When hubby's pals become a wife's worst enemies

"The boyz" are nowadays every woman's worst nightmare! I have no problem with men having friends, in fact I believe it adds a healthy balance to a relationship when every party has their own friends.

However, what I cannot understand is why "the boyz" have suddenly become more important to men than us, their women.

I cannot, for the life of me, fathom why men these days walk around in packs, and are so clingy on each other, as if they were chickens looking for warmth from one another!

Or as if they were born attached to each other on the hip bone. After all, we women aesthetically look better than 'the boyz', we smell better, are more intelligent, like conversation, and are even funnier, but the way some men run away from home, you would think the devil himself resides in their living room.

The other day, we were having our annual girls' weekend trip out of town with four of my close friends, and while having our communal and thoroughly enjoyable hissy fit about men and all the things they do that annoy us, one topic kept rearing its ugly head; men and their 'boyz'.

One lady even claimed that from Monday to Saturday, her husband often did a 'disappearing act' on her and their son, and the only time he could spare from quality time with his "precious boyz" was Sunday morning, until around 2pm when he disappeared again to watch football with his 'boyz'.

And so if you calculated the number of hours her man spent with her was less than 2 per cent of his free time, while about 98 per cent was his bonding time with 'the boyz'.

Clearly 'the boyz' are even worse than a mistress who steals only a few hours. They steal all of a man's free time. This is because these days "the boyz" are everything to today's man, they play the role of marriage/ relationship counsellors.

They are career, time and money advisers, and self-proclaimed experts on how a woman should and should not behave.

They are also the "wise" council of elders and everything that happens between you and your man passes through them, like some kind of parliament that sits in the bars and clubs (the brainless gathering of the male tribe).

They literally cannot do anything without getting an approval from 'the boyz'. And why, again, do men run away from women and give their time and loyalty to 'the boyz'?

One colleague told me proudly that his 'boyz' made better company for him any day because his wife was boring and that all she did was nag.

You would think that if his wife was so boring he would have figured that out earlier on while he was dating her, and spending every free minute he had by her side. And on the nagging bit, if he remembered what his wife told him she would not have to nag about it!

The way some men act is like a woman is a gadget they bought in the market which spreads its legs, cooks, cleans, washes, and you can carry around for family and work events, and when you are done with it you can shut it off.

Men need to wake up and smell the coffee, and learn a little something about being individuals. Yes, you can tie your damn shoe laces before asking John, Andrew, Mike, Phillip, Tom, Jeff, Rodney what they think!