A longtime ago, gossip was associated with women; groups would be seen doing ‘high five’ as they walked to the water stream, meetings were for catching up on who had bought a new dress or whose husband had abandoned her.

Lo and behold, things changed, these days you’ll get more gossip from male colleagues and friends than women. There are two special friends of mine who are always behind news. If they ever get to know of a new development without it coming from me, they will ask how I forgot about them.

In our past life when they ever were in the mood of knowing what’s up, they would come with this cheeky smile and go like ‘Madam Jackie, what’s new, what are we missing?’ This bond is so strong that even today they will look for me for stories, good and bad. I attract stories like nectar does bees, I diligently ‘break the news’ because for me it comes with the territory.

Back to men who gossip.

Recently there was a guy who called wanting to know about a lady he is interested in. Not sure how much he already knew (she’s not a bad person at all), I went on to say good things about this lady, ‘she is God fearing, a people’s person, she is hilarious, there is never a dull moment around her.

Did I mention she is a homemaker? She rarely goes out and prefers to stay home cleaning up and cooking. I remember when I fell ill for two weeks she was by my side throughout, she literally put everything on hold to attend to a friend. Jerry are you still there?’ He said, ‘yes, go on.’

‘When that girl says she loves you she truly does. I have seen her heartbroken but she got over it and forgave where I Jackie would not forgive. If you feel strongly for her, I would say go for it. This is your woman Jerry.’

There was a short silence, then he laughed so hard!

‘Jackie are you talking of the same girl Adam was telling me about or a different person?’ Adam is our mutual friend, I had no idea what he had told Jerry but it was possible there were things he knew about her that I didn’t, it was also possible that there are some things I had left out.

Most of it inconsequential! That is what I thought, until I was told of this sitting of Adam and other men that had nothing else to discuss but the girl.

I was very disappointed. I would forgive a group of women if I found them seated somewhere talking about my bad breath, someone’s multiple partners or the fact that someone has taken long without getting married, or they have a habit of asking for money from strangers. 

Real men do not talk about people, they talk to people. If someone has bad body odour, a real man will whisper a remedy to them not broadcast it to the village.

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