I lost my phone...

 Afternoons in the CBD sound like a tsunami warning. There's the looming threat of the upcoming rush-hour traffic and chaos. I hate how crowded on downtown gets, the multitude of terminals for various matatus and hawkers with goods sprawled on the ground is symbolic to the city but makes for a hellish navigation. On this particular day one of my friends had just treated me to some lunch at arguably the best spot to get your fill on traditional foods. We had just gotten our fill and we were now headed to one of the dingy taverns to get a little buzzed and head home. Enroute I discovered my phone was not me, headed back to the restaurant and realized it was not there either. Those who know me are familiar with my track record of losing phones. Anyway, all the more reason to get hammered.

The drinks flew into my mouth, the horrid taste notwithstanding. My friends were in stitches laughing at me because I was headed home with no phone yet again. I honestly found it as hilarious, they egged me on to drink and so we did. In my drunken haze  I thought of the commute home and perhaps impaired decided to phone my lover at the time. I knew she was also enroute home and would connect via the CBD so I figured I'd ditch my boys and go home with her. Matatu rides seated beside her had a calming effect, she'd always take the window seat. I loved looking at her against the backdrop of traffic and the landscape whizzing by. She had a look of understated beauty that I'd maul over, I was enchanted to be honest. We'd hold hands and she'd fall asleep, or I'd rub and caress her thighs with her head on my shoulder, I felt like I needed her tenderness I called her with one of my friend's phones and we agreed to commute home together.

It was late in the evening when we boarded a matatu, the snake lights doused the passenger compartment in dim purple light. She was also aware of my rampant phone loss and she found the hilarity in it as well. We started making conversation, as we always did. I was inebriated around someone I cared for deeply and found phenomenally attractive, that was some respite. "What have you been drinking." she asked. I told her about the choice of rum we had gone with. "It must have been fake." she remarked. I was a little confused but I got the gist of what she was saying, I probably smelled like liquor. She recoiled from me, I took notice but did not consider it offensive. She had a reason, that was okay. "She never calls or calls on me when she's drunk, yet she's the first thing I think of whenever some liquor touches my lips." I thought. She recoiled from me, I shouldn't have read much into it but I guess I did.

We rode in silence for a bit, it was not uncomfortable but I wanted to talk to her. I hate self help books, especially of the Machiavellian kind, about how to manipulate people and situations to your advantage and also 'game theory'. I hate that there's a science behind manipulation and that some people knowingly exercise these narcissistic and selfish practices. However these books are authored on observation and assessment so there are levels of truth in them. In my drunkenness, I began telling her about how much I cared about her and how much I wanted to be with her all the time. "You're lying, you're just saying these things." she remarked to me. I genuinely did care about her and valued her presence more than I'd ever be able to express and for reasons beyond me. I cared about her more than I had cared for anybody ever up until then. "You're just saying that because you're drunk.", she dismissed me again. I understood her reasons for doing so, but I still felt hurt that my sincere words were being put off as a drunken ramble. I felt hurt that I could not provide assurance to her despite my conviction.

"I'm not that drunk, I'm telling you the truth. I cannot picture myself with anybody else right now"

"You can't picture yourself with anybody else? Or is it that nobody else wants you."

 

I hate 48 laws of power and all books in its genre but at that moment I remembered one; always say less than necessary. It's very humbling to have to agree with something you detest so deeply. I have always been genuinely expressive and I have made it part of my persona, a part of me I want people to trust and recognize, my partner cannot see it. I had lost my inhibition in the process and showed my cards, that was what it felt like. After I heard those word from her mouth, I laughed. I was very awestruck, those were words I expected to hear from a manipulative boyfriend or something. Never from a woman I had entrusted my feelings to and confided in and she said them like a joke. I had to laugh. "Get your hand off my thigh." she said. I had not even realized I was touching her. I obliged, she was being serious. I sat on my aisle seat and in that moment all the things she had ever done or said to dismiss me came to mind. All the times she had dismissed me, all the times I had over-extended to her when she was in one of her moods and ended up getting hurt, all the times she showed indecision to things I felt convicted about. I felt sick with resent.

A friend of mine once told me that, from the onset of their lives women know they are incapable of winning most physical battles, so they switch the playing field to mental ones. They nurture and perfect the art of getting in your head and your conscience to fight you there. Pedestalizing somebody puts them in the perfect position to take a hot dump on your head and smear it over your face. You do not poke a man's ego, you do not underestimate a man with a point to prove. You DO NOT sleep on a man like me, EVER. I'm not the best, but telling me I'm not even viable to compete? That's a mistake, because I will come for you to prove to myself you were wrong. Call it a fragile ego, but I will not allow you to feel like you're one-upping me to my face. That day felt like a revelation to me, I understood why so many things happened the way they did, so I smiled at her and she smiled back as if it would soften the blow of nonsense she had just said. As if something inside me hadn't died that very moment. As if I hadn't come to a decision I will never rescind.