- By Friday I had concluded that most guys are wimps. Specifically, their talk seems to follow a stiff formula.
- The art of manly conversation is fast disappearing and we come out as colourless and rehearsed.
Last week I researched the way many men talk.
My evenings at Gachuiri Beer Garden in Uthiru were largely spent in observation mode.
I talked very little all week but watched and listened more as guys gave women their mistari (seduced women) and made merry.
By Friday I had concluded that most guys are wimps. Specifically, their talk seems to follow a stiff formula.
The art of manly conversation is fast disappearing and we come out as colourless and rehearsed.
So, on Friday, the member's day, I had a watertight case which I wanted to put to public participation by making it a beer-drinking topic.
I appeared at Gachuiri’s slightly early and began to suppress my underlying conditions of tonsillitis and laryngitis.
The Friday crowd sought me in anticipation of the state of the society address.
I introduced myself as the Kenyan Legend and one of the most learned men in the country today.
“I am learned because I have read Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” I said and added. “I am currently reading Ron Rosenbaum’s How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III.”
I stated my fear of God, hot porridge and the American Abrams tanks that may be shipped to Ukraine soon.
These tanks use turbine engines, like aeroplanes, giving them superior acceleration.
With the opening rituals over, I sat down to suppress my tonsillitis and laryngitis.
Amongst the Big Four, only Gachoroge was present at Gachuiri’s. Rasta, Cobra and Mandevu were yet to arrive.
I began with my observations that men were socialized to believe that they were not men enough unless they exaggerated their ‘development,’ ‘prosperity’ and ‘big plans’ in virtually all of their conversations.
“Consequently, Kenyan men have a social license for lies and which they deliver with relish at all functions, awing all female listeners.”
I told my listeners that herein was a tragedy that the upcoming men’s conference must address: the stress of men talking about things that are meant o please other people by portraying themselves as tough and successful all the time.
I confessed to the swelling crowd of listeners around our table about a vexing issue about men that I had also noted.
“Sincerely, I get horrified by small-time male experts on property prices who mushroom at every social event,” I said.
These guys are often experts on the prices of commercial buildings, hardware materials and cars and they talk with a lot of and it may take you years to discover that they are cons.
The next breed of social bores is the solution men who have answers to every problem under the sun.
“If you are keen enough, you won’t fail to pick the plot the sequence with which these bores do their thing,” I told my eager listeners.
“Typically, someone thinks aloud about a problem dogging him or her. Instantly, several jerks rise to the occasion with solutions, some of which could be far-fetched. Usually the more generously you buy drinks, the greater the number of experts your problem draws.”
These solution guys often lose their would-be networks by brushing away people’s feelings in their haste to give answers. “Don’t cry brother, just bring the issue to me in my office tomorrow,” they may say without condoling with people’s current situations.
As a Legend, I have heard woeful tales of men who visited such Mr. Fixit only to be turned away by the cons who turned too officious. “This is the Kenyan brand of male friendship that we must address on 14th February” I declared.
Rasta, Cobra and Mandevu joined us at this point. While the trio shook hands around, I used the opportunity to utter my trade mark call: Coro Maii (the side-blown horn needs to be sprinkled with water to continue producing sound).
Two guys replenished my drink so that I could continue dispensing wisdom. I immediately gave them complimentary entry cards to this year’s men’s conference.
I now turned to the tricky issue of men’s perceived lack of empathy with fellow men. These were the daily dramas that we see when men bring up emotional issues that don’t have straight answers to their buddies in social places. “Suddenly everybody goes quiet and the cry babies for the occasion are left to sulk alone,” I put is as a challenge to my listeners.
Cobra chuckled and nodded in agreement. “You are right kiongozi,” he said.
“Kenyan men would rather discuss the surface of the moon than your wife’s delivery and specifically the money needed to offset the medical bills," Cobra said.
“Si alikuwa na miezi tisa ya kuona hii shida? (Didn’t he have nine months in which to see the problem coming?),” Cobra posed the question.
Mandevu scratched his shaggy beard, a sure signal he had a weighty point. Presently he spoke.
He chided all men for occasionally taking flights of fancy by discussing big jobs, big projects and women with big dimensions rather than making plans of rescuing their pals from sure suicidal paths.
“I daily see your comedies when you avoid your comrades who need emotional support due to personal loss by begging to leave early for home,” he accused all of us.
“But, of course, such early leavers go to other joints to make merry and talk about their conquests with ‘difficult’ damsels and other topics that don’t demand their emotional involvement or thinking at all,” Rasta chipped in.
I thanked everybody for their contribution and assured them that we were getting clearer on the issues that dog men.
“There is no need for a formal men’s conference gentlemen, this is it,” I declared.
But Rasta wasn’t done yet. He brought up a totally new angle of male problems and which he dropped like a thunderbolt: many Kenyan men don’t know where to draw the boundary between horror and socially acceptable topics and all too often they mortify their listeners!
“I have listened to renditions by men of road accidents and carjackings in social events where such talk was certainly misplaced,” Rasta said.
There was an awkward silence in which we battled with our conscience. At that moment, waitress Gladys was around, replenishing our drinks. She overheard Rasta’s point and she too dropped her own.
“Have you people realized that your confessions of romantic escapades get saucier when the women in question are known to your listeners or even present where you are making the childish revelations?”
There was an immediate uproar from the revellers.
They demanded an apology from Gladys. But as chairman of the men’s conference edition 2023, I cooled the tempers by ruling Gladys out of order for intruding into a strict men’s talk.
Further, I ruled that as it was getting late, people could leave at their own leisure.