It’s a lonely road for a Cuckold

By KARIUKI MUTHUI

I walked into the office this week to find Tony M looking rather forlorn as he sat alone surrounded by a forest of female heads. This is Woman’s Instinct, of course, so our meetings tend to be dominated by the women in numbers.

They’re all lovely, but also opinionated, which is why when discussions turned to my recent contributions I was labeled a chauvinist.

In a less civilised setting than the office — say a bar where some of them can down half a dozen tequila shots kamikaze style, the epithets flying in my direction would have been far more interesting.

What my gung-ho lady colleagues deliberately ignore, however, is that I am actually full of positive ideas.

For example, a chap lugging around a woman’s handbag is a no-no. Unless he’s security, in which case he’s getting paid for it. Or there’s a laptop concealed inside containing the location of Yagnesh Devani, a splendid fellow who can help us recover the Sh7.6 billion we misplaced.

Historically it’s always been the man who is genetically programmed to stray in a relationship.

However that dynamic is starting to change as more and more women join the game.

The trend is so rife that a new word was invented for a man on the receiving end of a cheating spouse: Cuckold.

The decisive Cuckolds take steps to quickly wind down the attachment and forge ahead but a heartbroken few remain stranded, like a deer caught in the headlights; desperately looking for a way to quietly re-assert their place in the relationship. These deers usually start out by trying to hide their woman problems for as long as possible. When they can no longer be hidden, they’re denied.

Avoiding conflict

Then they’re quietly endured even though everybody knows what’s going on and people are muttering. It’s so bad that some chaps go to bed every night with women they know have been elsewhere.

Eventually he acquires a mpango wa kando to prove he’s still a man but also because the engine needs to be kept in service. He hopes that his lost love will eventually come around and stop ‘misbehaving’.

Such couples eventually fall into a volatile equilibrium. They avoid each other’s social spots on the weekends lest they bump into each other with their respective side-kicks in tow.

It’s like a sort of peace treaty designed to minimise the chance of deadly conflict, like the one recently signed by President Obama and President Medvedev of Russia.

For their mutual friends and relatives, it’s awkward. When they meet the couple at those unavoidable events, such as baptisms, a strange thing occurs: Nothing. Instead, greetings and hugs are exchanged as if all is hunky dory.

However, look closer and you will notice the woman is treated like a cult hero by the sisterhood while the man struggles to keep a straight face in the company of his embarrassed pals.

It’s a sad thing to be a Cuckold but it can happen to any man. Just ask Nelson Mandela.