Man Up!

For as long as men have been men, there are certain expectations that society in general demands from them, which is to be MEN! That’s why it was considered unworthy of having a matriarchal system in the Gikuyu traditional setting when women ruled over men, days of akina Wangu Wa makeri and her ilk. Read all about here.

I guess the reason too that boys were circumcised at an age when they knew that the apparatus was not only strategically put there for peeing purposes only was to familiarize them with the point when boyhood gave way to manhood. The two weeks a circumcised boy had to stay indoors as he healed was a chance to fully comprehend the fact that boyhood stupidity and jokes had been thrown away with the foreskin, and now he had to keep his head high and be counted on as a man.

Some duties ended once a boy faced the knife, duties like doing the dishes and cutting onions. At that point it is even considered unmanly to hang around the kitchen with the womenfolk. One is supposed to be out there doing eish that real men do, eish like just hanging around shopping places doing nothing!

In the modern setting we are living in, men are still expected to be men, most of all by the women they either have as better halves or bitter quarters, the ones who aren’t even sure whether he will put a ring on it! A woman will expect you to stand up and fight for her even if the guy you are supposed to beat the living daylights out of is Brock Lesnar!

And we all know people like Brock just beat up people for the heck of it.

Women being who they are, their reaction falls on the following lines; one, after Brock kicks your ass like a Kindergarten kid, she will tell you that she feels unprotected when she is with you. Two, she will call you a coward if you shy away from standing up against Brock, never mind that the guy is ten times your size. Very few women will pat you on the back and say, “C’mon baibe, you will live to fight another day!”

I have a friend, let’s call him Joe. Joe is a very tall guy, i think he is around 6ft 5, he is married and has a couple of kids. The other day as we were heading home from work he started laughing and when i asked why he told me that he had a story to share with me, an experience that in retrospect was quite laughable.

“I got home one day. As i was settling on the sofa removing my socks my wife’s phone rang. It is not customary for me to receive her calls so i called her instead. She suggested i receive since she did not know the number.

I did, much to my chagrin it was a man’s voice on the other side, a very angry man. He said he wanted to speak to her. I was so furious i called her from the kitchen to talk to this man, all the while studying her terrified face for any tell tale signs that something was up.

As soon as she hung up i was on her with queries; who was he, what he wanted, how he got her number and whether that was what she did the entire day i was away, chatting with men. She tried to explain that the man was a husband to her friend and that they may have been having an argument and for some reason he called her number, i donno whatsup, she said!”

Out of anger i demanded she take me to their house which she obliged since i was breathing fire. The house is just about 500 metres away, am striding while she is running after me panting trying to catch her breath. At that point i did not even consider that she is half my size and that running, which she had to do to keep up with me, was not in her genes.

Joe was telling me this story and am also panting out of breath coz the guy has very long strides! He continues.

“We get to the house and i let my anger out by knocking on their gate with everything ounce of strength I had. A minute later a man squeezes out of the gate and for a moment i was stunned as i came to my senses. He was extremely huge, i knew i was about to make an entirely stupid decision.”

Joe laughs.

“I did not know what to do; one thing i knew for sure was that i would get my ass kicked. So i did the next stupid thing. I should have asked him whether he had called by mistake, instead i hurled a stone in his direction and hit the black gate. It was around eleven O’clock at night! I did not mean to hit him; i just wanted to show him how vexed i was!

The guy was apparently more vexed than I and he did not take kindly to my “solid” way of having a conversation. If i was alone i could have resorted to a more dignified way of dialogue, but my wife was there with me. i had to carry on the drama i had raised in the house to this guy’s backyard. I had to prove that am a total man.

Once i hurled the stone, my wife moved back and stood at a distance watching the spectacle. I cannot recall what distracted me, but in a flash the guy had his massive arms around my neck; i swear i have never seen arms that huge. I had underestimated his agility too, this guy could move like light, dude. Then his grip on my neck felt like an iron clamp, i couldn’t breathe.

“Haha!” i laughed, “then?”

“I tried to fight back, scratch at his face and i couldn’t even get close enough. The problem was since he had his grip on my neck all my anger was bottled up inside me and it was killing me internally. He kept on slapping me and i couldn’t do shit!

Then my wife walks up to us, by then the entire neighborhood was out watching us. People who knew me were watching me getting whacked like a kid. She begs big guy to release me saying it was a misunderstanding. He did, i dropped like eish from an elephant’s ass!

It was embarrassing, getting whacked like that. The moment he released me and i walked a few metres away i started threatening him, how i would kick his ass next time, how his huge frame meant nothing to me, how he would “know” who I was by the next day; you better move out of Mombasa coz am going to finish you, i kept shouting.

Honestly, had he held on to my neck a second longer i could have crapped my pants.

From that day every time i try to raise my voice to my wife she reminds me how i got whooped!”

That was Joe’s story. What i say is if i cannot beat a guy at that moment then am better off alive waiting for a better day when the odds may perhaps be tilted to my advantage; that day may yet come and i will not have the guts to throw a single punch!