THE NOBLE THING

That Sunday afternoon found him saying Amen along with hundreds of other saints to the closing prayer led by the Pastor. Sundays are good days for him because he gets to spend more of the day in church. But this particular Sunday was bound to be longer than usual. He strolls through a parade of men and women of the Lord making their way out of the sanctuary when his friend spots him.

“Yoh!”

“Yoh! Is how?”

“What are you going to do now? There is no afternoon service.”

“Ati? Aah bummer. And the way I was psyched up for it.”

And that’s when he said to himself that since there was nothing to do that afternoon, he would feel the long effect of the Lord’s Day. For the better part of the week, he had avoided the idea of visiting his best friend. He calls her Bee. Worse if it’s going to be an impromptu visit. But he knew better than to skip town without ever seeing her. Her alpha self would make him beg for forgiveness.

So he calls her and asks whether she was at her place. “Yea I am,” she says. “So I can pass by then?” The answer was, of course. He leaves promptly. At least he has somewhere to go. Their friendship is that type where they have deep conversations. It is hell deep, especially if some hot tea is yet to be served from either side. And while he had some tea, he wasn’t in the mood to spill. But he knew she had one hell of a story to tell about the first man to ever rock her world from front to back and side to side till the fountains of glory sprung from the earth like Lake Bogoria’s hot water springs.

30 minutes later, he called her to open the gate. These modern plots where biometrics is the only way in. She swings the gate open and peeps out with squinting eyes clearly indicating she had not seen the sun face to face since she woke up. He looks like someone from a respectable place while she looks like a girl from the dungeons of her ‘feelanga free’ mode – sporting a short pair of tights beneath a long buggy t-shirt.. In her hand is an eye pencil.

She says when he gets to the house, “No need to sit in the living room alone. Come to the bedroom,” she says.

In that bedroom, the eye pencil in hand starts to make sense. Bee was practicing her makeup skills on her friend Vicky. Girls’ stuff, he rolls his eyes in his mind as he sits by the study table. It starts to dawn on him that maybe coming over was not the best idea if at all he was going to sit through a makeup session.

After what seemed like an eternity, they were done. Vicky leaves, and the bestie bestie tales reignite. He listens to some things he cannot believe went into the same ears that listened to the word of God earlier that day.

6 pm struck, and his eyes were set towards the door. He couldn’t allow himself to leave any later. But it seems that was fate’s time because what transpired after stepping out of that door is the basis of today’s blog. Bee sees him off as she heads to the neighbour’s place, for God knows what.

Two hours later, after he had just settled back home, Bee texts on WhatsApp saying,

“My friend saw you and she likes you.”

Now these are the kind of things he loves to hear. The smell of a hook-up was in the air.

Curious for details, he asks, “Which friend? Tell me everything.”

“She saw you while you were leaving. She was at my neighbour’s and she asked me who you are. I said you are my best friend.”

“And then?”

“She asked if you’re single and I said yes. She’s younger than you by the way.”

If he was next to Bee, he would high-five her for being a good wingman because the part about being single is a debatable matter. But she played the cards right either way.

She sent him her pictures, and he thought she was cute. Best said in sheng, “Inaweza!”

She forwards her number, and he jumps on the horse without wasting time. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but he certainly didn’t expect anything short of good vibes and insha’Allah.

****

Now, when writing this, I was warned to be very considerate and polite. So instead of giving out the devil in the details (which will end up implicating the subject thus, impolite), I will summarize what my friend came complaining to me, “Mjango, I was bored even before the night ended.”

“Why?”

“The conversation looked like an interview. Like I was the one asking questions and she’s the one answering. And her answers were so brief like knickers.”

“So technically you were the one driving the conversation.”

“Exactly. A conversation that gets harder to drive eventually because you run out of things to ask. When you get straight answers, there is nothing to build on. Hana story!”

“Yea I know those types of convos. She doesn’t ask ‘what about you?’”

“Manzeh! I feel like the fact that she was looking for someone to date her, she was sort of putting me to the test. Like, show me what you got, you know? It reached a point where I thought it would be helpful to point out that we could liven the conversation a bit? That I can’t be the only one interested in things about her and she doesn’t reciprocate. I mean, we are supposed to be getting to know each other right?”

“Right.”

“So I was like, could we make this a little more conversational? I hinted that a chat that is not conversational is boring.”

“You said boring?”

“Well, yeah. And as I talked about this with Bee, she said that was equal to saying she was boring.”

“Yikes!”

“I know right? And that’s where the problem lies. She accused me of gas lighting her friend. Bee said that I should have kept that to myself. It was my opinion and that it is relative. She didn’t need to hear it. The noble thing to do when someone doesn’t match up to your energy is to ghost them. It’s better than trying to explain to them how they should be yet they are not. Because now chances are, the girl’s going on with her life believing that she’s boring. And maybe to someone else, she’s not. So I may have burst her esteem over my opinion.”

“Damn. Okay. I get where you’re coming from though. But what did you think? What was your real intention?”

“Nothing malicious Mjango. You see, I innocently suggested a better way for us to relate. I have this thing where I learnt never to assume people see things the way I see. So she could be thinking that the conversation was just okay yet I was dying in the inside. And honestly, I thought she’d understand and take it with a sweet spirit.”

I chuckled, “ I am assuming we’re talking about this because she didn’t.”

“Well yeah. She told Bee I said she was boring. Which were not my words, but what the hell. Though immediately after my suggestion, she sent me her pic and was like, ‘so this is me.’”

“In an attempt now to introduce herself and maybe redeem the conversation?”

“You can say that. She didn’t seem offended so it still beats me why she would tell Bee I said that. Anyway, there was a slight improvement but in the end, I accepted our energies didn’t match. Perhaps our intelligence too?”

“Emotional intelligence?”

“Something like that. Social intelligence maybe. Yea, that especially. And so, I did the noble thing.”

****

Afterward, I came across the following screenshot, ‘City Boyz Up!’

I was amused by the comments that followed. I sampled some of them.

And as I promised last week to feature advance comments on the City Boy pandemonium, here is what Njambi had to say:

Now, regardless of whether the source of that screenshot was a fabrication for clout, there is a lesson to be learned here.

Your opinion is relative. Your poison is someone else’s meat. So if someone doesn’t match up to your energy or character, go out silently like a ninja.

I’ll attempt to explore every perspective here. For starters, we tend to think our way of thinking or viewing life and the world is right. Yeah, that’s the thing; everyone thinks they are right and know what’s right, which makes it all what? Relative! Let’s call the two personas on that screenshot Baby Girl and City Boy.

Baby Girl doesn’t see any problem with herself because she has probably built her esteem on how she looks in her entire life, which is totally okay. When you, City Boy, come around to tell her that that’s not all there is to life, aren’t you considering that that is her most vital asset? There are men out there who want nothing, but the prettiest chic, and Baby Girl would be everything they ever dreamt. They would want nothing more from her. The fact that she doesn’t have what you, City Boy think she should have doesn’t necessarily make it a must-have. It is completely peculiar to you and not necessarily everyone else, including Baby Girl herself.

On the other hand, what City Boy is saying is not all pointless. The only problem, perhaps, is how he said it or even that he said it in the first place. Anyway, in my view (which is, of course, relative), his problem with Baby Girl is more or less the same as the lamentations of my friend at the beginning of this blog.

These guys believe there should be more to a lady than just how she looks. That ladies should even attempt to invest more in themselves and their personalities beyond their superficial selves. They think that superficiality is shallow. Brains are deep. An outspoken personality is deep. Well, mjango that’s where things get really relative. Not everybody is outspoken. Introverts do exist and they can’t help it. If you can’t help it too, why not get yourself an outspoken person like you are?

I said it’s not all pointless, right? So I will say, again, relatively, and this goes to all my ladies out there. (Sounding like something an American rapper would say, hehe). Beauty is of course, beautiful. We love you for your beautiful selves. I mean, what kind of world would it be without your entire female being, which is nothing but beautiful. I or we are not saying you should change. We are simply saying you can be more. But be more for you, not for City Boy. Not for Mjango. For you. Read books, join a club, learn a new skill, work out, practice communication and even public speaking, and start a business, among other self-development things. Invest in your identity capital just as much as you do to look gorgeous. Cultivate all that to make you a person of your own. A person with a stand-alone personality. Probably City Boy pitied you for thinking being pretty is everything. But City Boy aside, how about when you are scheduled to walk into that interview room full of female panelists; where there are no men to be stupefied by your smile? Will being pretty be enough?

Anyway finally back to you City Boy. There are better ways to express your sentiments about Baby Girl. If you really have to express them, be a gentleman about it, literally. Be graceful with your words. Let it do more than undoing. In fact, Dr Myles Munroe said it’s your job to make yourself the kind of woman you want [as a wife].

Eph 5:25 – 27

25. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it;

26. That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

27. That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

Realize it says to love your wives as Christ also loved the church. This means whatever Christ did to show His love for the church is the same thing a man should do to show love to his wife. And what did He do out of love for the church? He sanctified and cleansed the church so that He may present it to Himself; a glorious church. In the same manner, sanctify and cleanse your woman so you can present to yourself a glorious woman.

Amen? Ama?

Otherwise, if you cannot express it to her gracefully, just keep it to yourself. Or better yet, it is highly recommended that you keep it to yourself, graceful or not, and do the noble thing; ghost!

Disclaimer: I am not saying you ghost someone you’re already in a relationship with. Or someone you have dragged along past expectations for too long. You owe them much more (relatively speaking). So if you’re at that stage, well, you’re on your own.