All is fair in love and war

If you are in a good relationship – the kind where you hold good jobs, raise children together, and have occasional picnics on Sunday afternoons – chances are you are bored out of your skull!

You see, dear friends, when you are in a good relationship, almost everything is predictable. You drive the same route to work everyday, get home at 17:30 and sit in the same sofa (daddy’s sofa), watch a re-run of last year’s cricket match between the Banana Republic and the Kingdom of Timbuktu.

How boring is that, not?

Conversations in a good relationship keep up the same pace; wife gets home and yaps the evening away about how a friend at work is trying to destroy her life – and surprisingly - the husband actually listens to each and every word she utters!

Yes, gents, some guys actually take the day off just to listen to what their partners have to say. Not me – I just go like; “Really … you don’t say … wow…!” every time my partner tells me the story of how Maria at work feels threatened by her.

I mean, she works on a farm taking care of miesies’ kids, while Maria works in a neighbouring farm’s kitchen – 20km away and they only get to meet twice a year! How on earth could she be destroying your life?

When you are in a bad relationship, however, there is no telling when you will walk through the door with a guest only to hear your partner shouting; “Hey, you gave me an STI last night. Who was she?”, or “… Charlie, I want a divorce. Your stuff is already packed in a box to the left, everything you own… in a box… to the left!”

Fellas, there needs to be friction, arguments, and fights for a relationship to work. I do unfortunately not subscribe to the saying that “Susan and I complement each other so well that I often do not need to say a word – she already knows what I am thinking ….”

I think that’s the same like saying “Susan and I are fools and are afraid to confront each other with our problems ….”

Think about it; how boring will it not be for a man to tell the same story over and over again to his partner?

“Honey, remember the time I got lost in Ariamsvlei …”

Dear friends, if your partner had her way, she would stab you with a pencil in the neck and shout; “Stop telling me the same crap over and over again … I heard that one countless times before. Why don’t you get yourself kidnapped and have real stories to tell?”

To be honest, you got to be literally blind to get lost in Ariamsvlei. I mean, the village only has 20 inhabitants – most of them relatives of the headman!

In a bad relationship, it’s the making up after the fight that makes such relationships exciting, I am told. Trust me; women don’t receive as many gifts as when the man is trying to apologise for something he has done – and it only happens in bad relationships.

I remember how a dude at a hang-out spot recently bragged the night away about how much of a man he is in his house.

“Gents, you got to show your wife who wears the pants in the house,” he told us.

Just then, his wife, angry from having to wait in the car while the brother takes to the shebeen, stormed in. I tell you, I have not seen that dude so afraid in all his life.

The giant of 1.85 metres was suddenly reduced to a mere 1.5, and, tail between his legs, he excused himself from the group, put on a brave smile and joined the madam!

“Mbuae, when that woman is that angry … the stories about who wears the pants do not suffice. In fact gents, at such a time – let her wear the pants instead,” were his parting words.

Eish, it might be a daring Catch-22 scenario, but we are all subject to it, unfortunately.

At least, in good relationships, household overheads are always taken care of and you do not have to go on a search for your partner in all of Sodom and Gomorrah come month end to settle the bills.

Until then…

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