It all started with a girl. I’m sure you all remember her. The dancer. The doctor girl who saves children in ICU. The one who hadn’t been on a date this year. So she wanted a man, someone who wasn’t going to show up with a wedding band hidden in his pocket. Someone who was funny and attentive and could take her to a place with a table and a chair and maybe a window with a view. Someone who would not spend his time staring at his phone but stare into her eyes, listen to her and laugh at her witty repartee and ask her what a tourniquet is. Someone who wasn’t going to yawn at medical lore of when it all comes down to the wire and what stands between life and death is a prayer. Someone confident and unintimidated by her unadulterated brilliance, someone who wasn’t going to pitch up with his tail hanging limply between his legs. She wanted to laugh and maybe eat something that wouldn’t require her to open her mouth too wide – there is a time and place for that, and a first date in a year wasn’t going to be it.
She wanted a man who stood a good head over her. Maybe two heads. She didn’t care if he came with a thinning hairline or a wooden leg that he would then lean against the wall. She wanted a decent man with a little bit of culture in his bones and a flair in his mannerism. She didn’t want go somewhere with an elaborate chandelier. Or with waiters in white gloves. Or with valets with no facial hair. She was particular that she wasn’t looking to have hors d’oeuvres. A vegetable wrap in an obscure spoon that smelled of onions would do just fine.
Because what she wanted was a man, a chair, a table and a moment. She was ready to eat with her hands. Because she’s that girl.
So I wrote about her HERE.
And the men wrote in. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Men and boys. Married men and curious men and naughty men and old men and men who wrote the first letters of their names in small letters, men who used smiley emoticons, charming men, suspicious men, crass men, idle men, men from out of town, men who wanted to take a bus to Nairobi just to feed her, men who suspected this was some sort of sick social experiment, brave invincible (much) younger men overconfident of their chops, tall men who announced their height in the first sentence, short men who said their height didn’t matter because they were bringing a storm to her doorstep, beautiful men with beautiful profile pictures.
There was a sprinkling of women who wrote as well because, well, what a man can do, a woman can do, right? All’s fair in love and war, innit darlings?
There were 623 emails in the doctor’s email at the last count. That’s a lot of men, folks. I asked for the password because, I knew there lurked a story in there. Besides, I was curious to see this “best foot” the men intended to put forth. In the emails were some familiar names, some chaps who I didn’t even think read this blog, but I guess the predatory instinct of all men remains latent. There were men who addressed her as “madam”. There were the charmers, the snake oil salesmen, smooth to a fault. So smooth I read their emails and thought, “Shit, that email might make daktari pregnant.” There were men who wrote long paragraphs that went nowhere and men who only wrote a word that ignited furious curiosity. Then men who were averse to the usage of commas or full stops. Those who left their emails hanging like doors suddenly left ajar. There were the ones who threw the fight before it started. They wrote, “I know you have probably received lots of emails and you won’t pick me…” Those made me so blue.
There were the ones who seemed to be writing while holding their peckers, their overripe sexual innuendos bubbling just under the surface. I bet these are the guys who have a name for their penis. The ones who tell a girl, “Hi lovely, you are so lost, but Dikembe is here to rescue you.” There were the meek ones with a sharp wit and the loud ones with the personality of a beer coaster. There were the funny chaps that she exchanged numerous emails with before they met. Those were a true joy to read.
The one thing I learnt from those emails is that we – as men – don’t try. 70% of those emails were from men who already came in entitled. Came in boisterous. Or loud. Men with hearts of pharaohs. They started roaring fires with no heat. I know their type, they are men with many options and there is nothing as troublesome as a man coming to the table with many options, in business or otherwise. Because they don’t care enough, if at all.
I couldn’t go through all those emails so I asked daktari to star the ones she felt stood a chance. I was fascinated by her staring process because the ones I thought she would star, she didn’t. Which means I would probably make for a lousy chick in my next life. I suspect I would pick on the wrong guys and maybe even fall pregnant by a man who said he works for Bamburi Cement as a manager kumbe he sells flash disks and screen protectors on Kaunda Street.
Then daktari went on dates. About six so far. (She’s busy with school and work). I thought it would be cliché to write about those dates through her eyes. How about the men tell me about those dates? I thought. She asked them if they were cool being interviewed. They said sawa. One said nyet.
I called most of them two weekends ago, on a balmy evening as I sat at Thirty Thieves bar in Diani, a bold scottish underage called Aberlour for my company, only 12 years old but did adult things to my system. I had my phone cradled between my shoulder and cheek speaking with her first date, a gent called Steve, 33-years old and a researcher. Steve took her to Havana in Westy one evening because ‘they make the best pasta in town.’ He ordered a beer and she, house wine. The light was just right. He said he remembered her complexion and eyes (see? I didn’t lie), her height and how smart she was. “I didn’t think I was her type though, and I’m not sure she was my type either,” he told me. “We didn’t get on like a house on fire. I felt I couldn’t talk to her and vice versa. ” But he bought her achari which chuffed her so much because she says, “Achari is better than flowers any day.”
Then there was date two; Tom Bwana, 31-years, works for Citizen, marketing. I called him while he was in shags in Suba, around Rusinga Island. He said, Let me call you back Biko, I’m taking care of some domestic animals. (At 9.30pm?). They had exchanged 39 emails. Witty in content and context. Then they met at Java, Yaya. Tom got there first and ordered a cold lemonade and emailed her, “I’m the blackest guy in here, the tallest I presume, I’m holding an old phone, can you see me?” He recounted when he called me back.
She came in brown tan boots and had an “exquisite dental formula,” he said. “You lied about her eyes, Biko, you were modest,” he admonished me, “Because they were like polished marbles.” I chuckled. Polished marbles. Down boy. She ordered a Malindi Macchiato. They sat under those Java paintings with market women with wide hips. From both their admission, the date went very well. “We laughed and laughed and laughed.” Bwana said. “He made me laugh so much,” daktari told me, “and later he took me upstairs to shop for a book, a lakeside charmer that one.” (Note: He’s Suba, actually. Subas are not Luos, they are Bantus, if I’m not wrong, migrated from Congo. But they still want to think they are Luos and so we let them because there is enough room for anyone who wants to be a Luo. We are an equal opportunity like that.)
Date three was Karanja, 33, years old. Very fresh guy. He’s a doctor who studied medicine in Cuba. (I know). He’s doing his masters in surgery in Eldoret. They met at News Cafe at Adlife Center. She had just lost a child in ICU that day so she was bent out of shape. So she knocked several cocktails as she waited for him to come from a rugby match between Kenya and Uganda. When he finally got there, much later, she was well into a meltdown of sorts. Didn’t want to drink any more. Wanted to go home. So they sat in her car in the basement parking with her head against the window, her breath causing a mist against the window. He removed her shoes and rubbed her back and she said she wasn’t in a state to be sociable and kept apologising for being like that and he kept saying it was OK, it’s cool, these things happen. “He was a perfect gentleman, that guy,” she told me, “He didn’t judge me, he never showed irritation, he made sure I got home safe.” The next day she made it up to him. She took him to lunch at The HUB in Karen for ribs at the Roast but it was packed so they ended up at Crossroads. They had chicken. They talked some. Later, they went to ‘walk off the lunch’ at Uhuru Gardens. It was a lovely Saturday afternoon in Nairobi, clear blue skies, the air rent with lavender. “She made me laugh a lot,” he said. “She is smart and very funny.”
They talk daily now. He doesn’t know what the future holds given that he is in a different city and his focus is his exams right now. “She is good peoples,” he said, “let’s wait and see what happens.”
What happened, though, was a fourth date with a guy called Dun. Dun is younger than daktari – 25 years old. He runs his own outdoor advertising business in Westy. Those billboards you see on highways? He constructs some of them, mounts ads on them. Dun sounded to me like an outlier. When I mentioned that to him he asked, “What? I’m not.” (Because he thought I called him a liar…hehe). Dunny boy, you may want to buy and read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.
Dun bounced her once because work was mad. The day they met he thought they were to meet at Java in town and on the way there his phone was snatched through his car window. So he borrowed a phone and emailed her and she said, ‘I’m not in tao, I’m at Java Yaya.’ Because he was late he parked his car in town and hopped onto a motorbike to make it to Yaya on time. That to me sounded like something the main character in an Indian movie would do; hair flying in the wind, Ray Bans on, holding onto the bike guy, rushing to meet the girl who has set him aflame with passion, an Indian girl with a red dot on her forehead. Then as he enters the restaurant, everybody would start dancing and singing to insane choreography, well, everybody but the sulky girl with the red dot on her forehead who would act disinterested even though we all know she will end up with this guy. After he has danced and sung in 200 scenes.
He ordered a coke. “She was bossy,” he told me, “She was very particular about stuff. I figured as a doctor she was used to authority, you know giving nurses orders.” He laughed. They spoke about his car a lot, a Land Rover 101 called Jezebel. They talked about his business and how tough it was. He remembers how tall she was. “She was smart,” he said. “I liked how decided she was because I’m tired of girls who just want to run around having fun.”
They talked a few times after the date and then she sort of went cold on him. He has an inkling why. “There is this time I was in traffic and it was raining and my mtu wa mkono called wanting Shs1,500 so I called her and asked her if she could Mpesa me the money.”
“No you didn’t,” I said laughing.
“Yeah, bana. I thought you’d better hear it from me and not her. Did she mention it?” (She hadn’t).
“What did she say? Did she MPesa you the money?”
“No, she didn’t,” he said with a frustrated sigh. “I don’t even know what I was thinking, man. I could have asked my mom for that money. I think she thinks I’m not serious and that’s why she has gone silent on me. What do you think?”
I think so too, boss. I suspect that maybe she is afraid that maybe next time you will ask her for rent because “There is a ka-cheque that is yet to clear…” you know how it starts, ey?
Fifth date didn’t want to be interviewed.
Sixth date was Kiura, 28 years old. He’s in digital PR. This is the ONLY guy who didn’t call her back after the date. He sounded like a real cool chap on phone. He had a girlfriend for four years but she left the country and then things went pear shaped. He has been single since. Someone in the office dared him to write to daktari and take her on a date after my story because he was becoming a bit of a scary loner, not going on dates etc. Next he would start rescuing stray kittens, like someone I know.
They met at Java Upper Hill. He waited for her for two and half hours (work, traffic etc) during which time he had three cups of coffee. Daktari later apologised profusely when she arrived (and later paid for their dinner). He said it was lots of fun, even though he hates small talk: “We are both introverts, so we found a lot of ground talking about our weirdness.” There were no awkward moments of silence. Or even comfortable moments of silence.
Here is why he didn’t call her back. He asked her what she was looking for and she said she was looking to meet people. He is looking to date. He is the kind of guy who doesn’t want to meet chicks, he wants to date them. So he never called her back.
He stepped into the night after the date and got swallowed into the waiting darkness and she never heard from him. And I’m sure she secretly wonders why he never called because she never opened her mouth wide at the table, or chewed loudly.
I spoke to all these gentlemen on phone, and they had one golden thread running through them; they were all very well spoken. They sounded like grounded and well adjusted fellows. I liked their spirit. They were easy to laugh and to make laugh. Guys you never have to break ice with. Mostly they sounded like good intentioned, gentlemen. Which says something about daktari’s choices.
I don’t know what daktari wants, but really, which mortal knows what women want? Maybe she’s sated with the dates. Maybe she will pick one of these guys, or maybe she won’t pick none of them. Maybe all she wanted was to revive the feeling of sitting across a man and smelling his mind, and eating his laughter in small tiny bites. And now that that is done, maybe she will go back to the darkness of the Intensive Care Unit where broken children struggle with their lives and she will join the good Lord battle the Angel of Death in the eternal tightrope of life and death.