There are a dozen exciting women I know who are beautiful, funny and outgoing but they lack the requisite wifely demeanor. They hug too close and too much and if you are an insecure prick like me, you will never trust her even with your friends. [Photo/Naijatakeover.com]
BY SILAS NYANCHWANI
5 categories of women available for marriage but with defaults…
Five women sat around a table. They were talking loudly through the din in the club. A bottle of whiskey, I couldn’t figure which one lay horizontally on the table. A dozen brown bottles gave a standing ovation to the seated ladies, if I may call them so. Have I said that it was the tall table and they sat on those long, manly stools? And they were eating ribs, probably goat. Cheerful. Buoyant. One was actually puffing away defiantly.
They were tearing the stubborn meat away, quite deviously and dexterously, laughing throatily and heartily. Boy, they were having a good time. While I had had a few and was a little light- headed, this was a sobering moment. I think I sobered up immediately. Something passed me while I was buried in the deserts in Northern Africa.
That women can meet around a table, order brown bottles and a Viceroy, meat and kachumbari, no less, is one of the most direct attacks on the male being. Later I saw another bunch arriving, crowded in a Probox and shouting. The designated driver was a woman. Actually, they abused us. We could not trade back the insults. We played civil, though I personally felt slapping one of them like thunder. Thank God I am not violent towards women or even men for that matter.
Nonetheless, these are probably our future wives. While I gravitate towards eternal bachelorhood, I can’t rule out yet that I will never marry. Being an ideal man, I still dream I will ever meet a woman with the body and cheerful excitement of Kelly Rowland, playful, intelligent and funny as hell. A fresh pair of legs is an irreducible minimum. Someone wake me up from this stupid dream.
Jokes aside, when you have not dated seriously for a period of time and you are inching closer to the years where aunts would wish to see your kid, just in case something bad happens to you (read death), it becomes a project. Always on the lookout. I don’t know why they always blackmail us with death or why it is always the female relatives who are pushy.
Quick things I have been told about women and marriage lately include; whether I am celibate or not, my future wife is a Vasco Da Gama of beds in the city. As one puts it, ‘Silo, they are eating the D, rather badly.’ Another one says, ‘there is a higher likelihood that we will marry baby mamas or those who have seen it all.’ Yet another one tells me that the ideals that I hold will vanish with age and sure I have been revising the standards I expect of a woman. Currently, there no standards that I hold.
Another one puts it crudely that all I need is a vessel to get my genes out here for posterity. A divorce is an ever-present likelihood or she will cheat. Such is the level of skepticism among my male peers. I am yet to meet a man who will say nice things about marriage, even the married ones. The world has changed, women have changed, and men have changed.
Just recently I was having one for the road with my boy Bon-I at Tribeka and it was crowded and more than half the crowd was women. They looked professional and if in a skirt, wifely- morphologically speaking. I often seem that I was born in wrong times. Honestly, I can’t stand the sight of a drunk woman. I firmly believe that a woman’s place is nowhere near the bar, or where a football match is.
With the exception of Carol Radull, women should be nowhere near a stadium, or restaurant cheering a Premier League team, certainly not Manchester United. I tend to think that women who support Manchester tend to have attitudes and habits like those of their men. Loudly opinionated, chest-thumping, stupidly authoritative and irritatingly annoying.
Undoubtedly, what I thought about marriage one or two years ago, has been realigned with reality; namely women will drink, screw around and will hardly settle in a conforming marriage so I better start dealing with it. The traditional school teacher or nurse who was recommended for men of my tribe are no longer the most viable as they are among the most tough-headed nowadays.
My cousin Patrick tells me that at my age considerations such as beauty are out of the way already. Now I should just train my eyes on anything that will remotely look like one. That is: respect my relatives, merely acknowledge the existence of my male peers and serve them something in their regular visits to the crib and while at it don’t make a fuss if they turn up with smelly feet. But the current available woman falls into any of the following categories and if I have to marry I can’t have it all.
Let us examine the available woman for a man of my caliber.
1. Good, but from the proscribed tribe
Don’t get me wrong, there are actually good women out here. But to me and most of my friends, we just can’t seem to get one from our tribe. Naturally, let us not even pretend, the first call is to a woman from your tribe. There is a lot of wisdom in that. Locally, that is the first compatibility test. Men from Western Kenya (all the three major tribes) are warned and re-warned to steer clear of women from Central Kenya. Statistically, 80% of those marriages hardly function to fruition; you know things like kids, living together to old age until death separates the you. The reasons are the subject of stereotypes and we can’t delve into them here without offending the sensibilities of my readers. But I suppose the marital contempt of Central versus Western is mutual.
But for me I have scarcely gone out with a woman from my tribe. And my best dates so far have been from Central. Some of the best women I know who I could marry are from Central. I am not alone. Most of my friends are in the same situation. They are dating across tribes and they have the finest women you can meet. But for longer term commitments, it is always that shrug that says ‘don’t dare.
Personally, I won’t be deterred by tribe, but I know my folks will certainly ostracize me. And there is something about curses when you go against the will of the folks. Yet no one cares to explain to me why there are so many dysfunctional marriages within my tribe. If a marriage fails and you married outside your tribe, tribe will be the first culprit. But our generation will defy that old n and stupid notions to boot, hopefully for the better.
2. Beautiful but bitchy Any man would go for beauty over behaviour. But even the old songs and proverbs on noticing the rarity of real beauty coined several proverbs that composed songs that lauded behaviour over beauty. It works. Beauty and good conduct rarely make good companions in a female being. A beautiful woman is permanently obsessed about her beauty, is jealousy as hell towards any competition and they have this thing of assuming that beauty is eternal.
So you can marry the looks, but when the looks are gone after 7 years, you will be bored stiff. Very few men have gone for beautiful women when settling for marriage. You will have so much competition and often they can succumb to the pressure to cheat…
3. Exciting but careless There are a dozen exciting women I know who are beautiful, funny and outgoing but they lack the requisite wifely demeanor. They hug too close and too much and if you are an insecure prick like me, you will never trust her even with your friends. Thing with outgoing women, they hardly know the limits. And men who know how to exploit them will always have their way.
An outgoing woman is easily upset and you must always strive to excite her in all manner, yet men in our nature, we like our quiet moment. Even when you are just shutting up to get your inner peace, she presumes that you are sulking. She starts thinking whether it is something she did or said. Consequently, she might end up doing something irrational, to hurt you for hurting her ‘feelings’. And women have never known how to give a corresponding punishment for simple misdemeanor.
4. Average but nagging
The most average looking woman is normally trouble as I argued in my blog some years back. You can find a woman who by looks merits just above average and tolerably acceptable for marriage, but she can be whiny. This is the woman who is notorious for curfews. She will hate your friends, will possibly fall out with your sister, abuse your mother and might refuse to serve your older brother a warm meal.
Average women have this thing of overrating their looks, their intelligence and their tastes. Look at the bunch of plastic things making noisy in a Galitos or Steers. They suck, really bad. They will order Snapp (or whatever it is called), instead of Kingfisher, will claim to be having cravings for Pizza or the KFC chicken. What were they craving for before KFC set foot in town?
If we must guard our environment let us first rid the city its many plastic women and the odd phoney men.
But they make good wives when they decide to pretend and the standard looks makes them quite presentable to peers.
5. Average or beautiful boring
These ones belong mostly to the church or are of the melancholic or phlegmatic temperament. They are mostly quiet, will never make any noise even if you cheated on her. They offer no challenge whatsoever. Will cook and eat what you always wish for and will be a perfect house keeper.
Men hate boring women. This lot have a habit of letting it go after the first kid and will be incredibly fat by the second child and only 34. But they are a good bargain for a man like me who often prefers his moments in solitude. I strongly favour this category because they don’t have too much drama…Yet again!
Anyway, I will wait. May be God will send me an angel. May be not. But I will still listen to my R&B, hope I will stumble upon the few remaining women. In the meantime, lemme be listening to Antony David and India Arie’s Words, which momentarily is my best number.
Editor's note: this article first appeared in Silas Nyanchwani's blog.