Ladies, kindly stick to your lanes

I am finally learning to drive. The other day on Mombasa road, I changed lanes and forgot to signal and as cars screeched out of the way and my miraa-chewing instructor Georgie went into a panic and shouted ‘clutch’ and I stepped on the brakes and we stopped in the middle lane just outside Capital Centre. Georgie (who has wide eyes like my friend, Maddo) croaked - ‘Stick to your lane, bwana.’

Women, the problem many of you make in relationships is trying to overlap and change lanes without any left/right signal. Some women are one night stands for some scurrilous men – but they then imagine they are ‘in a relationship’ and even set up their social media accounts to reflect this fiction.

 If you had a good time one Sato night, then Sunday he woke you up early to ‘bounce’ because he has to go to church, then he never called you, he did not go to church.

He just took a matatu to the shopping center, bought maziwa and The Standard on Sunday, and came back to read it in bed, as the coffee brewed.

Then there are those ‘Friends with Benefits’ situations. A woman decides it is too cold in July and gets a Man Mekko to keep her warm during the cold season. She makes it clear to the fellow that he is a ‘temp,’ – an intern who will not get the job permanently.

Come September, and sunshine, and she catches feelings from here to Anchorage, outraged that he has another woman jiko.

Then there are girlfriends who get ahead too far of themselves for comfort. You have only been dating for three months and she wants to know when you will propose to her, meet her mother, move in together!

A girlfriend’s job is to be cheerful and let a chap feel comfortable in her presence, because Earth is hard. It is not to add to the quantum of stress of being a young man in Africa in the 21st century.

After two or three years, you can begin to ask him that dreaded question – about the next level, signora. If he will be putting a ring on it, or taking a walk (believe me, men often need a push to propose).

But once he puts a ring on it, and meets your folks, that does not mean you now completely dominate his life, ban him from the football, ask him why he was hugging his colleague, and become lady Jezebel.

That is why many a woman has been dumped, just as they were choosing the wedding dress and the four-tier white wedding cake. Once you are the wife, never mind what the priest or pastor said that ‘you two have become one.’

Don’t insist on having only one joint bank account, asking for the passwords to all his social media as well as the pattern that opens his phone. Every man wants to maintain a level of Independence (unless they are total sissies). That does not mean he is keeping some dark secrets from you. But, sometimes, with some men, it does – like he is a ‘sponsor’ to some other woman.

If you are a ‘clandestine,’ stick to your lane. You are there for convenience, so do not try and meddle with his family affairs. Lastly, there are some ‘baby mommas’ who imagine that the height of the man’s life is that child. Sadly, it may not be. Then you find a baby momma hustling a man so much he cuts her out of his life, and sets the kid adrift.