A young, handsome (his words, not mine) man emailed me asking for help
because, with all his good looks and youth, he cannot get himself a
beautiful girl who takes him seriously. PHOTO| FILE| NATION MEDIA GROUP
A young, handsome (his words, not mine) man emailed me asking
for help because, with all his good looks and youth, he cannot get
himself a beautiful girl who takes him seriously.
All
the girls he falls in love with sneer at his advances. He reckons he has
zeroed in on his disadvantage: he is jobless, and the ripple effect of
joblessness includes being broke and having no girlfriend. He wants my
help, and he wants to know whether I dated a broke man.
The
nerve of the question! But, since I’m almost twice his age, my advice
or experience might be a little outdated. In the ’90s when I started
dating, he was probably still latched onto his mother’s breast.
Things were simpler then, as we were not too exposed to the ways of the world.
We were awed by a guy who could buy you a fake gold chain on the street.
The
obvious advice to the young man would be to get a job, and if he cannot
get one, start selling mandazis and perhaps one day he might own a
bakery.
If he is right about his disadvantage, owning a bakery should attract the girls like maggots to a dead body.
NO RIGHT ANSWER
But
to answer his question as to whether I ever dated a broke man, broke is
relative; there is no right answer to that question. But I shall share
an anecdote.
I was a little younger than the young man when I had my first proper date. My date took me to 20th Century Cinema.
Watching
a movie on the big screen for the first time was probably the most
exciting part of the date. He bought me a hotdog and a soda, which he
fed me in the movie theatre, then we went for lunch at Wimpy, ate chips
and burger and drank a milkshake – it was also my first time to have a
burger and milkshake.
He bought me
chocolate and we walked to Uhuru Park and sat for hours looking at the
water and throwing stones. It was a perfect date. I smiled for a month
after that date.
The differences
between the dating trends then and now are as obvious as the difference
between the soils of Limuru and Kajiado. In our days, a handsome man
obviously had an advantage over his less good-looking friends, but he
also needed to know how to talk to a girl.
Even
better, if he could write a letter with words like “scholarstically
yours”, it showed that he was quite brainy, and that, in itself, was a
total turn-on.
Today’s young men, if
the way they write on social media is anything to go by, cannot write
to save their lives, let alone to get a girl. But who needs to know how
to write if money will get the girls faster than any written or spoken
word? Money has seen to the death of romance.
The
days when you could get the cutest girl in college just by being
handsome and having a good command of the Queen’s language are fading
very fast.
Taking a girl to Uhuru
Park as entertainment will earn you the title of the college clown –
college mates will giggle as you pass by because the news of your Uhuru
Park taste will have spread faster than some bush fire in California.
Lack of money is as good as being mute.
Money
talks – no longer do men have to practise their oral skills on the
girls, no longer do they have to work on their handwriting.
Money
is an aphrodisiac; let no one tell you otherwise. I am in no way
insinuating that for there to be romance, money must exchange hands, but
have you ever tried to have a romantic time when the bills are not
paid? It is harder than convincing a politician to be honest. My
argument however, is, you do not need money to be romantic.
It
is well and good to fly to Nanyuki for lunch, any girl would be
impressed by that, but taking a walk at the Arboretum, having a picnic,
exploring nature, is a better turn on. However, it is better to have
enough money to be able to make the choice between flying to Nanyuki for
an expensive lunch and having a free picnic.
Have a pocket-friendly romantic day!
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