11 LESSONS I HAVE LEARNT ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS FOR 2016

1.      Date someone you can respect; I have heard women several times when they argue with their men say ‘look at you, what sort of a man are you, you cannot even provide for your family, useless.’ Or ‘this is not even your child.’

 You see every time I go out with a guy and I find myself reminding him of his faults, it becomes clear to me that if I ever dated such a person, I would constantly be picking out their faults because I cannot bring myself to respect this person for whatever reasons.  You see when a man does not love you; he will remind you of your faults, when a woman does not respect a man, she pick at his faults mercilessly. Familiarity does not breed contempt, it’s lying to yourself that you could be okay with certain character traits.

2.      Be picky or divorce later on: - Every time I have had doubts about a relationship and the doubts kept growing and growing and I ignored them, the relationship always ended badly. Please address these doubts at the very beginning do not settle, if  there are things that are deal breakers for you, these things will be magnified once you get married and they will become even a bigger issue once you are settled. If there are some character ‘flaws’ that you cannot handle please do not settle for this person.  If someone’s height bother’s you, or the fact that their face is round, or that they drink, you need to think twice about dating them.  

3.     Never ignore the danger signs: - If you partner is grossly insecure, wants to put in a bubble, is a violent, is overly jealousy, just walk away. The sooner you do it the better.

4. You cannot change a person, and neither can they change you. I guess the decision to change is always for you and no one else. A woman can pretend to be the cleanest and neatest in the world, a man can pretend to be a perfect gentleman, but the truth is you can only pretend for as long. The truth is in the detail of not how he treats you but how he treats the people around you, see a person can pretend with you but when around other people they are not familiar with the cover falls.

5.  Never settle just because someone pursued you relentlessly or they are your good friend; now this is a real temptation, there is that guy who has liked you for years but you do not think a relationship between the two of you can work. Marriage is hard and unless two people have something in common, you cannot walk together. This is my Achilles heel, I am the sort of person who is not able to say because the guilt eats me up, and I don’t want to hurt this person and even if I say no, I will always beat around the bush ‘I like you but…’ This is wrong; also it’s misleading and unfair to the other person. I think even with friends if they keep pursuing you must seat them and demand they respect your decision.

6.  Never date a man who has loose ends; If the man has children, observes how he treats them, if he is mean or rude to the mother of his child and if he does not treat his children well, if anything should ever happen between you two, he will be treat you and yours disrespectfully.

7.  It is important to know someone; I am the person who falls in love with my whole heart and then as I begin to get to know someone I start to fall out just as quickly.  The whole process takes a month and then I realise I do not feel the same way. I realise that no matter how many times a guy says he loves me, if I do not know him, I should never ever feel the pressure to say it back. Remember your partners past in a great determinant of how your relationship will turn out, family background (are they the interfering type? And what happened to his previous marriage), what is his cultural background (does he believe that you need to shave your baby’s hair or does he believe your child needs to protected from witchcraft), are able to adapt to his beliefs, will be able to adapt to yours. How has he handled the challenges he has faced. The same applies to women.

8. Never date a married man: - This is really important, and not because you are stealing from another woman, but because a man who cannot respect his wife, has no respect for the women in his life and imagine if he can cause so much pain to someone he took a vow to love and to cherish, this man will hurt you badly. Ultimately the reason not to date a married man is for you because no woman deserves such a man. Come women lets up our standards.

9.  Do not be scared of being alone; At times people are afraid of letting go because they are afraid they will not be able to find someone else and they do not want to be alone. But being alone is not bad, get to grow and enjoy life as a single person then you can learn to share your life with someone else.

10. Never compromise on your boundaries: - You can never meet someone halfway when it comes to boundaries during dating. If a man wants someone he can have sex with, he needs to look for that. If your boundary is no house call, no kissing, no sex before marriage, and you really believe in it, stand your ground. When it comes to your body, there’s no half way mark.

11.      Communicate, be honest: - Never pretend to be something that you are not, do not wash his clothes so that he can put a ring on it, do smile to his rude mother and then take it out on her ten years later. Do not pretend to be a homemaker if you are not.

Photos: Google

REJECTION IS THE GREATEST GIFT WE WILL EVER RECEIVE

A couple of years ago, I had the worst Christmas ever, no one noticed because I am really good at hiding my feelings at times but it was terrible. My heart was breaking inside, I had been rejected by my perfect guy, he was everything that I have ever wanted in a man, he was tall, he was kind, he was cute, he was a university graduate and he was working, and most importantly he was a Christian. On our first meeting he noticed me, you know when a guy looks at you with those eyes that says he is interested and he asked me out and I will not lie when he sent me an sms later that evening and when he called I was burning up, my heart was on fire, I was in love. Well, things did not work out the way I anticipated and when it really hit me that he was not interested in me it was a couple of days before Christmas and I was really hurt, my heart was shattered. We have all been there were someone you are interested in rejects you. This is what I have learnt about rejection: - • A rejection is always better than a false promise; with that guy, who ruined my Christmas, just imagine if he had lied to me and put on a show to prove that I was the one, while in reality he was not interested in me at all. Hey, I should be glad that it did not take me years of being hopelessly in love to realise that this man had done to me single nicest do someone can ever do to you, walk away at the very beginning when they realise they were not interested. He did not string me along, he made no false promises and he needs to be commended. You see it’s allowed to be sad and depressed for a bit, but you can never hold grudges against someone who is totally honest with you and you must move on, otherwise you are the one with the problem. • Rejection is a good thing, when a guy who I thought was serious and had spent months calling me all sorts of lovey dovey names went silent after I pointed out that despite all the I love yous and I want us to get married, he did not know what my second name was and he had never asked and I did not know anything about him and I kinda asked or stated the obvious, maybe it was the wrong way of asking but he went silent and I would send like 500 words for every 3 words that he sent. The worst part was when I said I just wanted to know him deeper and he said ‘thanks’ I felt devastated but I realised I had been so afraid of being rejected that I was scared of asking him all these things I needed to know because I thought he would leave, and I was right but then I realised that was a good thing. The rejection was worth it. Imagine being in a serious relationship with someone who knows nothing about you and you do not know anything about them either. Attraction is part of it yes, but if one of the parties is not interested in something serious, you have no option but to walk away or let them walk away. I really did like this guy and I am sure if he was in the country and proposed at that point, I would have said yes because I was so attracted to him. Then I started thinking about it and I thought, if I am to base my relationship on feelings then I when I settled into marriage life, and I really got to know this guy, chances are my feelings would decrease and resentment towards him would grow. His silence was golden. I needed to know how serious this guy was • It has nothing to do with me most of the times, when we are rejected we wonder what is wrong with us and it eats on our self esteem. It should not; at times the heart wants what the hearts want. I have had my fair share of rejections and I have rejected some men as well and most of the times I simply was not interested, then how can I be angry when someone is simply not interested in me. • They will be happy without you stop waiting for them to realise what they are missing; most of the times we wait for the people of rejected us to realise what a mistake they made in leaving us and to see them regretting not loving you. Well, this never happens. They will probably get married and they will most likely be happy without you, that is why the decision to move on is for you and only you. At times I look back at the people I rejected and I am happiest without them, I am sure they feel the same way too. In all honesty rejection is the single nicest thing someone an ever do to you, that way you do not have to spend your entire lifetime with a partner who will never love you and return your feelings. When you force that person by sticking with them no matter how many times they show you they are not interested, you are setting yourself for a miserable life, twenty years wasted on a man or woman who never loved you, while getting over them could have actually taken a couple of months.

Dating a Typical Kikuyu Guy: Here’s 10 things that you need to know

Dating a typical Kikuyu guy has always provided me with moments of laughter and moments of utter complementation where you ask yourself ‘Am I really this desperate?’ Recently I went out with one and here are some of the things that I picked about those typical ones: -

1. They know some of the really cheap places they can take you for a date, at times that means walking around Nairobi as he does calculations in his head on how the cost differs from one hotel to another. I know of a very cheap Kikuyu guy who kept wondering why girls were leaving him. I could not tell him but this guy was really cheap. He takes a girl all the way from Kiambu to Arboretum so that he could ask her to be his girlfriend and he had a well paying job to make it worse, she said no! Then he took me a hotel in Nairobi where we had tea and mandazis or was it sodas, as he shopped for a TV worth over Kshs 25,000/-. If you dare ask for chips, he will remind you how unhealthy that is.

Their perfect idea of a date is buying a kilo of meat and you cooking it in your house followed by sex and then they will leave you to wash up after, as they relax on the sofa, typical. During my date with that Kikuyu guy, he told me he loved a home cooked meal and that was his perfect date and so I asked ‘So do you know how to cook?’ Your guess is as good as mine.

While Ujaluo ni gharama the opposite is true for Kikuyu men, and they firmly hold to the belief 'Ukikuyu si gharama'

2. Is it a business deal or a date: - A typical Kikuyu guy can make a date sound like you are in a business meeting, as he is telling you what he is currently hawking, sorry, selling, he is like you know I can get it for you at a price cheaper than the market price, do you want the original version or the Chinese.

3. They have really hustled: - the last Kikuyu guy I went out with, had dropped out campus, he was into sales and marketing, he constructed websites, he had been a mtu wa mjengo, he owned an mpesa once, he had written academic papers and proposals, I really could really help but smile as he went on and on about everything he had done in his short life and how much more he wanted to do, including owning a plot and a matatu, which led to his ultimate dream of being a millionaire. I know everyone wants to be a millionaire but Kikuyu men desperately want to be millionaires, their motto is get rich or die trying.

4. They hate gold diggers, they like women that work.

As he buys you that plate of chips, he will gladly remind you of how much you can save if you ate at home and how much he hate gold diggers. They forget you cannot gold dig a poor man or a hustler.

5. They have a typical Kikuyu accent, there is nothing annoying as a guy with a typical Kikuyu accent trying to sing along to ‘ronery’ sorry ‘lonely’ in a matatu full of people and he is looking at you. Is there a way you can pretend you do not know someone without hurting their feelings.

6. They will never help you with your bag, the other day I am walking in town with this typical Kikuyu guy and I am carrying this heavy bag on my back and all he noticed was that the straps were inside out and he was scared that was going to leave a mark on my back, so what does this gentleman do, he adjusts the bag on my back so that I am more comfortable carrying it. Yes I blocked his hand angrily.

7. They have a low opinion of women generally, that typical Kikuyu guy believes that Kikuyu women prefer to be single mothers and they love money.

8. While he might have problems spending money on you, he does not mind treating himself to one for the road or maybe two. I am sure we all know who has a problem with alcohol in Central Kenya

Yes it will be a while before he pays your parents a visit. The most amazing thing is that they are always saving but they are always broke.

9. They will make statements like ‘this mountain imagine if it were sub divided and sold, now people are paying 300 to just hike it, how does that help the economy?’ ‘This Uhuru Park imagine owning it.’

10. His pet name for you might be 'nyina wa Ngania (mama so and so): - I dated a guy who used to refer me as Mama (insert his mothers name). That really used to annoy me. How is referring as the woman who gave birth to a child named after your mother supposed to be a turn on? This is not talking about your average Kikuyu guy this is about that TYPICAL KIKUYU. Yes there is a difference. So I have not generalised men from any community.

‘NICE GUYS’ THAT OVERUSED PHRASE

The truth about nice guys I was once holding a conversation with a guy, who was well educated, but average looking in a hotel and out of nowhere the guy says ‘nice guys never get the girls.’ ‘Girls are not interested in the nice guys.’ You see there’s a misconception about nice guys and what that phrase means. It should not be mistaken for any of the following: - • It’s not a self pity phrase, that woishee kind of guy, date me, I am nice, date me. They pity everything about their lives and how their lives have turned out. • Nice guys and average are not the same thing, • Nice guys and poor guys are not correlated; just because you are poor does not mean you are nice. There are enough poor guys that have battered their wives and made the lives of women a living hell, so no! Poor and nice do not mean the same thing. • Nice guys do not live in the ghettos necessarily. • Nice guys are not ugly • Nice guys are not pathetic • Nice guys are not short, I have met enough short guys who assume just because they are short they are automatically nice. I think this guy had a type of girls that he was interested in but they were not interested in him because he was not their type and their rejection he pegged it down on women not wanting him to his nice guy image. I dated such a guy once and I speak from experience, there is nothing nice about self pity and it went from self pity to putting me down. It started as ‘I am so nice I have been rejected a lot.’ ‘I am sorry you have to date a short person.’ ‘It’s obvious you have settled’ ‘Look at me, I have asthma, I look weird.’ I tried saying all these did not matter to me, but soon this self hatred was now directed to me ‘Do not put on weight, you would not look as lovely.’ You should have seen the look on his face every time he said. He wanted me to pity myself. He once said ‘I know I am not the pretty at all.’ ‘You are okay’ I said. ‘You know you are not the most beautiful woman in the world.’ That was his response. I was like ‘dude I am very okay with my looks, no low self esteem issues other than the ordinary, I wish my hair was no longer, I need to loose 2kgs, only that.’ In short nice guys does not mean, poor, looks down on self, thinks that women should date him because they are nice or he thinks that the nice guy phrase was invented for him. Nice guys come in all shapes, colours and sizes. At times they are rich, at times they are poor, at times they dark skinned, other times they are light skinned, other times they are tall, then at other times they are short. Just because you feel less endowed by nature does not mean that every woman should be running into your arms. I do not agree with Sauti Sol, chances are there are women laughing on boda bodas as there are crying, there are also women laughing in Benz’s as there are women crying. Even in the traditional African community, men needed to work hard to get the girls of their dreams and it was tougher then than it is now. I have realised that every time a guy says he is nice and starts to throw himself a pity party, he turns out to be a social misfit and their behavior borders psychotic. The solution would be to stop wanting women who are out their league and pay attention to the nice girls out there who feel ignored.

HOW TO KNOW YOU ARE DATING A PSYCHO: MY STORY

The other day I got this email: - It seems like a harmless email from a guy I may have broken up with or had broken up with me but that was not the case. Now, this is a very personal story. You see, let me start from the last sms I got from the guy before this, it might sum up everything. Now, let’s start. This experience taught me that I am a typical human being, vulnerable and at times easily manipulated. Now the question from the above communication would be why I would want to friends with such a man. You see I learnt that psycho dudes have the weirdest mood swings, one minute you are evil, the next they are apologizing and want the very first thing you wanted in the first place, friendship. This happened so many times with him saying he was going to get help at some point. I will keep to the basics of what I learnt about being in a somewhat abusive relationship. All the signs were there I did not miss them, I ignored. It was supposed to be a ‘teach me how to swim’ relationship nothing else. On date number one, as we are swimming he says, I am not like other guys in the pool, trying to fondle girls, I am different. Yet he took me to the deep end and tried to kiss me when we were under water, I immediately popped up, and pretended not to have noticed that. Then when we are having coffee he says ‘you are not like other girls, they are b******. That was sign number two, I said as a young woman you cannot respond to every guy that cat calls you or shows interest, interestingly enough I became a b**** soon enough. I ignored that! And it’s not that I wanted to be in a relationship desperately. I did not but I thought he was a really nice guy. He was a gentleman, and you do not meet these quite often, he wanted to pay all the bills, he wanted to know how I was doing, he seemed like a gentle soul battered by the world and I wanted to be the savior. The third sign was on that same day. He said he had volatile temper and his friends had crossed him and he retaliated and I asked ‘why not let go?’ I should have stopped there, I did not. He said he was a jealous guy and I said, I cannot date a jealous guy, I have very good male friends who have stuck with me through thick and thin and I would drop a man first before I dropped them. These are men who have believed in me when I did not believe in myself. You see I have never been in a volatile relationship. It has always been so easy with other others that I have dated, when it ends it ends, there were no words thrown at anyone, but whether it was me or the guy that chose to walk away, nothing like this has ever happened to me. Yes the usual challenges were there and there are some frogs and jerks along the way, but mostly it was typical. I said I am attracted to you but I do not want to be in a relationship, I had a lot in my plate, work and school and I did not think he was the one. He agreed with me. I said if I enter a relationship too quickly, it will not last and I would rather we be friends if it grew from there that I would okay, if did not, okay. I really thought that was clear, one week later I was his background picture, he was holding my hand in public, he wanted me to use his tuk tuk driver to go home, he was telling me he had told his parents about the girl he was going to marry, at two weeks, he could not go anywhere without me, and not feel lonely, he was planning a tour of Mombasa, he talking of waking me up in 2017 to vote, and he was the victim in his last relationship which was sketchy, she left him but now she wanted him back. Something was off, but because he passed the gentleman’s test, I kept ignoring everything that I saw. It was clear yet not so clear… Someone said something was off. I said to my sister ‘this is the kind of guy that you would want to be friends with if I decided I did not want to be in a relationship.’ I was wrong! To be continued...

When the wife of a man you are not interested in calls

A while back there was a tuk tuk driver who used to drop me to my house from Thika town, when I had luggage or at night. It all started when I had to travel to Nyeri at 5am one of those mornings for a seminar, I needed a tuk tuk to take me to Thika from my house. He seemed trustworthy and so I started calling him when I needed a tuk tuk to take me home. Everything was okay until he asks me out one Sunday afternoon, and I am like I am not interested, in fact it made me angry. He was married (that means he had no character whosever), he was not much of a looker, he had very bad English, Swahili and Kikuyu, he was poor (not that I would sleep with someone for money), but there was absolutely no logical reason for me, to even give this man a second glance, but he still had the audacity to sms back and tell me, Abraham (Bible) had many wives. He might have had but at least he could afford them. Forgive if I speak in anger, but it made me really angry, I had shown this man mad respect and then he pulls a crazy stunt like this one. He should happy his wife loves him just as he is. I mean I really needed a reason as to why this man had made a move on me. When he called a couple of months later, it was not pretty, I was really annoyed. There should be a guide before you approach a young woman for sex, ask yourself a million times why I would want to sleep with you, if at the millionth time are still convinced I want to have sex with you, please start again. I really find it really disrespectful by the sheer number of married men who approach young women (regardless of their marital status) for sex, and these married men are from all walks of life. Funny enough, 100% of those instances, I am not interested in having sex with them. I am disgusted at the thought that such a man even thought that I would want to have SEX with him, pass me the sick bucket. To add insult to injury, months later after the incidence his wife calls, and she claims that she saw my message saying I did not want to be a second wife to her husband and she wanted to confirm, first she says I saw your message kwa mzee wangu, and I ask about the older persons cash transfer, this woman is beating around the bush like her husband is the first married man to show interest in me. I wish I had not picked up my phone after ignoring that unknown number a couple of times because I knew it was work related and I am so busy working on my dissertation. She says they are married with children, and that he is cheating on her with someone else (information that I would she told her therapist), I mean this is the second time this is happening to me, the last time the wife asked me if she should leave him, cause she was feed up. Feed up! Try listening to a woman whose husband you are not interested in calling you to ask how you meet her husband and wanting to know details about your life. They always seem to appreciate honesty and tell you what a nasty piece of work their husband is, how many children they have, how he is not at home because they suspect he is with someone else, how long they have been married ‘Oh my God I am not interested!’ I was really annoyed when this woman called me today, the smses were clear, I had to stop myself from insulting her husband in those smses because I know that could land me in jail, I was not even sure it his wife or somebody he had put up, to call me using a different number, is this guy kidding with me! But I called back a bit angrier than the first time, clearly this is harassment. My message was clear call that if she and her idiot husband tried to call me one more time, I would be compelled to take action, she did apologize. First a husband I am not interested in and then his equally annoying wife. This incidence really scared me a lot, what if it was not his wife and he just harassing me, and if he is harassing me it means this man is a psychopath, and that scares the life out of me. It’s not fair I did not do anything to deserve this. My advise to all married women, please if the messages on your husband’s phone are clear, call him, tell him all that stuff you are telling me, because most of the times, the woman knows about you and does not really care, or like in my case was never interested in your husband and even if he was single, I still would not be interested in him, clearly he is your type not mine. There’s nothing frustrating, annoying and scary as being harassed by a married man and his wife, both psychos, both of whom, you have no interest in.

Malindi; That first day, what you should do and never do

After that long journey by bus, you are finally in Malindi and you are wondering what do I do? Hakuna matata, here’s a comprehensive guide to a successful first day in Malindi: - 1. Get a hotel with a swimming pool, do not worry hotels in Malindi are pretty cheap, with one thousand or less you can get a pretty decent place, one where people will not mistake you for an overdressed commercial sex worker. That is possible you know in Malindi, you got to know that. A swimming pool is a must because the weather never gets cold and so the water is always warm. 2. Go to the beach and take pictures of the funny signs in Italian and Swahili, this is definitely little Italia, minus all the illegal immigrants, add a beach boy/ masseuse/guide/ cook/male commercial sex worker (they claim to be very good at what they do and it’s not selling sea shells at the sea shore, unless there are no sex tourists) and you have an awesome photo opp. 3. Walk around the beach and realise that it’s not as crowded as the beaches in Mombasa, realise it’s an opportunity to relax, do nothing and have fun, forget about sex tourism and drugs. If any person tries to talk to you, slap them, you are on a holiday no need for emotional attachment. That is what took you to Malindi in the first place. 4. Draw a love heart in the sand, it might be the only genuine ‘heart’ you get in life, life’s a beach, play with the sand. 5. Play with the waves and water, like you do not have care in the world, whilst imagining the romantic scenes you see in the movie. 6. Then remember to have nice relaxing shower in your hotel room to remove all the sand in your hair. It probably will not come off until couple of weeks later but playing with the sand is a must. Make weird faces and takes selfies. Now there are people who must stay away from Malindi at all costs: - 1. The ‘you must dress decently’ in Malindi, please do not bother; otherwise you might end condemning every single person you meet on the way. Beside the thought of wearing all those clothes is extreme heat and humidity is enough to put someone like you off. 2. The ‘you should not date people from other races’ kind of people. In Malindi the girl in front of you is probably married to an old, really old Italian dude, did I say really old, I meant ‘ancient of days’ dude whose probably in the same league as father Abraham, when children sing father Abraham and he is around, they probably assume its him, the girl behind you is either dating one, or is being kept by one, or is desperately trying to get one. Even the men are trying to get their wives, sisters or daughter’s hooked up to one. So at night when you see a commercial sex worker half naked, remember they are not doing it for you dear Kenyan, you might must be collateral damage. Maybe they should open a shop where you can buy old Italian dudes at a bargain, oh wait! Most bars already serve as brothels, what I am thinking? P/s ladies, Malindi is not the place to meet men, white, African, or whatever, they might only be mistaking you for an overly dressed commercial sex worker. Also never fall for a beach boy, unless you are in the business of taking care financially of an overgrown man child with drug issues and no sense of direction, the only thing this boy is going to know is that you are his ‘mommy.’