Add to this the inescapable biological urge to have a baby and the societal obligation to have a family and you have four years filled with drama for those to whom nuptials are nowhere in sight by the 26th birthday. Here are 20 pointers that a woman is desperate for a hubby:
1. You spend more time with your mother or friend from the Coast who knows how to make malleable, edible chapatis and that killer stew. You just have to learn how to get a man through his tummy.
2. You really like babies, little babies who have not started demanding for ice cream. In fact, you occasionally put your nephew’s and niece’s pictures as profile photos on social media. You never bother correcting guys who think the kids are yours.
3. You play to a man’s tune, no matter how foolish. You look at your life from a man’s point of view.
4. You suddenly get religious. Out goes the miniskirts and take-me-to-heaven heels. Only ‘wife material’ fashion will do. Drinking gets a ‘speed governor’ that confines wines to Sunday afternoons.
5. You have submitted to full disclosure, like giving details of your salary and investments. You heard that men like honest women and you don’t mind.
6. If you have found ‘the one’ you have this nagging urgency to meet his relatives, more so the mum and the sisters. You want to size them up, win their approval. You really scrub that sufuria like a shiner in a steel factory!
7. You attend all weddings to pick mistakes that won’t be repeated in your wedding which you have been planning in your head every night before bed time.
8. You have dropped your previous ‘principles’ like never cooking for a man for instance. You now know where kienyeji veges are sold whenever you go visiting.
9. You tell whoever is calling that ‘I’m with my man’ and you make sure he hears.
10. You urge your friends to act mature and friendly when around him even as you watch Sharon who has a reputation for hubby snatching.
11. You have suckered up to at least six potential men lately with the hope of tying one down. But you dropped the one who took your laptop to a Shylock.... the rest were hit and run charlatans!
12. You have been trying the trap that has been employed down all geological ages: pregnancy!
13. You have at least fought off or threatened to gouge out the eyes of one or two women, whom you’ve warned not to ever dare text ‘your man’ again.
14. You have been putting up with his sister who grates your nerves to the point of bleeding!
15. You found him funny (never mind the bugger cracks jokes so dry they can light a bush fire) and his friends are a good bunch (despite being God-forsaken booze buddies).
16. His feet smell, but its fine since you know where to get him a proper anti-fungal.
17. You opt to remain indoors whenever he suggests you go out - not because you don’t want to go, but your mum has since told you to give a man his space.
18. You have learnt to position yourself in places and events where you are likely to find a hubby, such as church and weddings.
19. You have this irresistible urge to change every man who seduces you and get a husband out of him.
20. When you meet a man who looks like ‘it,’ you are careful not to offend him.
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