By JACKSON BIKO
The beauty of being men is that we don’t need too much icebreaking when we meet other men. It always natural and uncomplicated.
We always seem to start talking to other unknown men far more effortlessly than women do to each other. The membrane that separates two men who don’t know each other is always so thin that it can be punctured simply by a cough.
With women, I’m told, it’s a bit different because women have to sit in their corners for a while and size each other up (hair, shoes, clothes, makeup, how she talks, what she says,) before deciding if they are worth engaging.
For instance, recently I was in this pub after work and the manager, someone I know, walked over and started talking to me (in mother tongue) about his sister who has studied journalism and who wants to write and who needs a foot in the industry, so can I help with some recommendations or advice?
Seated a few seats away at the counter was this Sudanese chap; a very tall and dark guy with a creased forehead, dressed like a salary man.
(Turned out he works in an NGO.) Mr NGO kept stealing glances our way; you know, like when someone is eavesdropping but they are pretending they are minding their own business?
HISTORIC LINEAGE
Yeah, he was minding our business. So I gave the manager my email address and he wandered off. After the chap disappeared I turned to Mr NGO and because we all migrated from South Sudan and settled by rivers and lakes I asked him without preamble, “Did you understand a word of my conversation with that guy?”
He looked at me and said without missing a beat, “You know, I caught some of it. Yours seems faster, you speak your words faster, ours is a bit slow, but I caught most of it. Your dialect is deep though, in my mother tongue most words you used are only used by very old men!”
We laughed then we spent the next hour discussing our historic lineage (he was very knowledgeable about the history and culture of our people) and then I bought him a whisky, talked some more, and then he bought me a whisky then we started talking about some other stuff I can’t remember now, and then I bought him another whisky and then, three hours later, he said he had to leave before Alcoblow guys put up their checkpoints but just as he was opening the leather-bound bill holder to stare at his bill (don’t you love how we all stare at our bill suspiciously, at the end of the evening and give it that who-drunk-all-this look?)
I bought him another whisky and he was forced to buy me another whisky before finally we exchanged contacts, embraced like old brothers, and he ran out of there before anyone bought the other another drink. (He never found Alcoblow guys).
It reminded me of how sometimes your girlfriend/wife/prospect drags you to this function where you have to meet the boyfriends/husbands of these friends of hers, which normally wouldn’t be a problem until it turns out that the other guy is a complete moron.
The general rule is common decency and diplomacy. There is never any need for strong opinions especially when you aren’t very sure of the other party’s stand.
The safest topics are always around career or sports or just general chat about the drainage system of Nairobi. Or a topic almost everybody won’t disagree with; like Sonko.
DIFFICULT INTERACTIONS
Politics, on the other hand is tricky, and it never helps the first interaction to share very strong deranged views about your allegiance especially when you are not too sure of the other person’s view, because people get very emotional about politics and some people carry pocket knives attached to their car keys and people have been known to go back home with holes in their forehead because they said the wrong thing about politics. I’m just saying.
Those are the most difficult interactions; this guy you just met just says such insensitive stuff with total disregard to your allegiance. And you do nothing but sit there and hope that he chokes on his meat. Or falls into the open bonfire - preferably arse first.
Or worse are those born-again folk who want to shove the Bible in your drink then make you feel that you will burn in hell because you had three doubles with ice. They sit there, scowling in their corner with those judgmental eyes, as if they’re holding court with Lucifer.
Or those who say, “Beth and I don’t drink alcohol because we believe in certain values in life.” The same Beth you met two weeks ago? The one with a beer belly? Please, father Abraham! Unless she stopped drinking just after Madaraka Day!