10 Nigerian Women on The Male-Centered Women in Their Lives

There’s nothing wrong with loving men or being excited about a new relationship. But when a friend’s entire world revolves around men to the point where friendships, boundaries, safety, and even their own goals take a back seat, it can become a huge problem that cannot be ignored.

In this article, we asked ten women to share the moments they realised their friends were too male-centred.

1. “She Missed My Birthday to Meet a Man for the First Time” — Chloe*, 30

My ex-best friend is a pick-me who is very male-centred. At first, I hardly paid attention to it because I didn’t really think it was a bad thing until it got worse. Every time we hung out, our conversations revolved around men she was attracted to, or thought might be attracted to her. Whenever I try to steer the conversation back to something else, she gets irritated, and in the end, I let her keep talking about what she wants to talk about.

She also had a habit of standing me up at our hangouts just because she wanted to see a guy she had barely known for a week, and if it didn’t go well, it was still my house she would come to rant at. That kind of thing was exhausting. In the end, my breaking point was when she missed my birthday just to go to another state to meet a man for the first time. What pissed me off most was that she expected me just to accept it, and I refused to do that. Good riddance, honestly.

2. “When I Tried to Intervene, He Beat Me Too” — Eghosa*, 24

In my second year of university, I befriended Teni*, a third-year student, and our friendship was something I truly appreciated, even though some of her actions were something I would attribute to her being a male-centred friend. I don’t know if it was a trauma thing, but Teni loved to date and spin the block with abusive guys. The more emotionally or physically abusive they were, the more Teni loved them, and this was very concerning because she didn’t want to hear reason at all. She cut off most of her friends because those ones were trying to tell her that it wasn’t cute that she kept dating men who disrespected her in every way they could.

Out of fear of her cutting me off, I didn’t tell her the same thing, but then one summer, when we were out of school, I went to her apartment to find her boyfriend actively beating her, and when I tried to intervene, he beat me too. That was actually the first time someone had ever beaten me in my life, and I ended up at the nearest clinic for that. I thought that the state of our bodies would have been enough to convince Teni to dump the man, so imagine my surprise when weeks after the incident, I opened her story to see her in Dubai with said boy. No one had to tell me to block her immediately.

3. “She Would Invite Me to Places to Scope Out Men” — Jackie*, 28

I thought male-centred friends were a concept that was created by the patriarchy to cause rifts between women until I actually befriended one. I didn’t even notice that she was male-centred until she would do this thing where she would invite me to places so that she could scope out men. I didn’t even mind because in my head, nothing matters as long as I’m hanging out with my friend, but it became really annoying when she would barely pay attention to our conversations at those hangouts, just because she was focused on a guy who caught her attention.

It even became more annoying when she would get really mad at me if the guy showed interest in me instead. It didn’t even make sense to me because I’m a lesbian, and she was aware, so I didn’t understand why she would become pissy and give me silent treatment for weeks. For months, I did my best to understand her, but then, after another bout of silent treatment, I realised that if our situations were reversed, I would never do that to her, so I cut her off.

4. “She Took Out Our Savings Money For Her Boyfriend” — Alia*, 40

My ex-friend and I had a really big plan to own any kind of business together, so right from the time we decided, we would be saving little by little. This was going well until she got herself a new boyfriend, and it was like her entire brain rewired. I didn’t mind the fact that she had a boyfriend, but she stepped up to this level of male-centeredness that I’d never seen in my life. She had always been, but that was concerning. She began to forget herself, her hopes, and her dreams just to satisfy him, so to speak.

Around three months after she started dating the guy, she stopped saving for the business, and I actually didn’t mind because, honestly, I thought she was just short on cash. What I didn’t know was that she was giving her boyfriend all her money.

One day, I received a debit alert from the account we’d both been saving in and saw that 80% of the money had been taken out. We both had access to the account, so the first thing I did was call her to ask what was going on. In a very casual tone, she told me that she’d withdrawn the money because her boyfriend needed it desperately, and she had no other option. After she said that, I hung up the phone and refused to see her for weeks. I do not mind her taking out the money, but she didn’t even ask for my permission. She just woke up one day and decided to because of her boyfriend. That’s not acceptable.

5. “She Told Him I Was Talking to Him for His Money” — Ola*, 25

My friend, Ama*, exposed her male-centeredness by going behind her friends’ backs to talk shit about them to their prospective talking stages or situationships so that she could be the one having a thing with them. Even though we usually joked that all of us were unlucky in love, except Ama, because of the talking stages that randomly ghost us, we didn’t think that she was actively stealing our talking stages’ contact numbers to sabotage us. We didn’t even really find it suspicious that she would go on dates and not show us her date’s pictures because we always just believed that she’s a really private person.

It wasn’t until one day that our other friend got sent a picture of her former situationship with Ama on a date before we all realised. I even tried to be rational and argued that maybe Ama didn’t know, but then I messaged an ex in a talking stage and asked why he ghosted me. He said he hadn’t planned on doing that until Ama told me that I was talking to other men, and I just wanted to talk to him for his money.

The other girls also began messaging the guys who had ghosted them, and all their reasons for ghosting led back to Ama. We didn’t even have a loud confrontation with her; we just sent screenshots of the guys admitting that Ama told them one thing or another to our group chat and tagged her. After she did that, we collectively blocked her and avoided her anytime we saw her.

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6. “She Would Joke at My Expense Just to Amuse Men” — Amirah*, 35

My former best friend was every definition of male-centred. She’s the kind of person who would come for a hangout just because of the boys who would be there, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation with her that didn’t end up leading to a man she fancied.

If men do not approach her at events, she will make it my problem by talking about it throughout our ride home. If men approached her, she would make jokes at my expense just to amuse them, even though I’d told her over and over again that I didn’t really appreciate it.

I believe it was when I became uninterested in going on hangouts with her because I knew she would make the experience uncomfortable that I knew I had to end our friendship.

7. “Someone Like That Could Kill Us Over a Man” — Promise*, 49

My former friend had a habit of liking only the men her friends liked. They were never attractive to her until she saw her friend talking to the guy, and then she approached the guy, and because a lot of the women in our friend group weren’t confrontational, they just thought it was something silly she would grow out of. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop.

She would even try it with our boyfriends, and there were times when a fight broke out because of her actions. If you asked us why we didn’t cut her off even when she was doing all that rubbish, we wouldn’t have an answer. I guess it’s because we all valued our friendship and didn’t know how to push anyone out of the circle. It wasn’t until one of us got married, and she tried to approach that person’s husband, that we finally decided to have a talk. It was obvious that she didn’t respect our friendship and just acted selfishly. Someone like that could kill us over a man, and we were not going to risk that. We had to cut her off for our sake.

8. “When She Gets a Boyfriend, It Becomes a ‘My Man, My Man’ Affair” — Cynthia*, 24

Every time my friend started dating someone new, she would disappear for weeks. She would ignore our texts, messages, and requests to hang out simply because she was interested in the person. When she comes back online, she will start talking about this person immediately instead of even apologising for disappearing.

From the moment she gets a boyfriend, it becomes a ‘my man, my man’ affair, and God forbid anything happens to her friends during that period, because she will actually not care. When I fell really sick to the point that I was in the hospital for weeks, she didn’t so much as text or visit because it was at that time she was dating a new guy. I didn’t even think twice about ending our friendship because I would never do something nasty like that to her.

9. “She Didn’t Believe Her Boyfriend Assaulted Me” — Ella*, 27

My sister is male-centred in the sense that she always takes the man’s side. Even if he’s the one at fault, she would take his side. Our dad was not kind to our mum, and yet she took his side every time his name came up. When her best friend told her about her partner cheating on her, my sister didn’t even comfort her before asking her what she did to make her partner go out and cheat.

When her boyfriend grabbed my ass, I told her about it in the hopes that she would see that she was dating a creep, but she didn’t even believe me. She tried to gaslight me, even, and asked why her boyfriend would even want to do something like that to me. She’s now married to said boyfriend, and although I can’t cut her off because she’s family, I’ve taken a huge distance away from her.

10. “We Got Chased By a Man’s Dog as We Were Leaving” — Tega*, 27

My friend lives to please men. I wish I were exaggerating, but I’m not. She’s so male-centred, it’s infuriating. I give her so much grace because I’ve seen her mother, so I know where she gets that male-centeredness from. I can’t count how many times she has left us at a club just because a guy was showing interest and she liked it.

I also can’t count how many times she has called us to come and pick her up from a random stranger’s house. There was even a time that we got chased by a man’s dog as we were leaving the house, and I can’t lie, that was really traumatising. She has put us in a lot of precarious positions because of a man she’s involved with, and honestly, I am really this close to ending our friendship.

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