange something special for me. He was also taking me on a hippo tour later that week.

Now listen.

I am here for a good time.

I can enjoy a birthday surprise.

I can take a hippo tour.

I can laugh at your lyrics.

What I cannot do is help you cheat on your wife.

Those are separate activities.

When he asked what time the hotel should arrange everything, I told him I did not know because my coworkers were taking me to dinner.

“Okay,” he said. “Take my number and call me.”

“No.”

“No, no. Take my number.”

“No.”

“You can call me when you get back.”

“No.”

Finally, I said, “When I return to the hotel, I can have the front desk call you.”

He did not like that option.

He wanted direct access.

My phone number.

A private line to me.

A way to continue the conversation after I left Kenya.

He had plans to make it to the United States one day, and in my head, I thought, Google works. I work for a public university. If this man ever came to America and truly wanted to find me, he probably could.

But until then?

No.

Because a boundary is not less valid simply because someone finds it inconvenient.

And that is when I realized this interaction was not only about flirting.

It was about access.

Every time I said no, he searched for another version of yes.

Not a relationship?

How about a piece of you?

Not a piece?

A phone number?

Not a phone number?

Let me arrange your birthday.

Let me take you somewhere.

Let me remain in your life somehow, even if you hate me.

The specific form did not seem to matter.

What mattered was not leaving the interaction empty-handed.

There had to be some piece of me he could keep.

My affection.

My attention.

My number.

My memory.

Something.

And perhaps that is why these encounters interest me so much.

Not because this is the first time a man has laid it on thick. It is not.

In fact, it has been quite common throughout my travels on the African continent.

The compliments are creative.

The declarations come quickly.

The persistence is impressive.

And the men are often married.

What is especially fascinating is that most of them have not lied about being partnered.

They are remarkably upfront.

They do not say, “I am single.”

They say, “I am married, but…”

And everything after the “but” is meant to persuade me that the marriage should not

count.

I am not being asked to believe that the wife does not exist.

I am being invited to believe that her existence should not matter.

That is a different kind of negotiation.

It asks me to enter a story in which another woman has already been reduced to a problem.

She does not smile.

She misbehaves.

She is no longer exciting.

She is not who she used to be.

And then here I am.

New.

Jovial.

Traveling.

Smiling.

A temporary breath of fresh air.

I am seeing him outside of the routine of his everyday life. He is seeing me in a moment when I am abroad, exploring, laughing, and presumably unburdened by the ordinary responsibilities that shape the rest of who I am.

He is not seeing my full life.

He is seeing a snapshot.

And from that snapshot, he creates an entire story.

This woman is different.

This woman is special.

This woman understands me.

This woman could make me happy.

But he does not know me.

He knows that I smiled.

He knows that I laughed.

He knows that I am educated, independent, and traveling.

He knows that I made him feel light for a moment.

That is not intimacy.

That is projection.

And perhaps I recognize it so quickly because collecting data has always been part of how I understand people.

When I was dating my ex-husband, he would sometimes ask me what I thought about him or where I believed the relationship was going.

My answer used to frustrate him.

“I’m still collecting data.”

He would laugh.

“No, seriously.”

“So am I.”

I was not trying to avoid the question.

I simply was not ready to analyze something I had not observed long enough.

I collect data first.

The analysis comes later.

Apparently, I travel the same way.

Over the last year, I have found myself collecting stories about courtship, masculinity, marriage, desire, boundaries, and the complicated ways people attempt to connect with one another.

I did not set out to study dating during my sabbatical.

Although, at one point, I did consider exploring how men approached me as I traveled from country to country.

What does courtship look like when you are a Black woman traveling alone?

How are you perceived in predominantly Black spaces when you are both familiar and foreign?

How does being American shape the interaction?

How do education, profession, class, mobility, complexion, body type, and nationality influence who approaches you and why?

These were not the official questions guiding my sabbatical.

But life kept presenting the data anyway.

And the pattern was difficult to ignore.

Men would meet me briefly and declare that I was exactly what they had been looking for.

I was their type.

I was different.

I was the kind of woman they wanted to keep.

They wanted to know how they could make me theirs.

And I would always think the same thing:

You know nothing about me.

You do not know whether I am kind when I am tired.

You do not know how I behave when I am angry.

You do not know my habits, my expectations, my values, my flaws, or the thousand ordinary details that make up a life.

For all you know, I could be a serial killer.

They usually laughed when I said that.

Apparently, a smile and a pretty face are enough evidence that I am safe.

But would that not be the perfect disguise?

People often underestimate women because they see us first as physical beings—beautiful, desirable, pleasurable, comforting.

They forget that we have minds of our own.

They forget that we are observing them too.

And I was certainly observing Wycliffe.

I enjoyed the banter.

I admired the creativity.

I laughed at the audacity.

But I also noticed how quickly admiration became entitlement.

How quickly “You are beautiful” became “We have to make this work.”

How quickly a compliment became a request for access.

How quickly my no became the opening position in a negotiation.

I can appreciate the performance without agreeing to participate in the life being proposed.

I can laugh and still mean no.

I can accept a compliment without owing someone intimacy.

I can enjoy a hippo tour without becoming anyone’s second wife.

These things are not mutually exclusive.

And maybe that is one of the most important things travel continues to teach me.

Cultural humility does not require abandoning personal boundaries.

I can recognize that persistence may be understood differently across cultures.

I can appreciate that polygamy exists within social and religious traditions that are not my own.

I can understand that courtship scripts vary from one place to another.

And I can still say:

That is not for me.

I must be the first wife and the only wife.

Preferably the only person currently being auditioned for the role.

What I’m Still Wandering…

Why do so many conversations move from “You are beautiful” to “I want you in my life forever” after only a few minutes?

Why have the unavailable men so often presented themselves as the most emotionally available?

Where is the line between persistence as a culturally familiar expression of interest and persistence that feels like pressure?

Why is a woman’s no so often treated as the beginning of a negotiation rather than the end of a conversation?

How much of what these men are responding to is actually me, and how much is what I represent—a Black American woman associated with education, mobility, financial security, and possibility?

What happens when genuine attraction becomes entangled with aspiration?

And what would the wives say if they were the ones telling these stories?

I do not have the answers.

I am still collecting data.

And I am still wandering.