Are you his little secret?

When TLC released their one time hit song, “you are my little secret and that’s how we should keep it,” we all sang along to it little knowing that at one point in our lives, the song would bring grief to women when they discovered that very men out there have mastered the art of deceiving them into thinking that they are the only women in the said men’s lives when in reality, they have a string of others hanging around them

The sad thing is that it’s not easy to know if you are someone’s little secret, because these so-called single men have mastered the art of deceit. So how do you go about finding out whether you are being deceived? Read on for the tell tale signs that are a clear indication that he is keeping you as his dirty little secret.

You can only reach him at his convenience

If every so often you try calling your man but are rarely able to reach him, yet he calls you back moments later with the usual excuse that he was in a meeting or was somehow tied up or if he has discovered your pattern of calling him so that when he knows you are about to call, he sends you a text message saying he will call later, then you have to start getting curious.

I am not implying that this is a clear indication that he could be up to some hanky panky with another woman, what I simply mean is that if you can only reach your man at his convenience, then most likely he is busy with some other woman as Njeri Baraka, 32, discovered. “I had been dating this guy for seven months, and everything seemed perfect.

My only concern was that I could rarely reach him on his cellphone especially after 8pm.

Whenever I called, he wouldn’t pick up but would call me back after a few minutes. I discovered that something was fishy in our relationship he would ignore some phone calls when he was with me.

I became curious one time when we were chilling out on a Saturday afternoon at my place and James got calls that he kept ignoring.

When he went to the shops to get cigarettes and forgot his phone which had fallen out of his pocket onto the seat, I clicked on a text that was fresh in the inbox.

Imagine my shock when the text read “hey sweety, trying to reach you wassup! Please come, home there is a rat in the kitchen and I’m scared to bits. Just sacrifice the soccer game and come now, I’ll make it worth your while, Please.”

This immediately explained why in the last two months James always had excuses when I suggested that I stop by his place.

I hadn’t realised that there was actually another woman involved, I have never been that hurt in my life and felt used.

When he came back from getting his cigarettes I told him that I never wanted to see him again, He was shocked that I had discovered his game but I let him go and now I am very careful with men who only want to date you at your house.” Adds Njeri.

He says he doesn’t celebrate his birthday or Valentine’s but you don’t see him on those days

Now if the man in your life is the kind of guy who insists that he is not the lovey dovey type, the kind of guy who doesn’t celebrate birthdays, Valentine’s day’s, but hardly do you ever get a chance to spend that particular day with him, then you have reason to be concerned.

Elizabeth Munyasa, 31, got the shock of her life on her boyfriend’s birthday.

She had hoped to take him out for dinner and dancing and wanted to surprise him but he insisted that he did not celebrate birthdays; he was too tired and had some deadlines to beat.

“I decided that since it was a Friday night, I might as well go out with my girlfriends instead. You can imagine the rude awakening I got when the DJ dedicated a song to birthday boy Mike in the house. My heart started racing and I had to see who exactly that birthday boy was, you can imagine my shock when I saw my Mike holding hands with some other lady; he was also with some of his friends whom I had never met before and they looked like the perfect quorum. I was so hurt I could not bring myself to face him. I went back to my girlfriends too embarrassed to even tell them what I had witnessed. I drunk myself silly and my girls had to carry me home. Angry at him I ripped the shirt I had bought him for his birthday to pieces and decided it was over between me and him. After dating Mike for a year, I thought I knew him, but looking back, I see clearly that the only thing I ever got from him was sex. I was the woman none of his close friends knew. I realized that we hardly ever met outside my house or his and when we did, we always had other people with us.”

You find signs of a party at his house which you didn’t know about

When a man decides that you are part of his life, then there is no way he can throw a party without inviting you to his house, unless of course there is something to hide.

And please don’t be lied to, normal men don’t throw parties that are full of fellow men and no women, ask any man.

So when you pop by during the week and find stocks of leftover food and lots of empty bottles then know that there was a party that you were just not invited to, and ask yourself why you were not there before asking him.

Patricia Mumelo, 27, found herself in such a situation “My boyfriend Kobia who I had dated for almost two years invited me over to his place one weekday night, he told me to brace myself for an interesting evening because he had lots of booze/ I was excited that he had bought alcohol to entertain me but got disappointed when I got to his place and the alcohol was leftover from what looked like a very serious party. I jokingly asked him if he had thrown a party and he told me that he had bought a few of his male friends some drinks over the weekend. I kept my suspicions to myself, but confirmed them when the next weekend he said he was going out of town on business, on for us to bump into each other at a nyama choma joint on the way to Magadi. I had gone with my colleagues from work, and he with his three friends each with a girlfriend and one spare whom I assumed was his date. Since none of his friends knew me, I pretended I had never seen him in my life. I decided he was not worth causing a scene for. He called me the next day but I told him it was officially over,” concludes Patricia.

You cannot track him down on weekends

Most men who keep you as his little secret are very hard to track down on weekends.

If you get to see them, it is either early in the morning, or evening, but after 9pm, the guy always makes excuses about meeting up with his boys.

He always knows how to play his game and before you discover that he is taking you for a ride, you are head over heels in love. During the week, he will make time for you, take you for a movie, dinner and to his place or yours, but that is about it.

What you need to realise if that is the scenario in your case is that you are his little secret which he can only hang out with during the week because at the weekend, the real woman in his life takes over.

If you are consoling yourself that once in a while you get to see him at the weekends, then I need to point out clearly to you that on those rare weekends, his real woman has either gone to visit her folks or she has gone for some work-related retreat. Read the signs to avoid getting hurt.

His sister looks at you with pitying eyes

As I said earlier these men know how to play their games.

They may want to make you feel like you are special and that it is only you in their lives by introducing you to some of his siblings, but learn to read in between the lines.

If you spot his sister looking at you with pitying eyes then think twice about the relationship.

Connie Kabinge, 29, had dated Jose for six months when she finally got to meet his sister.

“she was such an adorable lady but there was something about the way she looked at me, it was like she was battling between telling me to run for the hills and stop seeing her dangerous brother and being loyal to her brother. Of course, she chose her brother over me and after months of dating Jose, I discovered that he had a girlfriend who he was engaged to. She was a doctor and had just been posted to Malindi for a year. I realised that he was just using me to pass time until his girlfriend came back. This explained a lot of things about the relationship that I had chosen to ignore. We would rarely hang out together in public. Our idea of having fun was staying indoors or driving out of town. I dropped him, brooded for a while and moved on with life.” Says a confident Connie.

You only know one of his friends – one year down the line

If you find yourself in a situation where one year down the line, you only know one of his friends or none, then know that he’s using you and has someone else tucked somewhere who is know by his friends and relatives.

As women we always try to make excuses for the men in our lives and if one year down the line you have only met one of his friends then you argue that he is a very busy man.

Well, sister, the truth is that most of these men who keep you out of sight have a strategy. They always pretend to be on the move, with the most unpredictable schedule such that when they spend that one day a week with you, it is a major sacrifice on their part.

They will call you at odd times to see if you can hook up, of course at your place and after some hanky panky they will smoke a cigarette and be on their way out, they will keep in touch because they don’t want to spoil one of their available hanky panky options.

Once in a while, they will treat you out to drinks at a very secluded posh bar where you are not likely to bump into people you know.

Those my sister, are clear indications that you are his little secret and no matter what you would like to call it, you are just that and nothing more.

It is therefore upon you to decide whether two can play the game, get what you want and enjoy it, but if your heart is getting heavy just reading this and realising that he has been taking you for a ride, then you better run as far as your legs can carry you because these are the very selfish men who will leave you and marry someone else without as much as a backward glance.