By MISS DEEGEE
Living in Nairobi can numb you, anaesthesia style. Nowadays very little shocks me. I can walk into a popular coffee house and see a myriad of Caucasian expatriates feeding their black adopted babies chicken pies and microwave warmed muffins and all I will do is shrug.
Despite the fact that they look remarkably foolish, I barely sigh or raise an eyebrow when I see grown men wearing skinny jeans.
There are, however, some things that still manage to rattle me, for instance, finding myself on a blind date with a married man. Now that is the stuff of legends and rude awakenings.
"Just wear it," I said.
"Wear what? Oh the ring? You are still going on about that? Why?" he asked as he patted his breast pocket where the ring was safely tucked away. He shook his head and scratched it mindlessly.
I stared at him and he stared right back.
"Because if you are careful enough to hide rings, text messages and emails then you know you are doing something wrong."
Pareto principle
He chuckled, went to take a sip of his coffee and realised his cup was empty. He looked around and raised his hand to beckon a waiter. I looked at my watch and he noticed.
"You have to go?" he asked. I smiled and nodded. He asked for the bill, paid it and we left. After hurriedly swapping business cards, I thanked him for the drink, waved goodbye and walked away.
Later on, I asked a friend straight up why he cheats on his partner because he is a notorious one. He gave me the Pareto Principle which I of course promptly Googled because I had nary a clue what it was.
Chasing satisfaction
It turns out that the Pareto Principle which is also known as the 80-20 rule or the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity, states that, for many events, roughly 80 per cent of the effects come from 20 per cent of the causes.
Of course I was confused as it made no sense to me. This is how he brought it home and tried to make it relevant "I get 80 per cent satisfaction at home and chase (albeit stupidly) 20 per cent outside. This I do because I am silly enough to think that life is 100 per cent."
A different friend (who has a stunning woman for a wife) told me that he was in a relationship where he and his stunning significant other were not finding emotional and sexual fulfillment and so he went elsewhere for that.
The beautiful wife
According to him, women take committed men for granted and he for one will only be as faithful as his options.
Chuck Klosterman, an essayist and columnist, said that in his opinion "cheaters cheat because they think being monogamous is unreasonable. There is no other reason." I was beginning to believe him.
"All I am getting are just justifications, rationalisations and excuses. I am looking for a reason and I am pretty sure I am not going to get one" I whined to a friend on the phone. He is a caustic one and has very little belief in sugar coating the truth.
He had pleaded the fifth when two days before, I had asked him for a reason why men cheat. I heard him sigh audibly on the other end of the line. He was getting ready to tell me off or tell me the truth. Either way I sat up and listened.
Someone once said, "show me a really hot woman and I will show you a man who is tired of sleeping with her. Even though a man will cheat on his average looking wife or girlfriend sooner than he would on a hot one, the cheating is inevitable, regardless. Men will just cheat."
"Is it genetic?" I asked .
"It comes down to the choices we make. We decide what path we take and we live with the consequences. Deal with it!"
Now what does one say to that?
