Nike & Dami Started as University Buddies! The #AdeDam Love Story Will Make You Smile

BNW May 1, 20221 Comment

Today’s love feature will have you smiling from ear to ear. Yes, we know everything that has got to do with love, surely brings out a smile. But today, Nike and Dami take all the cake!

These lovebirds started as university buddies to besties and guess what? Nike had tried to matchmake Dami with someone else! Well, of course love has its own way of doing things and now here we are celebrating the lovebirds and taking in the beauty of their pre-wedding shoot. So how the story switch from trying to matchmake a buddy to spending forever together? Well, the sweethearts give us all the tea and we bet you wouldn’t stop smiling as you read along. Their pre-wedding photos are giving us all the feels and we can’t help but root for these lovers!

Enjoy their pre-wedding shoot and love story below.

How did you two meet?

Nike: Life found me at the University of Ghana in 2010. We had orientation and all the induction activities. There was one class in particular… what was the name of that class – do you remember? It was social studies or something. Something not sciency. Do you remember?

Dami: Yeah I’ve forgotten too.

Nike: Same. Anyway, we were required to do it…

Dami: Academic Writing?

Nike: Yes it was Academic Writing!

Dami: But I think that was in the second semester.

Nike: No but I met you in the first semester!

Dami: I know but we had the class in the second semester.

Nike: (realises Dami is right and unwillingly concedes) Sha… call it Academic Writing. We were split up into different groups in that class and Dami & I ended up being in the same group which went into the class on the same day. This was within the first or the second week. We both knew we were Nigerians so we got talking. We walked all the way from class to our hostel and had this long conversation where we both realised we both had similar journeys. He has wanted to go to the UK and I had wanted to go to the US but somehow, it didn’t work out. We both had a family member that knew about the University of Ghana and our paths met here. We kept talking and realised more and more how our situations were exactly the same, so we really clicked.

Nike: Dami how do you remember us meeting?

Dami: Essentially the same.

Nike: Ah ah nothing different?!

Dami: Ehn naw. You should have let me start (both laughing).

Dami: So as Nike said, that was the first time we met. Naturally, all the Nigerians in the class gravitated toward each other so we were all walking back to our rooms together. At some point, Nike and I were walking together and started talking. We really clicked. For the first time it felt like I met someone who was very similar – someone I found common ground with.

How did you start dating?

Nike: Alright so let’s skip through time. Life happened to us both (*smiles) … the normal life stuff. Through it all, we stayed close. Dami and I would have our catch-up sessions every three months.

Dami: Ah ah not every three months! (both laughing) It wasn’t scheduled!

Nike: Ok ok every 1-3 months. It wasn’t scheduled (laughing) but three months wouldn’t go by where we haven’t caught up. We would still each other of course – we were in the same university and same classes – but we would always have these long catch-up sessions once in a while, where we would discuss everything happening in our lives. All the feelings, the emotions, the bad things, the good things, heartbreaks, non-heartbreaks … everything discussed.

Fast forward to the fourth year…

Nike: So Dami and I had a mutual friend. Both Dami and our friend were recently single so I had devised this plan to match-make them. The three of us were watching a movie (part of my plan) and our friend slept off. At this point, I’ll confess that at some point in our friendship, I had had a crush on Dami but he was seeing someone at the time. Similarly, he had had a crush on me but I was seeing someone else. We just ended up carrying on as best friends. So back to movie night. Our friend had fallen asleep. We stayed up talking and the conversation went from our love for medieval films to life goals, our plans after our medical degrees and our aspirations for our medical careers. It’s strange because everything we talked about that night has come to pass – to God be the glory. That night we talked about how we wanted to do an exchange program somewhere – we had mentioned Canada and Greece. We ended up going to Greece. That night we talked about how we both wanted to do USMLE (The United States Medical Licensing Examination) and residency in the US. By God’s grace, that’s what happened. We talked about how we wanted to use the Kaplan program to study for the exams which is exactly what we did. It was such a random conversation but we both realised we had the same general thoughts in our heads. I don’t know what Dami was thinking but I remember thinking, “Oh my goodness! How is it that we have exactly the same life goals??”. We stayed up the whole night that night, talking. Of course, we caught feelings. We both had things to do the next day at school but we spent the whole night talking. I had never had a conversation where I felt like I had talked about my whole life in its entirety and heard about someone’s whole life in its entirety. To be honest, from there it was history. After that night, it was impossible to ignore that this is my life partner and my soul mate. This was who I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with. I literally felt like God was using a tennis racket and slapping my head saying “if you do not act on this, you are blind” (laughs).

Nike: Oya Dami tell your story.

Dami: Ah ah but you’ve said it all!

Nike: Talk from your own side so Karina can put how you felt!

(Both laughing)

Dami: So between our meeting and how we are now, because of how we clicked… You know when someone is special to you and you have this endearing feeling towards them…

Dami: *pauses*… Ah ah Nike why are you listening so intently to what I’m saying and grinning so hard? Relax! (both laughing)

Nike: Didn’t you listen to me too?!

Dami: No I was on my phone, chill! (both laughing)

Dami: So it felt like she was that friend who I could go to and talk to about everything. It never really felt we were super close but it felt like we could discuss anything with each other. It was on and off catch up conversations at the beginning. Then when we made it to Medical School, that got us closer. We moved from a group of 100-150 Nigerians to just 10 of us in Medical School. Over time, we became each other’s people in Medical school. Our relationship carried on and blossomed. Even in med school, our conversations weren’t as frequent as we would have both liked and that’s where the term “fake bestie” came from. We referred to each other as “fake besties” which was our thing – we felt like we were besties but it didn’t feel complete because we were not in each other faces that often but we were still very open and vulnerable with each other. Completely open and vulnerably… there was really that level of trust. So life went on through our various relationships with other people but we were still very close. As Nike said, it was that night that we got talking about life plans and everything just seemed to be falling in place. Stars were aligning. In one day, it made sense – this is the one and we should definitely move together from here. Thankfully we both did and soon after that, we made it official. It’s been really great from there. We’ve had so many experiences together since then. From Med School in Ghana & graduating together. We went to Nigeria to work for a year (2017/2018). Then went to America together, and wrote our exams. I popped the question and we were engaged (December 2019). We passed our exams and matched as a couple in 2021 which is really a miracle on its own – especially for international medical graduates! (Nike: Oshey!) And now we’re here doing our residency at LSU, about to walk down the alter and say I do.