Rise of Facebook in Cameroon Creates Dating Risks

BUEA, CAMEROON – Laura Nkwenti, 22, says she permanently deactivated her facebook account after getting her heart broken while dating on the social networking site.

“Whenever I hear the name facebook, my soul weeps,” the gentle and soft-spoken university student says.

Nkwenti, a geography student at the University of Buea in southwestern Cameroon, says she became crazy about facebook after a friend got engaged through a facebook relationship. She immediately opened an account and started receiving friendship requests from men who were interested in her.

“I found love in the words of the most handsome guy I have ever come across,” she says, moving from the bed where she was sitting to a chair.

Nkwenti says he had all the qualities of a man she would have liked to marry.

“He was handsome, tall, ebony black, calm in his speech, romantic on [the] phone and rich,” she says. “He works with one of [the] oil companies in Douala. I fell in love, so in love. To speak the truth, I had never been so in love.”

She says he used to call her for two-hour phone conversations, despite the expensive cost. They grew so fond of each other in less than one month of meeting on facebook that he proposed to marry her on the phone. They still had not met each other in person.

“I was so excited on that day of his proposal, I called my friends and told them about the good news,” she says. “I called my mother and told her about the wonderful news. I went as far as buying drinks for myself and a few friends to celebrate this victory. Little did I know, there is more to it than meets the eye.”

Nkwenti says her “baby,” as she fondly called him, made a plan to visit her in Buea, the capital of Cameroon’s Southwest region. She spent money that her parents had sent her to care for herself at school to prepare for his visit.

“If was fun,” she says. “I felt continuous warmth running through my soul. We went out, had drinks – soft drinks, I am sure he wanted to keep his sanity for the night – and finally, we retired to my room.”

She says he spent one night with her.

“We had sex twice without condoms,” Nkwenti says. “He told me we were going to be husband and wife after all. Then, very early in the morning, he left for Douala since he had to go to work by 7 a.m.”

Nkwenti says that when he left, her love for him increased. But then, she started wondering why he hadn’t worn a condom. She decided to text him to ask.

She says he told her never to call him again. She tried several times to call to apologize, but he laughed at her and told her that their relationship was over.

“This story saddens my heart so dearly,” says Nkwenti, who thought they were going to get married.

She stopped dating for a while, until one of her friends told her that “to mend a broken heart is to love again.” She met another man on facebook. But this time, she says she decided to take it slowly with him.

After about three months of facebook communication, they exchanged numbers. She says he called her at least three times a day, checking in on whether she’d had breakfast, lunch and dinner.

“He would even call me to find out whether I need[ed] his help in anything,” she says.

Nkwenti says they communicated by phone for nearly two months before the guy fixed a face-to-face date in 2011.

“He invited me to a bar called Las Vegas,” she says. “I dressed up very well on that day and got to Las Vegas drinking spot. When I got there, I couldn’t find him. I called several times, but his number wasn’t going through.”

She says she noticed a group of boys sitting at a table drinking and laughing as she stood there trying to reach her date on the phone. She suspects her date was among the guys making fun of her, so she never spoke to him online again.

“About a week later, I passed around Las Vegas drinking spot,” she says. “Surprisingly, the name of the bar had changed from Las Vegas to Facebook. Something tells me my story has something to do with the change of name.”

Marceline, who declined to give her last name, became the owner of Facebook bar in 2011.

“I bought Las Vegas bar from its owner and changed its name to Facebook bar,” she says.

Marceline says a group of young men who were regular customers suggested that she name the bar after facebook because it was a leading social network site that every young person wanted to belong to. Naming the bar Facebook would attract young people, they told her.

“Facebook bar became one of the most popular bars in this locality,” she says.

Meanwhile, Nkwenti is staying away from facebook. She says she deactivated her account and never plans to reactivate it again.

The rise of facebook in Cameroon is changing dating practices. While some young women say online boyfriends they’ve found through the new practice of facebook dating are only interested in sexual intercourse, others say it can lead to marriage. Young men, on the other hand, say girls who approach them on facebook are cheap and uninterested in long-term relationships. Psychologists say love can happen online and offline but warn online daters to take their time to get to know their online partners in person before having sexual intercourse with them.

The number of facebook users in Cameroon grew by more than 16 percent during the last six months, with more than 550,000 users currently, according to socialbakers, a social media analytics platform. About 2.85 percent of the country’s population and more than 70 percent of Internet users in Cameroon are on facebook.

Facebook is most popular with Cameroonians ages 18 to 24, which constitute about half of users. Men account for 63 percent of users here, and women make up 37 percent.

Like Nkwenti, Lilian Linonge, a 27-year-old resident of Buea, is also a victim of a failed facebook relationship.

“Facebook is a terrible place to find love, believe me,” she says.

Linonge says she met a lover on facebook who was from Cameroon but living in Sweden.

“When I asked him why he fell in love with me, he told me that he has discovered that I am very intelligent just from the way I write, that I am very caring just from the way we chat,” she says. “He told me he is 41 years old and desperately looking for a girl like me to marry.”

She says he talked about marrying her.

“He told me if I take him serious, he will be coming back to Cameroon in four months’ time to commence marriage arrangements,” she says.

Linonge says that at 27, she was surpassing the socially acceptable age for marriage, so she became interested in him. They exchanged numbers, and she says he called her all the time. They discussed their wedding, and he even talked to her mother about their plans.

She says their wedding plans influenced her decision to do things with him that she was uncomfortable with.

“He introduced me to webcam sex,” she says. “At first, I was uncomfortable about it. I finally became used to it, and we were constantly doing it. I knew he was my husband already even though we had not met physically or marry legally.”

Linonge says their webcam exchanges went on for about two months. He gave her his mother’s and sister’s phone numbers in Cameroon and sent her some money for their wedding plans.

“He sent me 22,000 francs ($45) through MoneyGram, not up to 20 percent of the amount he planned to send,” she says.

Linonge says that the money transfer marked the end of their relationship. He neglected her messages and phone calls, telling her he was busy with work. But his lack of responses continued, and he eventually emailed her to say that he was not ready for marriage.

“I cried my eyes out,” she says. “I did not know how to confront family and friends and explain to them about what happened, but I learned a lesson.”

She cautions other young women considering relationships with people they meet on facebook.

“My fellow women, do not go as low as sharing sex with a guy that you don’t know very well on phone or online,” she says. “It is a risky behavior. You may not be lucky in all cases. You may just find your private parts all over the Internet because of that.”

Emma Ebude, 23, a University of Buea student, says she doesn’t believe in online dating.

“I don’t believe in this whole facebook thing,” she says. “Majority of the guys there are crooks. They are not looking for love. They are looking for fun. When they get it, they quit.”

Ebude says dating should be face-to-face.

But other young women say that dating via facebook can work.

“I met my fiance on facebook,” says Veronica Leke, 24, a University of Buea student. “We are now engaged, and we have one daughter to show for it.”

Leke says when she met her fiance on facebook, she did not take him seriously until he visited her with gifts. They got close to each other and eventually went to see her parents. Her fiance then expressed his desire to marry her to her parents and other family members.

“We have been together for about two years now, and we plan to get married early next year,” she says. “We love each other. Love can happen anywhere.”

Gerry Tega, 22, also a University of Buea student, says he’s currently involved with two relationships through facebook.

“I did not approach these girls,” he says. “They approached me first.”

He says he has been having sexual intercourse with these two girls, but he doesn’t love them because he already has a girlfriend that he loves dearly. He says girls who pursue facebook dating are just cheap girls who look for handsome boys to take advantage of.

“These girls don’t want to see fine boys,” he says. “I can never take them seriously because I believe I am not the only guy that they have talked to. They will obviously have other guys that they have expressed their love to on facebook.”

He says girls should be smarter about pursuing online relationships.

“Girls are the cause of their heartbreaks,” he says. “They fall in love blindly with guys that they have not even seen or known before. They should use their mental faculty wisely. It is meant to be put to use.”

Judith Jena, a psychologist and a social worker at the Ministry of Social Affairs’ regional delegation in Buea, says dating via social media yields mixed results.

“Many people have found happiness from chatting and dating through the social media, and others have had heartbreaks,” she says. “This is because it is always very difficult to know the real people whom you are chatting with. Some are real, while some are fake.”

She says love is complicated but can be more so online.

“Heartbreaks come in all forms of relationships – whether online relationships or offline relationships,” she says. “It is just that with online relationships, it is more complicated because it is like a blind game. You know little or nothing about the person on the other side.”

Jena advises young men and women to take their time to investigate an online suitor before entering a relationship and engaging in sexual intercourse.

“If a guy loves you, he would wait for the right time,” she says.