Want to be a corporate girlfriend

How to be a Corporate Girlfriend
We live in the corporate era. We eat, drink, dress and even dance corporate. Our talks, mannerisms and weddings are all corporate. We have corporate wives and friends. Corporate parties and dinners are all the rage now. No wonder even the clubbing culture is increasingly going corporate with clubs in Nairobi targeting a certain clientele that can ensure business. I believe they are out to lock out college students who have the uncanny ability to survive the whole night with a single beer or having drunk from a cheaper joint, they only need one and crowd the dance floor.
Corporate is the new sexy. The senior corporate citizens must be marveling at the sheer animal magnetism and dynamism with which they younger interact. It is with this notion that many progressive young single men, otherwise known as yuppies or eligible bachelors are increasingly styling up and going for a woman who can live up to the expectations of their corporate friends. While they have many girlfriends, not everyone can be merit the corporate expectations of a good woman.
A good corporate image is everything. In the corporate circles, everything works out like a perfectly scripted play. Everyone behaves strictly within an unwritten code of conduct that often demand one to skip the buffet at a party and hold fast to their Dasani bottles of water even when they are starving literary. Therefore, badly behaved partners should never be anywhere within the picture to spoil the flawlessly cut out image.
Enter the corporate girlfriend idea. There are three things that are key in making one a decent corporate girlfriend. And they are; proper dressing, good manners and decent education (in this very order).
Proper dressing tops the list. Nothing gives the right impression like good corporate suits with the knee-length skirts exposing the golden legs. If in pants, they ought to be decent in a manner befitting the working environment of an office. No indecent exposure of the cleavage, no outrageous miniskirts, no too much make up, no bad hairstyles. Drop the locks or the conservative look. The corporate arena is no ground for activism. Such looks only make one question the known defiance or sexual orientation of such women. Even those with feline looks, it pays to be suitably feminine. Nothing sells so much.
When it comes to mannerisms, tacky behaviour has no room or chance in the corporate world. Everything is strictly formal and professional, sometimes to a fault. The Eastlands mentality of settling duels with catfights or the solemn belief that loud arguments help resolve conflicts faster is too ‘ghettoish’ for the corporate community. No man wants to be caught with such women, either privately or publicly.
Finally, a decent education, preferably a university degree is the icing on the cake. Having a grasp of worldly matters, geography, Information and technology can earn one suitable accolades. Nothing baffles corporate male friends so much like a dumb remark. It is inexcusable, unforgivable and punishable by permanent ridicule from peers.
So how do we know that a certain woman can never merit to be a good corporate girl friend; it is simple. Here are eight ways to tell: (Men too are part of this and the list is not exhaustive)
 If your wardrobe has more jeans pants than any other piece of dressing
 If you are past 28 and still posses a funny tattoo below your navel or above your butt that you feel compelled to expose.
 If you don’t know at least four brands of wines and brandies.
 If you hang always with your girlfriends. You think collectively and decide everything collectively. Herd mentality has no room.
 If you when you drink, you throw up, become abusive and can’t tell what happened the previous night.
 If you apply make-up in public regularly, and see no problem.
 If you still believe that it is upon for men to provide.
 If you can not regulate your tone during an argument.

10 Things I learnt from our strike

10 Things our University strike taught me

After reporting back to school, following the sudden closure occasioned by the shambolic elections, I have learnt a couple things that I think are worth sharing with you, my friends.

10. This country has no future leaders

James Orengo, Martha Karua, Otieno Kajwang, Kabando wa Kabando, Ababu Namwamba are some of the products of this University. They don’t necessarily inspire the best of leadership skills. But the current crop being honed to take the leadership positions in future are a worse lot. They are tribalistic, corrupt, stupid and silly. They are young Mugabes in the making. We couldn’ have existed at a much worse period.  

9. Regular students are very vulnerable

The level of inconvenience witnessed after the police chased us was startling. An eye opener into the challenges faced by the government sponsored students. Many ran with paper bags carrying their belongings. Many were without relatives to spend a night or two, hence they had to travel at night to Western Kenya. It was a rainy season and those from Samburu were advised to take boats, the road had been carried away by the rains. It happened at the worst possible period of the semester, where al students share one thing in common: brokenness.

8. Being 20-26 and jobless is a painful experience

Especially for a man. For the one, yours truly hassled and nearly sold land, had it not been for the timely intervention of elders. It is frustrating. Staying with folks in a town setting is not funny. It is even terrible if they are married. Why do married women have to be so mean to the relatives of her husband? There is fare from the estate to town daily, some cash for hassling and some little to treat your woman. Out there, these are luxuries one cannot afford continuously. It is a terrible world.

7. Stoning cars is no longer funny

Why do students stone personal cars every time they strike? Lately the public is getting a tad exasperated by the ensuing shenanigans. Nothing warranties bad stoning and harassing motorists. They are our future employers. But then again, with limited options, how do we drive our point home.   With administrations, dangerously assuming that might is right, what do the hapless students ought to do in order to be heard? For the time being motorist have to bear with us.

6. Scholars cannot use what they teach in class in real life practice

We are taught Administration, Democracy, Crisis Management, Public Relations et cetera, yet when it is time for democracy to be practiced, appointment are done indirectly. When it is time to handle a crisis, it is managed in the most bizarre possible way. When it is time to show management, all the managers are nowhere to be seen. Aaah..Only in Africa.

5. This is not the greatest University

Great universities, do things differently. Grate universities set god trends. Great university set right standards and go nothing short of it. Great universities produce the best in the world. Great universities are great in the own standards. We do not even have standards. Or do we…

To be continued…

 

When she is the hosts for a special night;here are simple rules

Playing an away match; the rules

By Silas Nyanchwani

In the soccer world there are two matches played between any given teams; the home and the away match. The team playing in its home ground is invariably advantaged by the familiar grounds, the fanatical support from the locals and an unshakable confidence of the players determined to impress the fans. When it is an away match all these advantages are stripped off and any team playing away from home is predisposed to a draw or at worst lose.

But as you would have guessed right from the outset, this is not about football. Rather I’m talking about men and women in relationships and when it comes to those visits. In the days gone it was always men who invited their girlfriends to their houses. Consequently, women always played by the men’s rules that were not necessarily favourable to them.

Thanks to the female empowerment, women now occupy nice rented apartments and others own them as well. Nowadays in all the city’s sprawling flats, especially in the better groomed Eastlands estates are women living singly and paying the rent. Thus, they can invite men over rather than driving across town. Nowadays the question ‘my place or your place?’ is a vital one when a decision has been arrived on. Much as men will always prefer she comes over, occasionally they have had to do the reverse. Thus it pays to know some of the necessary rules to avoid any embarrassment or disappointment.

Manners

Remember it is not your house and revise your manners or else you ruin a likely pleasant evening. So, no going there drunk. Unless you were drinking together. You have to carry yourself with decorum lest you offend her. What you consider small stuff is normally big stuff from where they come from and can create so much fuss.

So, no leaving socks at the door or walking on her carpet with dusty shoes. Smelly feet have no room for discussion here. No leaving the jacket beside the sofa. Remember she is not there to pick after you. Leave the remote where it is and don’t question her movie library. Remember that those old Billy Blanks in movies that you relish are not her choice either. Her level of hospitality is dependent on how you conduct yourself. Some ‘behaviours’ have been known to tamper with the libido considerably.

The food

We live in times when women are challenged so much in the culinary sector. OK may be we can blame it on their taxing careers. In the event you are invited be very afraid that your gastric demands may not be well taken care off. Fries with chicken served with a non-alcoholic drink continue to be a standard quick fix meal. Any man of my age knows that this cannot sustain a satisfying match. You will be left panting and exhausted.

Off course preparing a well, warm-cooked meal is not an exciting romantic idea as some experts might tell you. Unless she studies nutrition in town. The spirit is ever willing but the body never ready.

A good meal that can generate the necessary energy in anticipation of the night ahead normally consists of a carbohydrate (Ugali or chapatti are the Kenyan standard), some protein like beans, beef or chicken are nice accompaniments. And naturally some greens are good to guarantee good performance without any doping.

This calls for adequate arrangement but I can bet no one has the time or the energy for that. So when going out for an away match, pass via a joint that sells local food and have your fill. It will serve you just well.

The Match

In an away match, she is the referee, the player, the linesman and the instructor. She makes the rules and she oversees the rules. You better play along. Do what you are told. Women have an uncanny habit of changing the rules and you will have to read the moods properly. If she says no, she means no as in the dictionary.

Occasionally when she is at your place, you do break the rules. Something that can be considered rape. But when at her place be civil. Very civil. Remember if you offend her, the repercussions are not very attractive.

Precautions

Away matches come with a dozen responsibilities. Some precautions are vital. Make sure your back is covered. The stigma associated with a man walking out of a single woman’s house is still very much around. It is expected the other way round. If neighbours are used to her hosting different women, it will be in their eyes. Know your host and her ways well.

Occasionally two men have shown up in the same field and it can be embarrassing. So, know the kind of games she plays. Men have walked with physical injuries out of such situations and it is difficult to explain that cut above your eye (I wonder why it is always in a conspicuous place that elicits sympathy).

And as expected, unlike her who can extend the weekend up to around Wednesday, your time is always limited. So in the morning, pick the jacket, get into your shoes and leave in time.

Dating today:Going by the female script

Dating today; going by the female script

By SILAS NYANCHWANI

Dating in Nairobi can be a financially draining activity, especially for the broke chap. Any typical woman who grew up in Nairobi or a village girl who has been assimilated to Nairobian life is classy in her fashion sense, demanding in her manners, unrepentant about her lifestyle and very epicurean in her tastes. It takes a man with enough loose change to take them out since they are proverbially known for their preference for outings to innings. And in deed it is women who are calling shots in the dating scene lately.

With eateries that sell pricey foods and drinks springing everywhere, men can only dig deeper into their pockets. A quick correction though; some women can take care of their bills. But many women are yet to learn the meaning of phrase ‘going Dutch’, although they are the leading crusaders of equality. Nearly all women I have spoken to have admitted to me that they still expect a man to settle the bills as long as he is the one interested.

Any casual observer might have noticed that dating is not what it used to be. Today, it seems women are beginning to take control. Quick pointers include; young men abandoning dingy bars for old men and thronging expensive suburban restaurants or the Trattorias and Tropezs of the CBD. I can bet that men ordinarily don’t care about the ambience, but if you take your typical Nairobian woman to a dingy bar, that will be a human rights issue. Thus lately they must be taken to those classy restraunts. Back then a date was synonymous sex. It involved the lady (yeah, ladies were still existent) coming over to a man’s crib and not to watch a movie as it lately happening. True, women are nearly turning men away from their unduly pelvic-sating preoccupations.

Today a date is not necessarily punctuated with going to bed. Somehow women have managed to convince men with excuses which will have our ancestors laugh at us in their graves. Things like head aches, ‘not being up to it tonight’ and all that we nowadays obligingly give in to (normally against our wishes) were less fashionable when men were in control. Our women have drafted a book titled: Emasculating the Kenyan man; from dogs to men. Most men have read the book and responded to it accordingly. Haven’t we witnessed miraculously if not comic transformations in men that for long seemed far fetched?

Certain things I thought would never occur in our life time have occurred sooner than even the most optimistic romantic would have dreamt. Men nowadays actually shower daily and care about matching colours before walking out of the house. As a female friend pointed out the other day, men are no longer colour blind. Men are fighting pot-bellies and their thoughts are not limited to the bedroom either. Nowadays excursions out of town are very popular (another female idea).Men no longer run pervert thoughts in their mind 24/7.They can take some time to discuss things like Mexican soapss,fashion,romance and anything and everything under the sun.

Men are no longer tight fisted. Dishing out cards and flowers is no longer an annual thing that comes on Valentine. Now they make sense than they did, say ten years ago. At least we nowadays give a damn about birthdays and pain to remember anniversaries. Women, for crying out loud, have spawned a generation of somehow caring men and with their intense campaign of romanticizing the Kenyan man, they can only succeed. Haven’t men become accommodative of the aforementioned excuses?

I will be unnecessarily selfish if I fail to acknowledge a few things about our women though. They are rumoured to be the most beautiful around Africa. At least those who have traveled have attested the fact. Whether thin or voluptuous (read fat), dark, brown or chocolate, you will find them in our Capital. Nowhere in Africa such a variety exists and didn’t someone say that variety is the spice of life? In other places they are mostly beautiful but obese or too dark, but that is a story for another time. Our women take some good time in the bathroom and some more at the wardrobe. Their fashion sense sometimes can be wanting but we (men) are a forgiving lot. They take sometime (OK, a lot of time) at the salon and come out with the best of hairstyles. Pity I can’t say much for their character.

For their efforts men have responded accordingly. We have become relatively loving, caring and considerate. I believe women deserve the best for their trouble. However, I have beef with them. If someone can get me a book on reciprocation I will recommend it to every woman in our streets. The quickest way to disappointment is trying to please a woman. If I can gather all women in the streets under one roof I will teach them the words favour, priveledge and right are not synonyms. Because wherever we extend one, they confuse it for the other. Especially favours and priveledges are invariably treated as rights. We do our best and expect the best in return but what we get are blank stares that condemn all men as perverts. Talk of a raw deal.

I still believe relationships are mutually beneficial and no party deserves less. For men, their demands are obvious and women need not pretend that they cannot read our minds. Our ancestors will hate us since we can’t even handle two women without drama. Our women have us figured out. We cheat. They cheat. The Swahili saying “Mjinga akierevuka mwerevu yu mashakani” is much like it.

So women must learn to return the favours wherever we give them out. I need not belabor the point more.

Dealing with pesky friends of your ex

Dealing with your ex’s friends

They were an indispensable part of your relationship. They were privy to all your happy moments. And unhappy ones too. They intervened many a time when you were mad at each other. They offered much needed advice and guidance when you needed it. They wanted the best for you. But somehow your relationship came to an end. The breakup might have been amicable or acrimonious. How do you deal with people who knew so much about you now that the two of you are not even in speaking terms?

Some of the worst complications of any relationship after a break up come from the oft-complex relationship you had with friends of the ex. Friends can either make things better for the two of you after breaking up or worse. But most of the time, they make it worse. Some behave like vultures ready to jump to bed with you anytime, anywhere. Others will share the raw, murderous hatred of your ex towards you. And others will insist that you make up even when you are so enraged, you can kill.

Friends can be nosy, naught and troublesome. Probably she shared some of the intimate and intricate details of your relationship with her friends. So if you are not well-endowed or if your delivery was not at all that impressive, her friends will be giving you pitiful looks every time you meet. It happens that every time there is a breakup, everyone will claim that it happened on his or her terms. So even if she has stuck with you for far too long, she will have the cheek to label you a weakling in bed. Something about breakups that suddenly opens up one’s eyes.

However, if your performance prowess is proverbial in the circle of her friends, some will secretly try to get you into bed. I call them vultures. Not that men don’t discuss their intimate affairs with peers. For men it is worse. They have the pre-match analysis and the post-match analysis. Pre-match analysis involves examining a woman’s erotic promises vis-à-vis the expectations in bed. Post-match analysis involves confirming their predictions. Only wives fortunately are spared this scrutiny. Thus if he ever confirmed that she is an expert in love making all his friends will be making a beeline to confirm this.

It is easy to go to bed with one of your ex’s because after a break-up one will certainly to rebound person. Close friends of your ex are familiar with the situation; understand your vulnerability and often a good revenge to an erring ex. If you don’t have any moral qualms, you can as well take a vacation to Coast. And of course you are driven by pure lustful admiration rather rationality. But it comes with a price. The information will certainly leak and no matter how innocent you are, you will be condemned and accused for being responsible for the breakup.

After the vultures, there is a group that I loath most; those who share the grief of the ex and will start hating you as soon as you breakup. What used to be amiable hugs and handshakes will suddenly become cold greetings with an attitude. These unprincipled individuals will link any relationship misfortune that befells their friend to you. If you ex is mad at you, they will be madder. If sadder, they will be just that.

For all their good intentions for their friend, they should spare you the agony especially when you meet. You are not a devil for crying out loud. Just as it takes two people to make a relationship, it takes exactly two people to effect a break up. So trying to behave insipidly towards you is childishness at worst.

And you will never know how much they know about your relationship. You can only pray that your partner was discrete with information. Some details are too graphic and unpalatable to the public. But you never know what (s) he said in one moment of excitement. Excitement and reasoning often travel on different roads.

The best way of dealing with these friends is treating them respectably. They may have in small or bigger ways contributed to the breakup but just move on. Treasure the moments you had together and from then henceforth limit your availability. Constant availability just as familiarity breeds a lot of contempt. Resist the temptation to go to bed with one of the friends, it will only complicate the matters further, especially if the other party knew and she still has some attachment left for the man.

A man may not mind his friend going after his former girlfriend but for women I know it can breed so much fuss, you will wonder why you cared so less. It is unforgivable, unacceptable and utterly insulting. So whatever the temptations or intentions, be circumspect. For better and for worse, friends are only a reflection of who we are. So treat them just as you treat the ex but with respect. They certainly owe their loyalty to the boy or girl, unless they are the lustful types.

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