Ladies, here's why men aren't an open book

The other day a lady friend of mine ‘accosted’ me, wanting to know why men do not always tell their partners or girlfriends everything. I could have dismissed that off hand, but I changed my mind.

Knowing that it has been stated elsewhere that if sex - and good sex while we are at it - is the glue that holds a relationship together, then open communication is the lubricant to that lovemaking.

But open communication is not to say that the man becomes a chatter box or a parrot in his own house. We are patriots not parrots. So why ignore a woman who, starved of information from her partner, was only looking for information in order to know how to deal with the situation?

Get your note books out. This is the kind of revelation that only comes once in a blue moon. Men are  constantly hustling and struggling to provide for you and the young ones. Hustling is not 800 metres race, where after a minute and a half you can pick out an obvious winner.

Some of the hustles we undertake pay dividend years down the line. So if I tell you I was in town hustling and I have not bought you a new phone of late, do not think hustling is putting water in a bucket such that at the end of the activity, you have a completed task.

At times, we many look distant and occupied, we are occupied by plans to cater of you. But you being the suspicious type assume that a man can only be occupied by plans to lay another woman. Please, we are not that simplistic in our thoughts.

Secondly, men cannot and do not divulge all the information about their hustling or their problems to you.

I will let out a little secret here, although I know it could land me in hot soup-with my boys. I put it to you that you only know your man’s thoughts, plans and problems up to 50 to 60 per cent. Not more. If you didn’t know, men are like your smart phone.

Pick up your phone and get into Settings. I can bet that you only know the functionality of that smartphone up to 50 per cent.

There are certain functions in that phone you have never tried and you do not know what they are used for. You have never ventured beyond the normal stuff that an ordinary hand set does. Yet, that is your phone.

That is exactly the same scenario. That man in your house, plans, thoughts or heart, he remains your man, but I can assure you do not know him 100 per cent.

That is the way men are wired. So don’t go to your women chama grumbling that my man is a hypocrite. No, he is perfectly normal and fits in the natural order of normal men. We cannot allow you to know us too much, otherwise where will be the source of our power in the power play.

In the ‘48 Laws of Power’, one of the many manifestos we subscribe to, Law no 17 says that you need to cultivate an air of unpredictability.

“Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other people’s actions. Your predictability gives them a sense of control. Turn the tables: Be deliberately unpredictable. Behaviour that seems to have no consistency or purpose will keep them off-balance, and they will wear themselves out trying to explain your moves.”

Ladies, now know why you should learn to live with your man not expecting full disclosure from him. If you do not know your prized smartphone inside out, why do you want to know your man? Do you want your man to be an open book? Leave and let live.