Hudson got on Facebook. And he started messaging as many people as possible. He didn’t care about age or religion, just anyone over 18, could breathe and overseas who might be interested in a relationship.
In his search for a new relationship, Hudson messaged over 150 random people on Facebook.
My friend Hudson was eagerly searching for a love that could transform his life. He made a few connections, but most women weren’t interested in a long-distance relationship with a guy all the way in rural Small City, Apolika. So, Hudson struck out again and again until one significant day he found Flora
Flora was a woman Hudson met through Facebook. And he just loved how floral her name sounded, Flora. She had kind eyes and a warm smile, and the time difference wasn’t the only obstacle. There was another distance too.
She was born in 1949. She just turned 73 years of age this past September.
A 73-year-old woman wasn’t what Hudson expected. Most of the guys at the gym who had been successful had ended up with wives closer to their own age. But while Hudson had been casting a wide net in search of a relationship that could change his life, he was also open to meeting a new friend. So, he didn’t overthink the age thing with Flora. And she was calm about it too. In her very first message, she roasted him about how young he was. Hudson was 21 or, 22 at the time
Hudson was young, but he was a good listener. Before long, Flora was telling him all about her life. She’d gone through a lot of heartbreak too. She’d been married five times and had six children. And after one of her husbands had become abusive, she needed to get away. That’s how she ended up in Rubavu, Rwanda. She made the best of it, started her own food business, and was moving on with her life. She wanted to know about Hudson too.
For Hudson, this thing that began as a friendship was starting to grow. He saw a potential for a romantic relationship. But Flora struggled to see it, even though he felt like she wanted to. The age difference was too much.
I have to say, when Hudson first told me about Flora, I had questions too. Like I wondered, was my friend now a bona fide romance scammer or something? Because the way that he was looking for love gave him the silhouette of a romance scammer.
Scammers ask people questions about their personal lives and send sweet messages. They try to earn trust before stealing your money and disappearing. But what Hudson was telling me about his relationship made me believe that this wasn’t that. Hudson never asked for money. And he was putting in a lot of time with Flora
Flora and Hudson kept talking, developing a love ethic where they both showed up for each other.
Flora asked about where Hudson stayed. And he told her he shared one room with three other people. And most nights, he would have to stand outside the house to talk to her so he wouldn’t disturb his roommates. This is common. Most people in Small City live on roughly UGX 5000 a day. Hudson had been making a little money baking bricks and working on people’s gardens, but it wasn’t enough to get by.
Hearing about how Hudson was struggling made Flora upset. So she decided to start sending him money. 200,000 Rwanda Francs covered rent for the entire year at a place all his own. She also paid for his grandma’s funeral. It wasn’t a huge amount, just what she could spare here and there, but it made her feel happy to help him.
A lot of relationships involve some kind of transaction. Each person brings what they can offer to the mix. With Flora, it’s money, at least partly. And with Hudson, it’s his time and care. When I think about the contours of their relationship, the fact that they’ve never met in person and live hundreds of kilometers apart, not to mention the difference in age and experience, it makes me a little uneasy.
If I’m being real, my worry for Hudson isn’t just about whether or not he’s attracted to Flora. There’s a darker place my mind wanders off to. It’s hard not to see their relationship in the context of the exploitation that’s happening in most parts of the world right now.
I don’t think that’s what’s happening with Hudson and Flora. But there are enough similarities here to make me question. And if half of me worried that my friend was being taken advantage of, the other half worried for Flora. Because Hudson talked so openly about what he hoped to get out of their relationship.
When I tried to get Flora’s side of the story. The few WhatsApp calls I made to her went unanswered. Messages, too were ignored I think. She called me back almost 2 weeks later. And we talked for a while. I didn’t know what to expect. But Flora was very open about her life. She told me more about her work running a restaurant chain, the grandson who married a brown-skinned lady the family didn’t approve of, and then, of course, we talked about her feelings for Hudson.
“I love Hudson. I can’t even understand how I fell in love with Hudson. Because I’ve never dealt with a young man. I was just talking to him as a friend.”
Flora can be a little hard to understand sometimes. But I have to say, despite that, she doesn’t come off as the kind of person who doesn’t have agency over her life. At 73, she can clearly hold her own.
My mother definitely taught me better than to comment on a woman’s age. But I will say, in Flora’s profile picture, she has a very youthful energy about her. In our conversation, she confirmed all of what Hudson said about their relationship and how intense their connection was from the start.
Flora said that it had been a while since men her age gave her a chance. It had been more than 10 years since her previous relationship. And with Hudson, she felt like she’d found something real. But some of the things she told me about her life were head-spinning. Like a violent fight with one of her adult kids and how, in a separate incident in 2002, she was convicted of child abuse and was sentenced to 2 and 1/2 years in prison. It made me worry for Hudson a little bit. Like, does he really know this person?
When I told him about what Flora said, he told me he wasn’t aware of any of that stuff. But he didn’t find that alarming. He said, after all the good she’s done for him, he’s not going to turn his back on her now.
Hudson got what he was looking for after six months of a long-distance relationship and countless marathon phone sessions. Flora agreed to marry him. The initial plan was for her to go to Small City, but her doctors told her the travel would be bad for her health. So, instead, they decided to bring Hudson to the Rubavu, Rwanda
Hudson went ahead and applied for a visitor’s visa to Rwanda. Next up was an interview with a woman at the Rwandan High Commission.
The interviewer asked a lot of questions, carefully grilling him about every detail of his plan. Hudson was nervous, but he was prepared. He knew Flora’s address by heart. He felt like he’d answered every question right, until the end when the interviewer looked up at him and said no
I wasn’t surprised that Hudson didn’t get it. It’s always hard for someone like Hudson, someone without a job or a house to tie them to their home country, to get a visitor’s visa to Rwanda. Officials are afraid that people like that, basically poor people, won’t have a reason to return.
It’s messed up. And I feel for Hudson. In an instant, all the physical and emotional labor he’d invested to get to this point was wiped away, erased by a stranger behind a desk. I’ve known a lot of folks in Small City who’ve been denied a visa. And Hudson responded to his rejection the way they all eventually do, with optimism. What other choice is there in a situation like this?
After the failed interview at the embassy, Hudson and Flora tried to regroup and come up with a different plan. But her health worsened. Then one day last year, Flora didn’t answer the phone when Hudson called. For weeks, he couldn’t reach her, until finally, she messaged him on Facebook.
She told him she’d been in the hospital. At one point, her heart stopped. It took them eight minutes to revive her. Once she got out of the hospital, Hudson says, she was more isolated than before and her life felt more difficult.
Talking to Hudson, I can tell that he’s genuinely troubled by what Flora’s been going through. It’s also true that since the downturn in her health, his circumstances have gotten worse. He says without the money she was sending, he got evicted.
He doesn’t always have money for food. But he insists even though Flora has stopped supporting him, he still feels responsible for her.
The way Hudson is talking about Flora here, it reminds me of a business person talking about sunk costs, someone who is reluctant to give up on something they’ve invested in for a long time. It brings me right back to my initial worry. What does Hudson actually feel? And what is he convincing himself he feels?
Flora one time asked me whether I think Hudson loves and, honestly, it was a hard question to answer.
“I think Hudson loves you the way you love him, if that makes sense”
“Do you think Hudson really loves me?”
I’ve asked him the same question, Flora. I’ve asked him the same question up, left, down, right, and center and he says, “Yes.” And I’m not going to be– I’m not going to lie to you. I didn’t believe him either because of the age difference, because of the generational difference, because of the distance. So I didn’t believe him.
But he keeps saying “yes.” He keeps saying, he swears up and down that he loves you. So I kind of have no choice but to believe him.
Ultimately, I don’t think it’s my place to decide whether or not two people love each other. That’s a call only they get to make, the way everyone else gets to. But I do know both Hudson and Flora have been through plenty of heartbreak. And I know heartbreak is just love without a place to call home.
The fact that two lonely hearts were struggling to find that home on damn near opposite ends of the Rift Valley, both from two vastly different cultures and generations, says a lot about how hard it can be for folks to love and be loved in this world. For us, there’s a whole host of historical, political, and economic forces that can send our search for partnership down wayward paths. And after years of wandering, Hudson and Flora felt like they’d finally landed on something. But what I want for them is what I want for a lot of us– ease.
Hudson deserves to be in a relationship that’s free from people’s judgment. Maybe that comes with a partner closer to his age, in Small City or anywhere else. And Flora deserves a relationship where she doesn’t have to worry about whether someone’s using her or she’s loved. What they have now is not simple. It’s not easy. But then again, when has love ever been that?