WHAT LIFE MEANS FOR A BACHELOR

You are 27. Sitting pretty on a six-figure salary bracket. Your colleagues have been making these jokes of how your weight gain has been directly correlated to your steady rise on the promotional ladder. Sounds true. On the side, you are servicing a car loan, doing your Masters and a proud owner of several parcels of land. You seem to be doing okay as far as career and financial muscles are concerned. You feel satisfied to have achieved quite a number of your goals, a few years shy of hitting the psychological age. 30.

What’s all the fuss about hitting 30? Well, life before and after 30 is as different as day and night. Hitting 30 without a family to show, or diapers to change (for your son or daughter) or better still, Instagram pics of you lulling your 3 months old, Baby Newton to sleep, is overwhelmingly defeating. At 30, your passi insists you must join church’s Men Association group. It’s also at 30 that you’ll succumb to your brother in law’s demands of dragging you to this chama he belongs to, that trains men who’ve come of age, cultural traditions and their role in the family. This is huge and somehow intimidating because you’ll happen to mingle and make small talks with men the age of your dad as you prepare some nyama choma in this picturesque getaway. You’ll also be expected to tell them what you’ve achieved and how your vision looks like. In other words, you’ll be groomed from a boy to a man.

Enough of 30. Your family back home is anxious, and dealing with the elephant in the room; waiting for this day that you’ll call them on a Sunday afternoon, booking a day on their calendar when you’ll finally and officially bring a wife home. On the side, you are also grappling with business partners on your side hustle who unrelentingly have not given you any peace of mind, all in the name of showing care for a brother. You recall this day, one of them drew for you a sketch of how badly you are faring. That you should have married at 25 (two years ago) so by the time you hit 45, your kids will be in college. Otherwise, as it looks now, at the age of 50, you’ll still be attending Parent’s Day meetings somewhere in Nyeri County because you believe schools in that part of the country perform very well in national examinations.

But that’s easier said than done. I mean, from your toes to your receding hairline, to every part of your body is in unison that you should be married by now. That’s not in contention. But the big question is, who is there to be married? Is it these contemporary ladies whom when you invite one for a dinner date, comes with half a dozen of her ‘girls’ pulling unashamed ear to ear smiles. A very high percentage of ladies view and judge men with financial lenses. Ladies listen; I once schooled with this guy who didn’t even complete college for lack of school fees. He was a great friend of mine and still is. In fact, we’ve shared the same circle of friends for the last 7 years. We didn’t drop him because of his financial woos then. Not that we were any rich. It’s through God’s grace that we survived. To cut a long story short, this dude married when still trying to make ends meet. God honoured his resilience and hard work. These days, he uploads pics on Facebook of his wife and him crisscrossing the country for holidays. Flying his family for 5 days at the Coast is no big deal to him!

But how many bachelors will ever be lucky as this dude? All we have are ladies living a larger than life lifestyle. Who can’t do laundry because of their manicured nails and instead, pay someone to do so as they go doing ‘facials’. The same ladies with an alcohol tolerance thrice more enduring than yours. Who show off these phones the same price to a plot of land somewhere in Nyahururu. They also suffer from impatience and are addicted to instant ‘success’ and its glorification. Bachelors are going through tougher times than their dads or grandfathers ever did. The game has turned out to be too complex, riskier and expensive over the years. The only ladies meeting your criteria are in fact inviting you to their wedding committees if it’s not the actual weddings or baby shower visits!

Back to the story, you once happened to take this hot intern for a coffee date only to regret the very thought of it. Once settled, she asked this waiter with a glowing skin and colgate teeth peeping from her suggestive smile and of eyes that literally weakened every joint of your body, if there was anything on offer apart from beverages. She ordered for red wine. You were taken aback. She tapped your arm and was like, “bring him a cold Tusker please”. You pretended to be this open-minded fellow and went on to spend almost 4k on a Monday night obviously not budgeted for. By 12 am a visibly drunk intern dashed to the washroom and an opportune moment presented itself. Your endearing waiter was standing strategically behind you. You’d smell her scent and manage to see her from the corner of your cornea. You reached to your wallet and chomwad a business card and placed it in her hands accompanied with a small tip. She gave you a face that read, I’ll be waiting for your call. The next day, your intern dropped by your office to thank you for the epic treat. She sat on your table with all her endowments, her cleavage half out, acres of thighs to graze and a long weave overshadowing her back. If only she knew how much it costed for that random date. Haha. Since she proved too expensive to maintain, the alleged affair died as fast as it had sprouted.

Interestingly, you have this relatively young, married friend who seems to have all the qualities of your imaginary wife. In fact on the few times, she has invited you for coffee, she insists on paying the bill. (When married women, be they classmates or friends invite you for coffee, it has to be strictly coffee.) She even lends you money within a short notice, when in a fix. She compliments your dressing and actually goes ahead to ask where you bought that watch that underlines your tastes. To make matters worse, she throws subtle advances at you leaving you more confused. You certainly don’t want to ruin somebody’s marriage for the very simple reason of never wanting to imagine your wife ever contemplating cheating on you. (Especially with an unmarried chap).

Every year the HR pops to your office to update your medical insurance details and goes like;”Any dependant or wife so far?” And you respond with a NO that ends up to invite a loud, awkward silence between you two as she finds her way out.

The only thing bachelors are in need of is family love and communal prayers akin to my shosh’s ‘deep prayers’ at 3 am for them to survive through this jungle of temptation, deception and remorse.

Check out my Facebook Page; andrewismme.com for regular, half serious stuff that will help you unwind and recover from a day’s harsh torrents.

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