Who is the skirt wearer in the house?

By Tony M

For three long weeks, I have tried to hold my peace –— but damn it, the dam has to burst. It is all to do with a couple — let’s call them Toby and Carol — that I read about in a magazine.

Having met about 10 years ago when Toby was jobless, Carol supported him, they got married — and although he is now a junior lecturer and she a senior engineer, they have not stopped ‘sharing’ everything.

Cute, you might be thinking, but zero privacy? I don’t personally believe in better halves — kwani I was incomplete before we met? I believe in two people coming together, not to be one, but to be better than they were before.

Now that we have that out of the door, let’s get back to today’s golden twosome, er, one-some, Caroby (Carol-n-Toby).

Toby said he happily carries Carole’s handbag in town because she "does not like carrying this new trend of big bags."

Allow me to be candid – nothing says wuss (weak man) worse than a man who walks in a pub or restaurant, with his woman on one hand, and her handbag in the other!

Unless you are Lucy Kibaki’s bag man, as one of my senior colleagues says, and are getting paid for it, carrying ladies’ bags, even as a PDA , a display of love, makes a man look like a lame, brainless lamb. You have a bag, yes, but with no balls inside.

Have some pride

Talking of getting paid, this Toby very gladly picked up his wife’s phone during the interview and beamed: "Yes, our salary has come into our account. We have been paid."

Yet it was her cash that had come in!

Call me old fashioned, although I’m young-ish, but a woman’s loaf is not your bread. Even if you are a couple, just split monetary responsibilities – and if she earns twice or thrice what you do, unless you are borrowing a loan on behalf of your (you, her, kids) family, say, for a business (which you must re-pay), have some pride.

Why go out into the world in a car fuelled by your ‘better half’ as a man, and get buoyed by beers bought on her ‘pocket money’?

And talking of phone, pun fully intended, really, truly, madly, deeply — everybody needs a little privacy, or in the words of that old Billy Joel song "even lovers need a holiday, away, from each other."

One of the most maddening habits between any partners I can envision is scouring each other’s phones for suspicious texts and so on.

For Toby and Carol, they are on a roll — open to the point of answering each other’s calls, scrolling and replying texts meant for the other. Again, is it just me, or is there something a little creepy in this whole scenario?

Doing laundry

The same goes when it comes to the couple’s Yahoo. They share the same password, and have registered as one (Caroby) on Facebook.

Maybe it is my cynicism, or maybe it is just the utter surrender of all individuality in the name of ‘becoming one’ that totally freaks me out about this spookily sharing pair, I don’t know.

Our Zawadi Lompisha is better placed to tackle what sharing means in her ‘Husbands and Wives.’ To paraphrase the old poem ‘I speak for the bush,’ this boy here speaks only for men of our generation.

Toby said he goes through his wife’s diary and knows what she is doing "today, tomorrow, next week and even next month."

As my lady-boss elegantly pointed out, that is the type of man to get insecure if you even take time out to "read a novel he has not read," lest it gives you "bad ideas."

The worst of it all, though, was when this Toby (who by the way is like 40) said: "Since Carole does not like washing clothes, I wash even her inner-wears, most of which are white. Doing laundry does not make one less of a man."

In Toby’s case though, we’ll make an exception.

I was surprised to find out that Carole, at least, cooks. Otherwise the way things are going, the way I balance Milly G here, I may ask our lady boss to solicit Toby for a ‘Mister Mboch’ to balance ‘Ayah’s Diaries.’

Some of you may still think the Caroby situation is so very sweet. Personally,just skittish about skirt-ish guys

Related Topics

Relationships