Getting Married? Yes. No. Maybe.

It is one wonderful Friday and once again we get to be treated with something to read. And no… It is not anything to do with your demonstrations. You can loot SPAR, burn public offices and be involved in running battles with our men in uniform but I will not leave my personal stuff to talk about how someone was packed under the chair of a moving MDF vehicle. Kawerengeni NyasaTimes or Zodiak Online. They even have nice pictures which I do not.

Some of you probably noticed that there was no article last week. That was because I was feeling unwell. They say that doctors make the worst patients at the hands of a health worker but I did humble myself and ended up in a consultation room. I was checked out, pierced into and lights were shone into pretty much every orifice (that is medical for hole) on my body to detect what was wrong with me. In the end, the good “doctor” found what was irritating me and gave me a cocktail of medications which in turn knocked me down even further with side effects. Just like that and there was no article.

Being in bed with little to no energy for even cooking for myself gave me so much time to do two things; sleep and think. At some point, I found myself reflecting on the question my immediate boss had asked me at some point while at work at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital; If you were to get sick, who would look after you? My mum, of course, was the answer. I mean, who else other than her? His response? You need to relieve her of that duty and find someone. You know where this is going. It is going the same direction as the one that things take when I post a wedding card on my WhatsApp status or on Instagram. It all ends up with questions on when I am going to tie the knot with my better half. That question can be a mouthful when you are like me, if you know what I mean.

I am now back in the office and everything is back to normal. On the second day since my return to work, one lady who sells snacks around the office (amabweretsa zitumbuwa zokoma) came to my desk around knock off time telling me to finish off some of the merchandize she had. In her word, I needed it. “Nanga ukadya chani? Si mumangomwa tea inu?” Turns out that when people see a young bachelor all they see is a tea drinking and egg eating subhuman. Anthu osakwatira tikunyozeka mtauni muno.

Thoughts continued…

I recently moved from Zingwangwa to Old Naperi where I am camping now. For my living room arrangement, I had to ask the land lady who happened to come around at the time I was unpacking. Before she left, she asked one unusual question; when is the woman of the house was coming in. I laughed the matter off and told her to travel with the LORD. Mafunso amenewo sindimayankha ine. When basic unpacking was done, I was left with a house with things clustered in the stores and with no idea as to where my body lotion was three days after settling. Probably wouldn’t have happened if I was not living alone. And then there was the issue of people coming to see the house. After the first cleanup, it was okay for pretty much anyone to visit but another kind of visitor has since invited himself and his sidekicks to the house. My old man wants to come with mum and my two nieces to see where yours truly is living. I must say I have dragged my dad to my house a couple of times and all I had to do was to fry some chicken without the pepper (I usually put too much of that in my food thanks to Isaac Banda) and nsima. On the other hand, I have never hosted a team of 4 and I doubt I have the pot for preparing food for such a big team. Tiona kuti zitani, but the thought of hosting them parents is making the long weekend look short. A thought? Could have been avoidable if there was someone to share the fear and the actual action of hosting with.

But why is there none? Behold! An excuse. Maybe a couple.

Well. The main thing is just that this day and age is just not optimal fur such exercises as finding a partner for a number of reasons. The first one is the social media which has made the world a bit too small for convenience in these things. The social media is drawing people who are not supposed to be near each other unnecessarily closer leading to overlaps in people’s love circles and triangles. Then there is materialism; others come to us thinking that we have things that we do not have while others will run away from us because of things we do not have. Then there is the nuke; generally this is just a generation of broken young men and women with no ability to love or to be receptive to love. Having been subjected to a couple of heart breaks, the modern day young person would hardly recognize love even if it slapped them in the face. Without taking myself from the equation, I should say that ngini iyiyi has affected a lot of us. And then there is this thing of seeing social media perfect come to a crashing end. Zimenezinso zikumatipsinja in the same way our falling might have injured others.

The other thing....

Rather closely related to the already mentioned already is the issue of (perceived) compatibility. With time, we are becoming too selective with our partners over issues that may have counted as trivial ten years ago. There may be issues of age, race, tribes, education and economic delineation influencing one's choice. While this may not be an issue with the two people who are willing to start out together, it might be for people who matter to them and consequently be a barrier. If you are to consider the radical view that you need a spouse for you and not for your image or family or anything of the sort, then you should be okay picking anyone as blindly as love dictates. If, on the other hand you care a little about what people think and say about you, then you should have all those matters in mind when picking a partner. The danger is that when we factor in every single thing, you tend to have a saintly image of a prospective partner who doesn't exist in real life. That creates thw difficult balance between missionary dating on one extreme and unnecessary tolerance on the other. You see the problem?

The last thing is a rather lame one but valid for some of us. Generally, people are just tired. Really. One meme that was trending was that with the question as to what it takes for a relationship to reach the stage where people walk around and take photos in similar outfits. Despite the jokes such a thing generated, there was a valid concern in it. I have seen and heard of a lot of relationships which ended way before they started and a lot more which failed to make it past two fortnights. Perhaps some of us are passing through this stage where we can hardly tolerate very small things that we will otherwise tolerate when the Supreme Being sprinkles us with some relationship anointing that some are enjoying. Perhaps we don't have anyone who can tolerate our schedules and characters too so for now we will continue with the wake up, drink tea, go to work, eat eggs, sleep and repeat routine. We might as well be listening to and singing "Ine ndilibe pulobulemu" while we are at it.

I could continue to write but the idea is that this issue of getting married is not one we have to be pinning each other about. There must be some natural and supernatural orders beyond human control governing these things. Tiyeni tidzingokhala mtaunimu.

Happy Independence Day and enjoy the long weekend.