Sheila and I are tight, we talk about anything and everything and we know each other’s shady stories. She had talked of several men over the years but somehow, I never got to meet any of them, so I was pleasantly surprised and excited when she asked me to meet one of her boyfriends. This one I had been told about over several lunches and breakfast. That is her whenever she starts a new relationship, she flaunts it and praises the new catch like she has never seen any other man like that. She is the ‘I want a man I can hold an intelligent conversation with’ type, and to be honest, I never know what sort of men those are. As long as you make me laugh, whether you do so intelligently or not I will want to be with you.

Besides being told how intelligent our new catch was, I was also informed that he was rich. This got me worried because the last time she described a guy as rich he lived with his parents and everything she called his belonged to the family. Now, this particular one I had been told owned a ranch and a country home. Where I come from, anything with cows is a farm, ranch I only see in movies and stories about Texas. With such pompous descriptions of course I had expectations of the kind of guy I was supposed to meet. Anyway, we are seated at our regular restaurant and when the new catch arrives I am disappointed because he looks nothing like the guy I had been told about.  He arrived in a tiny old car and was dressed in the cheapest pair of trousers, the ones that look like aluminum, they could burn your eyes. They are not very cheap because you won’t find them among second hand clothes, but even in a shop they are bought by people that only buy new things on big days like Christmas. I could not hide my disappointment as we exchanged pleasantries.

Seated right opposite me is a guy Sheila tried so hard to make seem important. Why do women do that?

I bring in women because I know girls that buy themselves gifts and claim it was the boyfriend that bought them. I also know those that order flowers and chocolate on Valentine ’s Day and have them delivered wherever they will be so that people around assume she is dating a caring person. Have you heard of those that foot the bills on their official introduction and the ones that pay their own bride price just to make a man look good? Why go to this extent? In my opinion, whether you’re dating a cool guy or a riff raff and that is what rocks your boat, why put yourself under pressure to show your guy in different light?

Sheila and I said goodbye to the guy because we had errands to run and I asked her why the guy I just met looked quite different from the image she painted of him, and trust my girlfriend not to accept defeat. She said he looked like that because he had got into some trouble and had to pass by his friend’s house for a change of clothes. She also spared some ‘makeup’ for the rickety car he was driving by saying that it was not his since ‘he drives a German machine’. Her parting shot was, ‘Jackie you’ll see it one of these days when we visit the ranch.’ Oops, the ranch still exists. 

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