Conversations: More Random Thoughts

 

Our secondary school days were interesting days because we had people from different backgrounds. The interesting thing was that we had people who were very young and very old sharing classes and the age differences could be huge unlike now when the ages are on the lower side and more homogenous among school and classmates. Our class had one of those oldies. He was a jolly good fellow from the Lower Shire and despite his nice sense of humour this good man refused to chat with the youngest of us. As he liked to say, kucheza ndi mwana ndi chimodzimodzi kucheza wekha. The good man equated talking to a kid to “conversing alone” if we have such a term in English. Time and again I find myself remembering his words which make more sense now more than ever because having a conversation has become a bit of a superpower nowadays.

The Venomous Hope whose written tantrums I have been lazy enough to let you read when unable to write observed that the message of my articles has been coming in duplicates and triplicates after the 150^th article. I should say it here that I have a feeling that I may have said this before but you have to understand why I write these things before you can blame me for complaining about the same things over and over again. And yes! This is a complaint.

If you are not part of the Sunday team (the group of people that read Friday articles on Sundays), you have probably gotten a message that someone misses you by this hour. If you have not, you are not missing out a lot because 9 out of the 10 people that have gotten the message have received it from people who do not mean it. Over the years, I got curious about what people meant when they said they missed me. In what was a mini social experiment, I decided to be asking each and every person who claimed to miss me to tell me why exactly they missed me. Interestingly, many were unable to give me convincing answers while the few that were honest enough missed me for traits that I cannot be proud enough to mention in this piece. I will park this for now.

On one Friday sometime in 2019 I happened to be at work as usual. Rather unusually, however, I was away from my phone for a couple of hours. When I came back to it, there were a number of missed calls and many messages. Some of the messages were from some of you who always ask me for articles as if you pay for these services but the more interesting ones were from some young students I had met at a party the week before. Now… I am a reasonable man and if you invite me to a small gathering and tell me to bring a bottle, I will come with a bottle. That is a memo most people do not get so bringing a bottle becomes a symbol of status of sorts. That is what the people got and it got cemented when we decided to go out to some pub where I bought a round of drinks. We exchanged numbers and for some reason these people thought I was one direct pipeline from Castel Malawi to their cup… SO they sent their “mwasowa big” stupidities and went on to ask if I was buying them drinks. People can ignore you for the whole week and decide to say hi only when they need drinks, “buy one, get one free” pizzas and money for transport to wherever they want to have fun on the day. Ladies. How about those ones who only call when they would like to have sex? Am I overstepping?

Here is the thing then. I have always bubbled about how important conversations are in sustaining any meaningful relationship. The time I was starting to write this, I was in diner at Shoprite having breakfast with my dad who happened to drop by to hear how I was doing and to update me on what was going on with his life. The day before I had a one-hour chat with my boss who, after our team meeting just wanted to know how I was doing personally. I have friends and for most of them I try to make time to call or text just to check on how they are doing and I have people who check on me because some of us have understood that people need to interact as often as they need to interact and not as often as they need each other. The modern day society has two problems, though; we have people who are not able to hold normal conversations with friends and family and we have people who can only initiate the same when they are in desperate need (using this word because I have never seen anyone write “want” after “desperate”) of something.

Take the issue of not being able to sustain a normal conversation. I am sure you have those friends with whom conversations are limited to greetings and asking each other what each of you have consumed as the meal for the time. I am not saying that it is wrong, but that becomes boring and in the end the friendship dies a natural death. I personally am not good at sustaining friendships because being my friend can be intellectually demanding; I want to switch my stories from discussing who is the better comedian between Joe Roggan and Bill Burr through a review of Joe Biden’s policies to the previous weekend’s performance by Arsenal. It goes further from there. After 2 hours we need to debate on which one is better between the Mitsubishi X2 and the Marchetti SF-260 in a dogfight before we discuss why Adobe Audition is a better software than CuBase. At the end of the night we have to brainstorm on how we can use Python code to prove that the Collatz Conjecture is wrong. I know that I am extreme but if you can’t talk about that, then you should at least be able to discuss movies, politics, sports, career, literature or something of that sort on a level that can sustain a long chat. I think that is not too much to ask.

This whole thing of remembering our friends only when we have a serious need is also a big issue. While some may endure us whenever we just come guns blazing putting our emergencies and useless cravings on them, the tendency creates unhealthy relationships. Think of this. When a boxer is preparing for a fight, there is a wide range of equipment that is used in the training from weights and skipping ropes and whatever else they use there. There are two things that are used to strengthen the arms; the punching bag and a sparring partner. While both the sparring partner and the bag are punched, the major difference between a punching bag and a sparring partner is that a sparring partner punches back while the bag does not. I would like you to think of your friends as sparring partners and punching bags.

If you are to take it back to the day’s discussion, a punching bag would be the one with whom one cannot have and sustain meaningful conversations. A punching bag is that person who always comes to you for their needs while you hardly direct benefit from them. A sparring partner is, on the other hand able to sustain meaningful conversations while enriching you spiritually, academically, professionally, financially. Muziletsana.

I could go on and on with this but all I am doing is mourning the existence of meaningful conversations. Chatting used to be a thing before humans limited their interaction to small talk full of typos, immediate gratification, empty chit-chats and asking for favours.

The fellow from Lower Shire once said that being in the company of children is like being alone and having a conversation with them is like conversing alone. I will add to this that having conversation with people who do not know how to is worse than having a conversation with a toddler. Know why? When you are dealing with the latter you know what you are dealing with while the same is not the case for the former. Ladies and gentlemen. Join me, this weekend in cutting contact with people who never go beyond small talk and parasitism. It will save us a whole lot of trouble, time and money. 

Happy weekend!

Dedicated to my very good friend, Miss Palmer. 

Of Relationships and Marriage

 

A story is told of a girl who having finished college and secured a job met a man. He was a charming man and they soon started a relationship. All was rosy until the girl found a job in a different city and got physically distant. Away from the man of her dreams and love of her life, the girl started noticing something strange. The charming prince stopped giving her the attention she had always wanted and gotten while they lived in the same city. Then wind of rumour found her that the guy was seeing another lady. Efforts to talk it out were futile. Soon the young man confessed that he was seeing another and ended the relationship. The young lady was depressed. When the storyteller was meeting the once beautiful young lady, she could barely recognize here. Her shape that used to attract the attention of young men was gone. “This is not you, (insert name)”. “Men are dogs”. She replied with a feeble voice. The two girls continued their conversation which was to take an interesting turn. The heartbroken lady had given up on finding love and decided to let the family come through for her Fast and Furious style. Uncles were going to do the job of finding her the man she was going to settle with. Reason? She did not want to keep blaming herself for her own poor taste of men....

“That is the wedding I was at last week”.

I forgot the traditional opening. 

It is another Friday and once again we have a piece. In case you have not noticed yet, we are back to our issue of marriage and relationships. Let us get on with it.

In a world where breakups are very prevalent, a lot of young people have been asking as to what the future holds for the institution of marriage. Some have given up and concluded that marriage is a thing of the past. Do I agree? I am not sure. I will see once I am done putting my thoughts on paper.

There are times when I think that marriage is not supposed to work. Think of this. I am 28 now and have been living on my own for 5 years having lived with my parents for the first 23 years of my life. Somewhat it doesn’t make sense that I should move in and share a bed with some lady who has not been there in the foundational phase of my life. What would motivate me to do that? And what would motivate her to make such a bold move and rubberstamp it with a legal document or a man of the collar’s blessing? Do not bother to answer the questions because I can think of a few things that can make me go into such a covenant. Once in a while I do forget that my home needs to be actively managed and I could use a person who would remind me of the things I need to do and to have in the house. I am told that someone called a wife is very good at that. Then there are those lonely Saturdays that you wake up and start looking around the house for any sort of family before you realize that you are just a lone wolf. Those ones get me and I think they are nature’s way of telling me that man is not supposed to live alone. I am not sure about whether women can live alone, though. Thoughts?

Until the last generation, people had the “banja ndikupirira” saying engraved in their hearts and brains. This is the one thing that young women were told on their entry into matrimonial homes and when marriage went sour. If you are to tell a modern day young lady to endure marriage along those lines, they would tell you off without hesitation because to them marriage is meant to be enjoyed. But let us take a pause. What if I told you that “banja ndikupilira” still has a place in the modern-day society?

Before you start stoning me for commenting on marriage when I have never been married before you should understand that I am commenting from the knowledge and experience of attributes of relationships that can be projected into the scope of marriage. Think of it this way. When people are in relationships, they get to know each other more each passing day and that moment may reveal undesirable characters that may have been hidden by one’s partner intentionally or otherwise. Then there are issues of uncovering things from your partner’s past. I will not even start with that. That is where the endurance comes in. If you are dating me and discover that I do not like pictures of us together or that I do not have as much money as you thought, what do you do? If am dating you and then discover that you once slept with one of my distant friends, do I break up with you? These may sound extreme but people have had trouble with their relationships and marriages because of these very issues leading to breakups. And divorces. That is where we and our parents stand on opposite extremes with our old people.

In the 60’s, our Humber riding grandparents fathered children that would only be discovered on their funeral. Then came our Carina riding fathers who got caught along the way. Did our mothers divorce them? You know the answer. Meanwhile their WV Polo-driving direct descendant gets in trouble and a breakup for sending money to parents before covering the Brazilian hair bill. I am not saying that our ancestors were always right but our generation is one where people who have invested a lot of time and resources into a relationship or marriage break up for petty reasons. Here is where it gets interesting. Did you read the singleness article? I mentioned that singleness is a problem, right? Our generation is one that keeps jumping from one relationship to another and we all know what that means for our sex lives. By the time I am ready to settle I will be a damaged good trying to do some window shopping in what is a shopping mall stashed with mostly damaged goods. You date for 2 months and after doing all sorts of unspeakable things you discover that he also has a “crush” on your cousin. Then you leave him and go to the next one; adding to your body count. It is a total mess. What you leave is a digital trail of high definition pictures from Distinct works which people will then show your new man to wreck your next relationship. Ruined it for you? Let me calm down.

Perhaps it is time to suggest solutions. I know that people do not like it when I bring these controversial issues on this blog but I do that for a reason. I think we all need to learn to have a purpose for our relationships and to treat the genesis and maintenance of relationships with the seriousness they deserve. Osamangobakashabakasha. Some little introspection with recognition of one’s own flaws and imperfections is needed to help us understand that we do not need a perfect partner. Then there is the need for that objective background check. Tricky as it may be, we need to do it in one way or the other and where there are red flags it is imperative that we stop despite the curves or the money. Without this, every Saturday we have lots of weddings my bald-headed friend from Zomba will keep posting “Koma lero ndiye anthu mwakwatira mahule” on his WhatsApp status. And know what? We will keep having these divorces.

Let’s get back to the story I shared at the opening of this epistle. That girl who had a colourful wedding after uncles came through for her by finding her the man of her dreams. I do have all the faith that she is going to have the best of marriages because she somewhat bypassed a certain stage of relationships in this click-bait generation. Our relationships nowadays start with share your number, then sex, then what are we then getting to know each other. She inverted the process by trusting her folks to get her a guy they thought was good for her. Once they kicked it, they discovered they liked each other and love developed until they finally decided to take it to the altar (that place scares me). Would you call this an arranged marriage? I wouldn’t and I think this is a perfect hybrid. I think we need to learn to from this kind of arrangement.

I have a feeling that I would have been married at my age if I was born in the olden days. If I was as resistant to marriage as I am, my uncle who we fondly call “a Kamuzu” would have gone around the village to look for a suitable girl who I would have had two children with. There would be no crushes, sharing numbers or anything of the sort. Just a man who needs a woman and a woman who needs a man. Get the two together and let them head on towards the rest of their lives. Such schemes worked and I would like to think that such a utilitarian approach is what we need to save the future of marriage which according to Pope Francis is under attack. Do we need to do it like the girl in the story? Maybe. Maybe not. In what I would like to think is the diluted modification, I am advocating for honesty and clarity at first contact. Two people need to agree as to what they are on about at first contact before everything starts to escalate. They should talk it out and discuss what they need their relationship goals are and see whether they can make a compromise. After that they should sign some terms on reference regarding the duration of dating, what milestones they should have, frequency of meetings and all that stuff. All these need to be agreed on and signed for. You can even slot in a lawyer just to spice it up.

Maybe what I am proposing is a bit extreme. Maybe it is not. If you think about it, however, all I am advocating for is courting the normal way. One of the reasons we have messed things up as a generation is that we are not following the normal order of relationships citing that there is no formula. There is a formula and it dictates that people talk it out, ask each other out the old school way and have some rules for their relationship. Relationships should not be based on the foundation of feelings, peer pressure and high definition photos. I will maintain my proposal for utilitarian marriages and relationships. Ones in which people pick partners based on the potential complementarity through the identification of each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Let’s just do our homework before we get entangled in these things.

There we are then. For those of you who thought that marriage has no place in today’s society, I put it to you that it does. Know what has no place? Your stupid social media driven and rushed relationships which you end at the least disagreement and inconvenience. It is these "textationships" that you have just because your friends are also in one.

I should end it here. Mundiopsezenso tikakumane m'makwalalamu. Isn't that what you do when I write about relationships?

Happy Friday the 13^th and Happy birthday to Dr Emmanuel Kafulafula.