Keep me out of your boring WhatsApp group please!

There is no bigger violation, annoying intrusion, and most heartless imposition on people’s lives than WhatsApp groups.

One moment you are the happiest person on earth minding your business blissfully, then you have a WhatsApp alert from yet another group that has ‘added you.’

Never mind that it’s a group from Chuka Igamba Ng’ombe Harambee School where you left when Dr Josephat Karanja was still Kenya’s Veep.

I do everything right in this country. I pay my taxes. I am faithful to my woman. I attend church whenever possible. I’m in constant touch with my blood relations. I relate well with friends and colleagues. Why then is nature punishing me with all these WhatsApp groups?

Let me break it down. I went to four primary schools scattered across the country. Two high schools, one university (where I belonged to at least five fraternities and they all have WhatsApp groups) and a tertiary college. I come from large extended families where grandchildren are running into hundreds. Then there is the workplace WhatsApp, in addition to the political and religious ones. All these people want me in their WhatsApp groups. Guys, this is not possible.

WhatsApp groups are the evils of our times. It is second after terrorism. And that is the bane of modern life. You may ask why can’t I just mute the conversations or better still exit the groups?

I would, only that WhatsApp will report my misanthropic gestures to the groups and I will be viewed as a proud, snobbish and self-centred person.

Besides, Africans are still emotionally underdeveloped. You cannot tell someone the brutal truth without hurting them. So, we are forced to stick in these groups so as not to be seen as ‘bad people’, which is a load of bull cr*p.

 If life expectancy on earth was 900 years like in Biblical times, then these groups will make sense. But for heaven’s sake, our time on earth is too limited to belong to every WhatsApp group from kindergarten to the workplace.

I mean, there are reasons why you see friends from primary and high school less often as you grow up.

Personally, I always thank myself for avoiding some people all these years every time I go for some reunion where you’ll rediscover that congenital and manipulative prick of 10 years ago, has only become a bigger one. Besides, many adults out here are so humourless you would derive more wittier chat from an electric pole.

Just why I never attend weddings where conversations drain all the red blood cells out of you. How boring is your life that you spend a whole day sanctioning sex between two consenting adults?

WhatsApp groups are formed by those bored out of their skins. So, where do people get time for all the empty chatter? Add to these political wannabes and people with business stalls in town who want to sell you their imported shoes. I hate when genuine friendship is reduced to such transactional relationships.

I believe in meeting people, sitting together and having a meal or drink...especially a drink. This is the most intimate act of friendships not nonsensical jokes and pornographic material shared on WhatsApp. I believe I speak for many people enslaved by bothersome friends, colleagues and relatives.

So here is my appeal to everyone forming WhatsApp group This and That: Don’t add me! And please seek permission before adding ‘members’ to your groups. Kenyans are okay with their miserable, wretched lives. Spare them your humdrum.

@nyanchwani [email protected]