The kind of girl men are looking for

I recently met a girl who was hurting deeply because she has been in a string of relationships none of which has lasted.

"I've asked myself again and again what men want and have no answer," she said sadly. "All I ever wanted out of a relationship is stability but every man I've been with runs. Maybe I'm not beautiful enough to keep a man." 

I studied her and saw a woman with amazing physical beauty. Her problem was poor self-esteem which has made her believe the lie that she lacks the qualities men looking to get hitched want. There are many women like her who believe they are ugly because they have been in relationships that have not lasted. But beauty is relative; what one guy finds attractive, another finds repulsive. 

An example. Ben is pencil-thin and very tall. But he likes big-size women; chubby cheeks, mountain breasts, big arms and legs, massive hips; real 'teddy bears'! But Peter prefers them tall and petite. One word that describes his kind of woman: lean. 

 That's just on the physical part. On the emotional, some men find loud and outspoken women like Maria Matembe very attractive, while others are melted by the quiet, gentle type. I once read an article in which Lameck Ogwal the husband of political firebrand Cecilia Ogwal said he fell for her from the very beginning because of her outspoken, frank nature. And they have been married for more than 40 years. 

 There should be no reason to panic on account of failed relationships. Every woman big or small, light or dark, short or tall, is a candidate for marriage or a lasting and fulfilling relationship as long as you're productive. 

No woman should ever look at herself as ugly. You just need to look deep within because what pulls gentlemen has nothing to do with outside looks but what comes from the inside. Confidence, grace, and poise which real men find attractive come from within than without. Dig deep and exert those inner qualities instead of spending all your hard-earned money at the beauty parlour or facial mall trying to look like Beyonce.

Why we pick that 'uneducated' woman

They say if you marry an uneducated girl, what will you talk about with her? But most educated girls I've related with don't like to talk about things, rather they like to argue about things. Even a simple request like, "Honey, can you fix me a cup of tea" can spark a storm.

"If you want some tea, get off your lazy ass and fix it," they say without lifting their eyes off that telenovera or whatever  keeps today's 'liberated' lady glued to the small screen. Besides tv the other thing they care about most is visiting the beauty parlour, where they spend a lot of money enhancing their artificial beauty as if their creator did a poor job! 

But that girl you say is not my "class" on account of her not having gone beyond S.4 delights in serving me. Her  eyes shine like the moon when she kneels to serve me a cup of tea, and her face radiates at every sip I take.

Thrice or more a week you suggest that we eat out because you're too tired to cook or could it be that you don't want to spoil your nails by peeling matooke? Meanwhile that lady you call ignorant finds joy in fixing my favourite dish because she cares for her man more than she cares for her nails.

When I surprised her with a new dress she shed a tear of joy. But when I surprised you with a pair of shoes you complained that I should have consulted you first, you said you would have preferred a new phone instead. Your arrogance and insensitivity make me shudder.

Being with you is tumultuous like the waves pounding the sand. But that 'ignorant' girl listens to me and treats me like a king. She delights in loving and taking care of me as men ought to be loved and taken care of, why shouldn't I  reciprocate? Who wants to be stuck with an educated albeit quarrelsome lady when the one without books is tangibly calming like watching the serene waters of a river on a beautiful evening?

All is well that ends well

She was a bored 17-year-old waiting to join high school, and he was a confident second-year university student who had no difficulty spotting and chatting up beautiful girls. There was immediate chemistry followed by lots of hanging out that got people gossiping, sparking a storm in her mother’s heart.

“You’re defiling my daughter,” she confronted him sooner than later. “I read a WhatsApp message you sent her in which you said the ‘first cut is the deepest.’ What did you mean by that? You’ve been sleeping with my underage daughter and I’m going to get you arrested for defilement.”

Daniel’s assurances that he had not slept with Di; that the both of them were still virgins who had signed True-Love-Waits cards, incensed more than assuaged the possessive woman. Trembling in the emotions of fury and resentment, she yelled at him, “Spare me your hogwash and just stay the heck away from my daughter else I’ll get you locked up and have the keys thrown away!”

Daniel walked away like a zombie. An image appeared in his mind, of a huge bronze wall standing between him and the girl he loved with all his heart.

That night, Daniel tossed and turned on his bed, his head pounding like a hammer, and his heart tumultuous like it had been possessed by a demon. It was with strained effort that at last he fell on his knees by his bedside and poured out his heart to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the God who parts the waters of the sea and makes a way through; the God who knows everything that’s in futurity.

On the evening of the following, Daniel was sipping his coffee when his phone went ring-ring.

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

It was Di’s mother. Daniel’s sigh of relief came out like thunder when she apologized about how she had conducted herself the previous day.

Daniel gave her his gentleman’s word that he loved Di too dearly and God too profoundly to hurt either of them through fornication.

“I’ve intense intentions of not touching your daughter until I slide the ring of matrimony down her finger.”

Daniel kept his word and waited for Di till she completed campus. They got married exactly five years and three days since the ugly confrontation, and Di’s mother was the happiest woman alive.

To all the pregant young girls

Early this week I visited one of the major hospitals in town and saw so many pregnant women that I couldn't help thinking that Kampalans spend most of their nights engaged in steamy hanky-panky.

I observed that about half of the expectant were young girls aged from about 18 to 25, none of whom had a ring on their fingers. Most of them were unaccompanied; even the heavier ones who looked like they might pop their child there and then. 

 "How can it be that they are here all alone; where are the men in their lives, the men whose seed they are carrying? Or did they conceive through artificial insemination?" I wondered, flaring that most men love to roll in the hay with the women they claim to love, but shun the responsibility that comes with it.

I looked into the eyes of some of the girls and saw a combination of loneliness, fear, shame and uncertainty. I didn't see on their faces the joy or beauty that comes with knowing that you are going to bring new life on earth. And that broke my heart. An avalanche of emotions seized me; I wanted to reach out to one of the girls and hug her and tell her everything would be alright. I also felt so enraged that if I met the man responsible for any of the pregnancies I would punch the daylights out of him!

The whole of that afternoon I was thinking about what women go through to bring life into this world. It's a privilege of untold proportions that God gave them to give life. Imagine where any of us would be without women! 

As we celebrate International Women's Day today, my heart will be with all the teenage mothers and those that are expectant. You deserve the best that the world has to offer for what you go through for nine laborious months of carrying a baby and for the strength of character that sustain you. 

I want you to know that no matter what, somebody out there cares.

Look before you leap

On Tuesday all the buzz was about Valentines Day. But nothing summed up what the day is all about than a two-part illustration I received via WhatsApp. The first part dated February 14 (Valentines Day) showed a guy chasing a girl, and the second part showed the same people nine months later, with a dramatic reversal; now the girl was heavenly pregnant but the guy responsible didn't want to know; that's why he was running and the poor girl was now the one doing the chasing!

It was such a sobering illustration that I don't think any sensible unmarried lady or man who saw it crowned their romantic day with sex, or if they did they used a condom. But take a moment and consider those young men and young women in a cloud of love that painted the city of Kampala red with their couture. Those that bought all the flowers and all the chocolate in town; that ate all the food in fine restaurants and sipped all the wine. You heard them on the radio requesting the latest love songs for their lovers. Some went on a boat cruise, booked the finest rooms in the finest hotels and emptied all video labs of the most romantic movies because Valentines Day comes once a year! How do you think most of those young couples who are hardly out of their teens ended the day? 

 I couldn't help wondering especially after reading a recent report to the effect that over 500 Ugandan girls get infected with HIV daily. It's an alarming statistic yet Valentines Day has lost its original essence and been reduced to a day that is not complete unless you wear red ('the colour of love'), go to some cozy place on a date and end up rolling in the hay. No wonder all the chasing that guys do during Valentines Day climax a few months later with some girls becoming pregnant and turning around to do the chasing. The moral of the story is embodied in an old proverb: "Look before you leap."

Crazy things we do for love

Jacob was so in love that he agreed to work for seven years for Laban so he can marry his daughter Rachel, but those seven years "seemed to him but a few days"! If that was crazy, crazier was when after the seven years, Laban by trickery gave him the wrong woman - the big sister of the woman he was in love with, and Jacob didn't strangle him but agreed to work another seven years to get the real apple of his eye. So he toiled a whopping 14 years because of his blinding love for Rachel!

My friend who is more experienced in matters of love says Jacob's love for Rachel was rare. "If Rachel was 25 years when Jacob first saw her it means he married her when she was 39; an age when women are edging closer to menopause," says my friend. "To put it crudely, Jacob fell in love with a steaming hot young woman and was made to wait by the craftiness of her father that by the time he married her she was an 'old woman'! That means his love for Rachel went deep like the roots of an oak tree; he did not walk by natural senses."

Well, if you thought waiting for 14 years to marry the love of your life is long, what do you say about Florentina who waited for 51 years, 9 months and 4 days before destiny finally delivered the woman of his life into his arms! He had first fallen in love with the dashing Fermina when they were both still young  but as he was penniless Fermina was married off to a rich and famous doctor and he decided to wait for her husband to die so he can have his chance!

Much as the later case is a fictional creation by Garcia Marquez in his novel Love in the Time of Cholera, it teaches us, together with the story of Jacob and Rachel, that love is so special that we should be willing to pay any price for it. Then we shall live the remaining years of our lives happier than those who walked away from the obstacles.

What women really want

Hillary Clinton was asked why she stuck with Bill Clinton after his moral standing was found wanting and she said being with Bill was an endless conversation. Bill and Hillary are intellectually compatible, finding it easy to connect and have conversational outflow, but what Hillary meant was that Bill knows how to make spending time with her count. It starts there -- women are crazy about attention and a man who knows how to dish it out properly will always be a ladies’ man.

What women really want is attention

Ladies, correct me kindly if I'm being presumptuous in thinking that most of you would like some men looking in your direction a second, third or even fourth time! To a woman, it's a thing of exquisite beauty to have men gawk especially those not looking for a quick roll on the bed or in the hay. It makes them feel attractive and wanted. Learn to look at her in a way that suggests your eyes will never look that way at another woman because the best thing you can do for her is to make her believe she's the most beautiful woman in the world. And there's no way that's going to happen when you forget her birthday, and when you start attending to your phone while you're out on a date with her. 

It's the mandate of every man to master the game of surprises. If you're going to buy your wife a special gift or take your girlfriend to some cozy place only on her birthday, you're losing it. Engage that surprise gear the most when she least expects it. Although money is an important factor in relationships, financial brawn will always be outfoxed by a romantic brain. The "pomp and circumstance" that wealth creates to blow away girls like the super-rich Tom Buchanan blows away Daisy in The Great Gatsby cannot eclipse the magnetism of a man who knows how to give proper attention to women.

Unforgettable eyes

I was riding a Roadmaster bicycle with a huge can of milk on it when she flagged me down. "Two litres, please," she said, and I poured the milk in her red jug as the rays of the Saturday morning sun kissed our brows.

She paid me and said, "Thank you", and I shook my head and said, "No no no...I should be the one thanking you so much for buying from me."

 She smiled and our eyes met, directly. I saw that hers were beautiful. Not beautiful but unique, because they were eyes you cannot forget. I've forgotten her height and complexion and colour of the dress she was wearing but I've never forgotten the way those eyes of hers made me feel. 

They didn't make me feel butterflies in the tummy and they didn't make me weak in the knees. But they went with me that day and have stayed with me ever since. I see them in my dreams, I think about them in my solitary moments and when I meet a beautiful girl the first thing I do is look directly in her eyes to see whether her eyes are the eyes I fell in love with as a boy.

It was by the hand fate that a week after I encountered the girl with the unforgettable eyes, my father was transferred to a distant part of the country, and I went with him, never to see the girl again.

Five years ago I travelled back to that part of the country and asked everyone I met, "I'm looking for the girl with the most beautiful eyes in the world." But they gave me quizzical looks; like I was nuts or something. Only one old woman gave me a smile that revealed endless gaps in her mouth, and lifted my hopes that I would one day meet again the girl I met as a 15-year-old milk boy; the only one my heart beats after; the girl whose eyes possess the kind of beauty I've ever since failed to erase from my memories.

The definition of love

Love is the greatest word ever crafted out of the English alphabet. But it's more than a word. It's the invisible force from which we derive sustenance as a people. It has nothing to do with wearing red on Valentines Day and drinking old wine in heart-shaped glasses. Love is way, way deeper than that.

Love is a glue

It's a treasure found only in the heart and so precious it can never be bought. Whereas money can blind some men and women to give you their bodies, that has never translated to love because true love is a gift freely given and  unconditional.  

Love is the glue that binds a man and woman so firmly that they live together as one in holy matrimony for the rest of their lives, and raise children to take after them as best as they possibly can. The posterity of the human race is hinged on that. 

This does not come easy. That's why love is patient, kind and so understanding it easily forgives and focuses on bringing out the best in others. Love is basically the embodiment of the best human virtues and ideals. Things like jealousy, insensitivity, selfishness and other destructive emotions and misdeeds only serve to slow down the moving wheels of love. Pride, too, because it makes you feel superior. And when you deem yourself better than others it's easy to dismiss them under the pretext that they have nothing to offer you. But the understanding that we are all imperfect makes it easier to stick as one in thick and thin. 

Love in essence never insists on having its way but rather respects the wishes of others. It's not about "give me give me give me". Only ticks and fleas do that. Love should be a competition to please one another!

Overall, only three things are vital for us to live fulfilled lives. Trusting in God steadily, keeping hope alive and loving extravagantly. The last is the most important.

Tell me what you want

Remember when you were a baby? Your parents attended to all your needs. They fed you and changed your diapers. Dad held you in his strong arms; throwing you in the air and catching you while you bubbled with delight. At night they bathed you with deliciously warm water and tucked you in; staying a little by your cot; telling you stories and singing you lullabies till you drifted into gentle sleep. They basically met your physical, emotional and social needs without you doing much.

We love to be doted on like babies but our needs as adults are more complex

That was then, and even as adults there's nothing we love better than being doted on, but you cannot expect your spouse to figure out all your needs, or start screaming and crying like we did as children to attract attention and affection.

In the book Getting the Love You Want, Harville Hendrix shares a story of a man who thought his wife didn't love him. Yet she did everything to please him, including learning how to ski since hubby loved skiing. When the therapist asked that unhappy husband to tell his wife one specific thing she could do that would make him feel more loved, he retorted, "If she's been married to me for 25 years and still doesn't know what I want, then she just doesn't care about me!"

Obviously this man was still living in babyhood; expecting his wife to figure out all his needs like his mom did back then. He had forgotten that he was now an adult with more complex needs than when he was a child. His wife was not his mother; she had her own needs too that he had a duty to play in meeting. All he needed now was to tell his wife what pleases him and she would tell him what makes her happy and they would know how to satisfy one another.

We can save ourselves a whole lot by being straightforward; hemming and hawing does not help. Know what you want and ask for it. As the saying goes, "If you do not ask, the default answer will always be no."

The woman's handbag

There's a funny illustration doing the rounds on social media. It shows two books: the first is a very small book titled "Understanding Men" and the second is a tome with a pile of pages almost touching the roof. And it is titled "Understanding Women: Part I".

Natasha Museveni holds onto her handbag

You have to be a rare genius indeed to understand women. One thing that intrigues me most about Ugandan women is their determination to turn men into carriers of their handbags. Remember the picture of Golola Moses walking around carrying Sharon's handbag after her eviction from Big Brother House? Well, our women have since turned that into a modern fad.

It happened to me about a month ago. I went out with a beautiful woman and as we approached the venue she gave me her hangbag saying, "Honey, dear, please carry my handbag." When I asked if it contained heavy stuff that was making her arms tired, she gave me a strange look like I was an alien. She pouted and gave me a cold treatment the rest of that evening because I refused to carry her handbag. 

A few days later she gave me some unsolicited advice on love and romance: "It's not something to be embarrassed about for a guy to carry her woman's handbag, it's actually as romantic as opening the car door for her, and as lovely as offering her your jacket on a cold date."

Maybe. 

But it beats my understanding how a woman ignores the beautiful little purse in preference to one of those gigantic handbags Ugandan women love, then expecting me to carry it for her. I remember Joyce Meyer saying one thing Dave (her husband) insists on not doing for her is carrying her handbag. I'm like Dave; call me unromantic if you want, lady, but I refuse to carry a woman's handbag. It's not a cool thing for a man to do.

The sorrows and joys of love

A young man once met a young woman whose blossoming beauty softened his rustic face and made him sigh.

"That beauty of yours ought to be entered in the Guinness Book of World Records," said the young man to the young woman. For his complement, the young man was rewarded with a red hot slap in the face.

After recovering, the young man said, "Forgive me young lady but if it's a sin to appreciate your beauty, it must be an even more grievous sin to fall in love with you" and walked away, shaking his head. 

.... love finds you like that and determines to stay...

After waking up that morning, the young man had written down things he was going to do that day, and falling in love had not been one of them. Until he met the young at the conference standing there looking like the most beautifully wrapped gift he had ever seen, the young man had never believed in love at first sight.

Now as he walked home with the face of the young woman stuck on his mind like a tattoo, he thought: Love is a coincidence; love hits you when you least expect it; love is a marvel. It found him just like that and determined to stay. 

 A couple of years down the road, the young woman continued to spurn the young man. But deep inside he knew she knew they could flow but she was afraid to take the plunge of faith. She had lived a good life in the city and the young man had lived a rugged peasant's life in the village. 

It was disillusioning that he could not get someone that meant a whole lot to him. The sorrows of that filled many bottles but after many years the young man wiped his tears and married another young woman that loved and respected and helped him live his grand dream.

A beautiful dream

I stopped outside your father's house in a 1957 Cadillac El Dorado Convertible that my grandfather left me. You came out flying like a bird, your polkadot red dress dancing in the wind like the wings of a dove.

"Put this on and let's go somewhere exciting," I said as I handed you a dinner dress I had bought with a year's savings. A marvellous look came into your eyes and you cooed, "Wow."

I used to have a crush on Nicole Ari Parker

But more wow was the way you looked in that dress; how it revealed your heavenly figure and kissed the ground beneath your feet as you walked towards me. You picked your jewelry like a connoisseur to complement your dress and your self-assurance completed the look. I knew you would the best thing at the party, and I was not wrong. I needn't have worried about my jealousies; your way of warding off unwanted attention with your cutting look kept away those useless men.

That evening, I didn't hear a thing of whatever was said at the party. I was being tormented by a gripping presentiment that the mission I meant to accomplish later that night would probably go wrong.

After the party we drove in silence till we stopped outside your father's house. You hesitated and pecked me on the cheek. "I had a glorious time," you said, "thank you." You stepped inside and I watched the door of gate begin to close in slow motion.

"Wait," I shouted before I was shut out completely. And out of my pocket came a little box that I gave you and asked you to open right there. You gave me a look of utter surprise, then total interest, and I watched with a pounding heart till the box revealed a ring that sparkled goldenly in the light of the gate.

"Santurina," I said going on bended knee, "will you marry me?"

Money and love (Part I & II)

Part I

The Valentines Day buzz on social media got me thinking about love and marriage. We are living in an age of desperation. Young women are desperate to hook up rich young men and get them to commit. But these young men are not interested in committing. They are busy chasing after bucks to sustain the glitzy lifestyle, and enjoying all the sweetest taboos associated with it.

When a woman catches their fancy, they splash the cash with wild abandon, but after a couple of romps move on to the next fine woman in town. Thus character is no longer part of the equation. Money is now the only factor. If you have lots of it, most women will come running without bothering to even look at the condition of your heart. These are the women who say they would rather cry in a Benz than laugh on a bicycle!

 So the hard-working, noble-intentioned, God-fearing young man who would make a fantastic husband and father is rarely given a second glance. The 'liberated' woman of today has convinced herself that this man is boring and a poor love-maker. She wants the tattooed, dread-locked "bad boy" with mighty muscles, an accent and a sports car. He makes butterflies fly in her tummy when he says "Hi, baby" in his arrogant way. It is after years of being used and discarded by these money men that she starts praying, ironically, for the good man to settle down with; the type she had rejected. 

Unless these women open their eyes, they shall remain "beautiful but unlucky" i.e. have plenty of men to sleep with but non to marry them. It's no longer the looks but the light on the inside out that hooks--the light of maturity of character. Even that rich bad boy wants a wife who can cook a good meal and prides in taking care of her man. No man wants to marry a material girl.

Part II

After Valentines Day, a friend of mine came with a story of how the girl he had hopes of marrying had shattered his cosy dreams. First she told him the place he had taken her out to was below her standards. And that the gift he bought her was cheap.

His narrative reminded me of an interesting article by Lee Grady that warned men against girls with"dollar signs in their eyes"; girls who only love men that indulge their extravagant tastes. My friend's date certainly has "dollar signs in her eyes". That's why she could not appreciate his thoughtfulness. She is the type who sees nothing good in a man except the contents of his wallet.

 That she told him point-blank that she wasn't impressed also revealed her puffed-up ego that makes her think she's of a higher class than her pursuer could afford. Marrying her would be trouble unless she learns the hard way like the heroine of Guy de Maupassant's famous short story, The Necklace, who loses a borrowed necklace and works 10 hard years to pay for it! That was enough to strip Madame Loisel of her obsession with fancy stuff.

Just because you are more beautiful than the Queen of Sheba does not mean you can wrap a man around your bitty little finger and drag him to wherever you want. A woman who is impossible to please will destroy your destiny if you cling on. When Jay Gatsby, the hero of my favorite novel, clings to Daisy Buchanan, he is destroyed. When a man lets go, the right woman will show up and so love you that you will even marvel what you had seen in the other girl. Just live your life, man, never let a woman's beauty hold you at ransom.

The beauty about marriage

One of the things I look forward to is going down on a bended knee and asking the woman I love to marry me. I hope she will say I yes.  I've already gone beyond the traditional 'marriage age', and in a day where we are expected to conform to common standards, it is understandable why my people are worried for me. 

It's one thing that's amazing how we do things in Uganda. Everyone wants to take part in making decisions for you even when you are a sane adult, educated and knowledgeable enough to make sound decisions for yourself.  It can stretch a man's patience but you have to remain polite about it but keep doing your thing until you are ready to make that leap that will light up their faces. 

Fortunately for my father, I believe in love. I believe in marriage. I believe in the posterity of the human race that is sustained through reproduction. My Creator urges me to produce, multiply and fill the earth. Who am I to say no to something so fundamental?

Ed Wheat writes in Love Life for Every Married Couple that "just about everyone inwardly longs for a thrilling love relationship involving oneness, a deep intimacy with another person, joy and optimism, spice and excitement, and that wonderful, euphoric, almost indescribable sensation known as 'being in love'". It's this kind of romantic love, when explored in marriage, that Ed observed in his long career as a doctor and marriage counselor that gives one "a new outlook on life and a sense of well-being." 

Psychologists agree that "true love in marriage brings out the best in us, giving us the will to improve ourselves and to reach for greater maturity and responsibility. This love enables us to begin to function at our highest level."

Evidently, a ring means a whole lot more. That's why I'll soon walk down the aisle a fabulous woman I'll love till Jesus comes back.

The beautiful and the awkward at weddings

The love that leads a man and a woman into marriage for the rest of their lives;  propelled by the conviction that life would not be as sweet without each other, is an awesome love. That's why my best moment at the wedding is when the vows are being exchanged; when the bride and the groom swear to love and to cherish each other for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, until they are parted by death. 

You can feel the love vibrations between these guys. Real love is awesome.

It really is a golden moment; how the church shushes while the resonant voice of the presiding priest echoes in every corner, reciting the memorable words to which the lovebirds take turns to respond with the characteristic: "I do" or "I will." I particularly love the old English vows: 

"Dennis, wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holiest state of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour and keep her in sickness and in health, and forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her so long as ye both shall live?" 

"Carol, wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband, to live together after God's ordnance in the holiest state of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him and serve him, love, honour and keep him, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him so long as ye both shall live?"

It's marvelous how the voices of the groom and the bride quaver with quintessential love as they respond, "I do" or "I will" all the while not tearing eyes from each other. It's a wow moment the love you see bubbling in their eyes – the most pristine romantic love you will ever see in any pair of eyes. You don't have to be a believer to accept that the awesome beauty of that moment has its roots in the fact that marriage is truly ordained by God. 

That is why I was shocked and completely taken aback at the last wedding I attended when the groom could not look the bride in the eye as the vows were being exchanged. He cast his eyes down or looked at some distant something yet the girl was looking at him like she wanted to dissolve in his eyes. Even when he said "I do", it was a disinteresting mumble, lacking the genuine passion that typify those two magic words.

So many questions raced into my mind: was this guy forced into marrying this girl? Was it an arranged marriage? Did the girl blackmail him into sliding a ring down her finger? Was he already regretting and couldn't wait for this to end so he could return to his life? 

A groom who cannot look his bride in the eye, or a bride who cannot look her groom in the eye as the vows are exchanged is reminiscent of the couple who insist on switching off the lights every time they want to make love. It could be that one has the worst case of self-esteem or is too shy to maintain eye contact but how are you going to romantically love your spouse if you cannot hold hands and maintain eye contact? 

I cannot also forget the awkward kiss – how it mars the beauty of weddings! To be honest, it's not in our conservative psyche as Africans to kiss especially in public. Kissing remains a Western thing and we are doing it like one groping in the dark. So when the benevolent priest told the groom to kiss the bride after the vows and rings had been exchanged, the guy plunged in recklessly; enveloping the poor bride with his huge mouth, and proceeding to lick her up and down like a cow licking a pillar of salt. Some people snickered, and most senior citizens, including the parents, looked down, embarrassed and confused. 

I think if you cannot kiss right in public, it's only sensible that you reserve the awkward kissing for the bedroom and save your guests the embarrassment. 

This thing called love

The singer in the Song of Solomon begs us not to awaken love before its proper time. I remembered that line when a friend of mine sought my advice on what he must do to stop day-dreaming about a girl he thought he had forgotten.

He first met this girl six years ago and she told him off when he professed. Deeply hurt, he hit back that he didn't care and meant every word. He bumped into her again recently and all the hidden embers suddenly shot into fiery flames.  

"Man, this is the girl I must marry," he told me breathlessly.  

Young lady, don't awaken love before its proper time

To me she's just an ordinary girl but to my friend she has a mysterious quality so consuming his mind keeps reverting to it. It just makes you to pause and marvel. What is it about love that keeps us awake in the night when we want to sleep?  

Love is something the world's best psychological brains need to explore. We have gone to the moon and invented the most dangerous nuclear weapons. But who can explain why a man can fall in love with one woman so much that his life loses its colour without her? 

Some people think Shakespeare was the world's best in waxing lyrical about love. But I wish there's a machine that records the thoughts a man has about a woman he truly loves. But truly the best love lines will never be written because they are so deep they can never be captured by words.

Love is that strong that you fall in love at your own peril if you don't have the emotional stability and inner strength way beyond the ordinary. Sometimes it's even better to marry a woman you are not very much in love with. Because the heaviness of too much love keeps its victims staggering under its weight so much that true happiness remains a dream beyond their attainment.