LIFE BY LOUIS: Nothing prepares a boy for the murky world of love

After a few pleasantries shyly exchanged, she requested me to escort her to the market to buy a few things. ILLUSTRATION| IGAH

What you need to know:

  • Looking back, I now realise that she was not going to buy anything from the shops, and the long detours were meant to ensure we returned home under the cover of darkness.
  • I can hardly recollect our route but we ended up near some abandoned farm house where, coincidentally, it began to drizzle and get dark.

Of all the intense preparations that a boy goes through in an attempt to make him a man, nothing prepares him for the three words “I love you” when they are finally whispered into his innocent ears.

Because nature is not in the business of equity and fairness, a girl born on the same day with a boy will mature long before the boy comes out of the childishness of climbing trees and driving old tyres.

Inevitably, it is the girl who will face the unpleasant task of inducting the boy into the murky world of love. The tragedy of the whole thing is that it is at the utter discretion of the girl to take the boy either through a graduated training program or an accelerated crash course. I went through the latter.

There is this girl I met who captured my fancy at a very early age. I was barely fourteen.

OMNIPRESENT

When I look back, I tend to think she was omnipresent because the way we bumped into each other in the village paths was not just mere coincidence. This day, I outside our house while minding my own business when she materialised. After a few pleasantries shyly exchanged, she requested me to escort her to the market to buy a few things.

We took a long detour as we discussed romantic things like our hobbies that were centred on listening to Sundowner program on KBC English station and collecting postage stamps. We soon ran out of topics and discussed other stale matters including our favourite subjects in school especially arts and craft.

We kept passing by busy shopping centers and kiosks and I was wondering why she was not buying whatever she had been sent to the shops for, but I was decent enough not to keep asking. Somehow, I was enjoying the walk as once in a while when we passed via a narrow village cattle tracks, our shoulders would rub against each other and I would feel something akin to a mild electric shock.

Looking back, I now realise that she was not going to buy anything from the shops, and the long detours were meant to ensure we returned home under the cover of darkness.

I can hardly recollect our route but we ended up near some abandoned farm house where, coincidentally, it began to drizzle and get dark.

BLISSFUL

As we crammed ourselves under the roof rafters, I had a feeling of bliss and happiness that we only see in movies and soap operas.  

In a swift turn of events, she asked me what I thought about her. If you have ever swallowed a few hot coals and washed them down with some boiling transformer oil and a spoonful of ash, that is how my throat felt the instant that question was fired.

“I think about you a lot,” I lied but for lack of an appropriate answer. The truth of the matter is that I thought she was the outcome of bad upbringing coupled with peer influence and bad schooling. How else could I explain a girl who was so forthright and bland in her approach to a boy?

From there the discussion became more romantic and we told each other how cute we thought each others eyes and kneecaps were.

Without any warning shots, she declared in well measured words “I love you”.

In my life I have been told a few abrupt things including that food is finished or there is no midterm or there is no tissue paper in the toilet, but none of these prepared me enough for this.

The effect of those three words that day stand distinctly in a class of their own in terms of their effect on my body, mind and soul.

Like all men have done since time immemorial, I pretended not to have heard her and I asked her to repeat her question. The distraction was all in the hope of buying more time to catch my breath and craft a convincing answer.

“I really like you,” I replied. I have uttered more offensive things in my long spanning dating life, but my reply that day is engraved in a steel frame and hangs proudly in my hall of shame.

Her eyeballs dilated, her pupils narrowed and her full lips formed a thin mean line.

IMPOSSIBLE FEAT

It was going to be an impossible feat to weave myself out of that situation I had just entangled myself into. From the look of things, this girl had not brought me all this way just to get ambiguous answers from a shy boy who was not willing to play along.

She was relentless. “You don’t love me?” her voice was choking and tired, like someone whose food the waiter had taken to another table.

“I love you”, I finally blurted out after taking a long breath. It came out rugged, like a lazy song sang in a cold shower room at 4am by a person suffering from a stubborn sore throat and a severe hangover.

There was a short session after that where we held hands and looked into each other’s eyes. After a few more awkward moments, we walked home in silence, weighed down by the impact of the heavy words that we had just exchanged.

That night, I hardly slept as I thought about the significance of our vows earlier in the evening. Did it mean I was going to marry her? Did it mean we should be walking holding hands? Did I have to buy her gifts and pay for her salon and new clothes? I tossed the whole night with a dull pain throbbing incessantly in my temples.  

If there is a college out there that teaches boys how to respond to those three magical words, I would really appreciate a referral. I wouldn’t wish my sons to go through that nightmarish experience.

But now I am all grown up and I have a default answer to the three words. The question “Do you love me?” attracts a restricted reply “What do you want?”.

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