Learning to be single

Slightly over a year since the couple broke off their engagement, Omulangira Suuna’s ex-fiancee talks to David Tumusiime about her determination and motivation to spend some time alone out of a relationship

Pherrie Kimbugwe has a confession many girls in Uganda can understand, “I’ve never been single my entire life. I’ve always been with someone.” Kimbugwe is speaking a year after her high profile relationship with musician Omulangira Ssuuna (O.S) came to a screeching halt in February 2011 and forced her to make dramatic changes in her life.

It was a three year relationship she could not simply move onto the next one from. It affected her deeply, “It was a very good thing when it was there. We almost made four years but never did quite. We were very close, almost like best friends, we did everything together. But when two people get to a point where they cannot see eye to eye, then you start wasting a lot of each other’s time. If you are smart enough, you are better off just letting it go.”

Was it an attempt at penance that perhaps made Kimbugwe rash to remain single for at least three years? As long as the relationship that had just ended lasted? She sees it this way, “This time around I said, ‘I’m not jumping into another relationship.’ I’m not getting another boyfriend. I’m just spending time as me. Getting to know me, getting to love me. Actually I had stopped loving me. When you are in a relationship, you are so focused on what the relationship is giving, on him, you kind of put yourself on the backburner. That’s what had happened to me.”

Just how life changing was the relationship with O.S to prompt such soul searching in a girl, who works at the ultimate hook up centre of all in Kampala: Guvnor as its Public and Guest relations manager. The relationship had gone beyond “dating”. “We were actually engaged. I will never go through with something unless I know it’s for the best. That is the only reason why I accepted to go through with it. I remember on Valentines Day last year he had done a song for me Love Yo, and I advised him to make it public because it was such a good song.

It was soon after that we decided to officially separate, not break up, but separate. It was meant to be time apart to think things over, but I guess we both realised we should move forward. It’s a decision both of us made.”

Not that being single has been straight-forwardly simple. Kimbugwe reveals, “Even right now it’s very hard to be single. There’s always someone asking you out and promising you this and that. And it gets hard to keep saying ‘No’, because sometimes you like some of them.” She has in fact taken a liking to someone as she says, “I’m very single but my heart is already taken. His passion is football and he is currently out of the country doing that. It gets harder everyday not to want to be his girl.”

In spite of this, she is determined to remain single much longer because of the insights that have flooded her. “When my previous relationship ended, after a while all of a sudden I started wondering why I had been in that relationship. I hardly had any self-growth or self-development. Before, it was us; first thing I thought about was us. I kept making all these sacrifices on what I wanted for what was better for us. I’m happier and I’m freer now; I feel liberated.”

Not that Kimbugwe has cut men out of her personal life completely. “Most of my free time is spent with my best friend, who most people have mistaken to be my boyfriend. We are both in the entertainment industry doing similar jobs. Sometimes we will go and watch a band, we have to go to other clubs and compare them to how our clubs are doing.

Even when I’m hanging out and having fun, I’m actually working because I’m going to another club to see what the club is like, to see how their campus nights are, how I can compare them with what I’m doing in my club or how I can improve . So my nights are normally spent doing that. People might think I’m a party animal, club hopping from one club to another, but I’m actually doing work, I’m doing my research.”

In addition to spending time with self, the free time away from the demands of a relationship should, she hopes, ease her crazy work routine.