MY VIEW: To the men who grew up in families without sisters

A friend who grew up without sisters once told me how his girlfriend kept chiding him about the many times he would blush.

PHOTO| FILE| NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • A friend who grew up without sisters once told me how his girlfriend kept chiding him about the many times he would blush.

Brethren, having grown up without a sister, it has not been easy interacting with the opposite sex, has it?

You must have found many odd things about womenfolk. I’m one of you; I understand. 

For instance, how do you deal with a girl who bursts into tears? Is it appropriate to make the saying a reality and literally offer her a shoulder to cry on?

In the first place, will you even feel comfortable being that close with the girl? You know, physical contact with the opposite sex is a topic that needs a hardcover user manual. Which words should you say?

And when a random girl does something that touches your raw nerve in a matatu, or any other public place, do you give her a piece of your mind or do you just chin up and smile because you grew up not understanding how to handle this species?

Probably you have grown up with the mentality that this is a species so brittle it cannot stomach even the slightest of a raised voice. I think that is a good misconception.

Brethren, probably you spent most of your innocent years in an all-male environment. In my case, I grew up in a family of five boys. I went to a mixed primary school and an all-boy secondary school.

But I know there are some of you who went to an all-boy institution for primary and secondary education. You can well call yourself a monk if that was your situation.

That means there are some of you who grew up in a purely male environment and did not get a chance to see how the female species behaves, especially at home, far from the regimentation and strict discipline at school.

Which means that when you went to a tertiary institution, where you had a chance to observe women on a 24-hour day, you might have had a few culture shocks.

How was your first relationship? Did it last? I bet it didn’t. Probably you did not understand that the wiring of your brain for relationships was so undeveloped, so unprepared to take a plunge into the dating world. You did not realise that without knowledge of how women reason and perceive the world, there are things you could not hack.

But if that girl accommodated you and your wetness behind the ears for more than six months, thank her for giving you an orientation into the world of relationships. Thank her more if she broke your heart.

A friend who grew up without sisters once told me how his university girlfriend kept chiding him about the many times he would blush when they were together.

I don’t know if that is the reason she left him after a few months. Maybe she found him as interesting as walking in reverse. Maybe she found a more charming guy.

Brethren, have you realised that the men who have a way with women have a way of saying to the fairer sex things that could make shy men cringe? I think sister-less men usually take time to understand this “highway code” of the relationships world.

And I’m sure some of you brothers are now married. Are there times you feel you were left to your own devices?

Some of you must be teachers. How do you tackle indiscipline among female students? Those teaching in mixed schools, have you encountered a situation where you had to discipline both boys and girls but could not decide how best to discipline the girls?

And have you encountered situations in the classroom where your lack of knowledge of teenage girls’ behaviour has put you in a fix? 

Finally, brethren, there is a line I read in Margaret Ogolla’s novel The River and the Source: “A home without daughters is like a spring without a source.”

I know it was the late Ogola’s opinion, in that work of fiction, but still that line disturbs my thoughts. Does that mean there is some defect in the families where we grew up, or some kind of jinx?

I think we should organise a national meeting to discuss that and other issues.

Cheers.

 

[email protected]  Elvis Ondieki is a reporter with Nation