MANTALK: Birds of a feather ...

Let’s say you go to buy avocado (because you love your bread with avocado). You go to this grocery at a petrol station or a supermarket and because you are a man you don’t stop to admire the onions; instead you head straight for the avocado stand.

There is a girl there staring by the avocados, she’s wearing a small dress with patterns and she has wide hips that are covering half the avocado stand. You ignore her. You pick avocados and squeeze them because that’s how normal people pick out avocados, no?

You pick one avocado and you squeeze then return it to the pile. You pick another avocado and squeeze it and return it to the pile. Suddenly she turns and says, “If you squeeze them too hard they won’t be of any use to the next person.” It’s a statement, not a question. You want to tell her, “Funny you should mention that, because that also applies to humans.” But you don’t because she might miss the subtlety of that joke. Maybe even find it offensive.

So you ask her to help you choose the best avocado and she does. You pick her number because, surely, how often do you meet a hot bird at an avocado stand? A week later you buy her dinner and then drinks and then dinner again and then lunch and then you have your way with her and she becomes crazy about you because apparently you are an “excellent lover.” Her words, not yours – but you are compelled to agree with her nonetheless.

Anyway, she starts thinking that you are dating, like most girls. She starts saying things like “us” and “we” and she wants to drag you to help her pick an outfit for a wedding. You didn’t see your life coming down to spending a Saturday afternoon saying things like “No, too loose at your hips, you need something tighter around your hips.” Or “That colour is off. Try the blue one you tried before the one you tried before the last time.”

'STUPID AFFAIRS'

Anyway, you refuse to accompany her to that wedding because weddings are stupid affairs where people wear big shades and kiss the air around cheeks and keep saying, “Gosh, I hope it doesn’t rain.”

Anyway, one day she says she wants you to join her for drinks with her girls. It’s a Friday and you aren’t doing anything major so you join them at a rooftop bar with a lousy band playing. She’s with three of her girls.

These are the people who have her back, according to her. They met in uni and remained friends. The whole evening she leans on you and rubs your back and rubs your knees and laughs at everything you say. Her girls smile at you the whole time and ask you where you grew up; one even says you are cute. She has had a bit to drink, so you take her compliment very seriously.

Now, the thing with her friends is that they are sort of odd. Later that night she tells you about one of them who is some sort of a gold digger and one who is dating an old white man who only comes in thrice a year. She tells you that he pays her rent and services her luxury car and pays for her child’s school fees. So you ask her, “and who was that guy who joined us who was all over her?” and she says, “Oh, Pato? Pato is a guy she just sees when the mzungu is not around because woishe it gets lonely.

And the last girl, the one who called you cute, obviously can’t handle her booze because she had gotten loud as the night wore on. You were bewildered and disappointed at this colourful profile of her friends and although you are an open-minded chap who shops for his own avocados, you just found her friends too much. A bit off-kilter, if you will.

So you stop seeing her. You return her calls after six hours. You let her WhatsApp messages remain grey for hours. You get “busy” every time she calls for drink ups. Basically you cut her loose. You cut her loose because she was hanging with wolves and predators with blood on their teeth. This bunch of ridiculous women who seemed like man-eaters. Of course you judged her by the friends she keeps. You imagined that although she looked different from her friends, surely they must share something in common. You hang out with the wolves you learn to howl, no?

If you gave her a chance she would have said that she isn’t like them. That she likes them because they are different from her. That’s probably what the one who dates that old mzungu guy tells that mzungu. Whatever. You couldn’t reconcile with her friends who you saw as a reflection of who she was. You are your friends, after all. Fine, she could choose a mean avocado and she has hips to die for, but her friends spoilt that party with their bloodied fangs. So now you have altered your life. You no longer buy avocados at the place you met her.