When a Man Cornered Me — I Saw What Most Straight Men Don’t

What two gay men taught me about predatory power and the bravery to simply exist

Photo by alek dortch on Unsplash

One of them tried to buy me by playing savior, while the other risked his life just to tell me I was cute.

My meeting with one was in a bookstore in 2016, while the other was on Facebook in 2023. Both in Nigeria.

If you already guessed that the one who cornered me was from the bookstore, you would be correct. But his leverage came from more than just physical presence. And for me, a man used to doing the chasing, I finally understood something heterosexual women often speak of.

“I can tell what he wants from me from the way he’s looking at me,” women would say, and I used to think they were exaggerating. Then I met the bookstore man.

For the record, my eventual fallout with him wasn’t about his orientation. It was about his methods.

He started by mediating my dispute with the store owner, who’d served someone behind me on the queue first. Then came the hand on my shoulder as he insisted on paying my bills. Then the ride back to campus, the offer that I move in with him, and two days later, he was talking about how my “charisma” must be winning me girls. How I must be “fucking them like crazy.”

The first time I shared this experience on Medium, most people accused me of inviting it — by revealing too much through my words and body language. They said I should have known where he was headed and nipped it in the bud.

Granted, I might have suspected it somewhere along the line. Not because of what I revealed, but his need to touch me at every whim. I just didn’t think it would be a problem: if suspicion became reality, a respectful “You know I’m not into it” would be enough.

Prior to meeting him, I’d always related to friends I assumed were gay, and while none had ever made a pass at me, I knew that line would be enough if they did. Respectful. Polite. What are friends for, if not to find ways not to hurt each other’s feelings?

But I was not friends with the man from the bookstore. We had barely known each other for fifteen minutes when he started talking about how I’d be the perfect replacement for an old flatmate. “I like clean guys,” he said. “And you look clean, intelligent, calm…”

His slick Mercedes SUV cruised into the university community as he listed my so-called redeeming qualities — qualities he’d pieced together on his own. All I’d revealed before joining him in his car was that I, a fresh master’s student, was heading to campus to fix my accommodation issue. He was an old PhD student, heading to claim his research grant, and now positioned to be my redeemer, my savior.

Did I truly encourage him by accepting his touch, his money, and his ride? Or was he always going to cross that line?

For the record, my fallout with him wasn’t about his orientation. It was about his methods. But then again, was that the only way he could see, given that homosexuality is criminalized in Nigeria? Perhaps he felt he needed a pretext to force a connection.

Whatever the reason, I knew this was no longer about help when he called the following day and practically tried to blackmail me for not “checking in” about his grant. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to check in… to keep my mind excited about our plan?”

That was when I knew I couldn’t go on with the plan, but I still needed to be polite about it. The opportune moment came two days later when, over yet another phone call, he made that incredulous statement about my “charisma” and what I do to girls.

This was a man no less than 15 years my senior. Our relationship, if anything, was just as rigid as the ones I had with my uncles and teachers. And yet, he wanted to talk sex stuff.

He wasn’t having it when I pointed out how inappropriate the conversation felt, arguing that it was a normal question men should ask each other. So — maybe trying to spin it back to him — I said his question was as inappropriate as me asking if he was a homosexual.

I thought I’d crafted my answer carefully, hoping he’d see I meant no judgment. Instead, he snapped, calling me an ingrate and himself “the finger trying to feed me.”

Years of hiding may have taught him that manipulation was safer than honesty.

He said he was a pastor, an authority figure in charge of students in the city, a figure with an “unblemished reputation,” and he dared me to go and verify it. But as he went on and on, the “kind mentor” aura disappeared, and all I heard was panic.

My business with him ends with me hanging up and him calling back to no avail.

I don’t think his sexuality caused his behavior. I think years of hiding may have taught him that manipulation was safer than honesty. That’s not an excuse. But it’s context.

Which was why the second man left me completely floored.

This young man, let’s call him W, was someone whose path and mine crossed because of the art of writing. He had a way of cutting through the bullshit and baring his soul, no embellishments.

Our interactions were entirely on Facebook. In the beginning, it was just me reading his works and giving my thoughts, until eventually he requested I share mine. Then one day during one of our chats, he told me he’d gone through my profile, that I looked “cute,” and that he “wanted me.”

Now, to put this into perspective: the bulk of W’s social media content is about the horrors of living in homophobia, showing that it’s more than just “differences in opinions.”

Opinions do not leave people bleeding on buses.

One minute he’s bleeding from the nose, jabbed on a bus for his mannerisms. The next, bruised by a hookup who ganged up with another to rob him. Then he’s buying drinks for neighbors who call him “fresh” — gestures he describes as survival rituals, warming up potential helpers for the day someone finally comes for him.

And now, he was in my inbox asking for my most recent photo. I sent it, and he wanted a video call.

“You do look really cute,” he said once my face popped up.

“Thanks, and you too,” I said.

“But you know how I mean, right?”

“No o! I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come off it,” he argued. “You know what I’m talking about. Or are you going to report me to the police for flirting with you?”

I could never do that. But I couldn’t bring myself to say so. What I wanted was to ask a question of my own, the one that always came to mind whenever I saw photos of his bloodied body:

Why wouldn’t you just stop being gay? I wondered. You’re going to get lynched one of these days.

But I was always fortunate to recover quickly enough to realize that asking that of him was the same as asking him to stop being himself. To stop living.

To ask that of him, however well-intentioned, is to erase his agency. In fact, it indirectly sides with those who reduce homophobia to a mere difference in opinion.

After all, opinions do not leave people bleeding on buses.

Even if you do not understand or agree with the orientation of another, the most you should do is say no to their advances, as civilly and as politely as possible — just as I did to him on that video call that day.

“Yes, I know what you mean,” I said, finally, then added, “But you know I’m not into men, right?”

“Just shooting my shot,” he said, and we both laughed.

For long after the call ended, I couldn’t stop thinking about all the risk he had to endure just to shoot his shot. A straight person like myself only risks the embarrassment of rejection when shooting a shot.

But for W, it was far beyond a bruised ego. Jail time. Jungle justice. Blood and bones. The cost of his life.

And yet, he continues to try. Continues to bleed. Continues to live.

I always think about him whenever I’m bedeviled by life’s never-ending obstacles. If he can keep “shooting his shot” and living openly in a world that punishes him for it, I have no excuse to stop pushing forward.

The “pastor” offered material safety while erasing my personhood. But W offered nothing — only vulnerability, honesty, and the immediate acceptance of my “no.” And I felt more than safe.