By Ciru Ngigi
When you start dating again after a long relationship, nothing prepares you for how tiresome the process is. Or how unrealistic your current mentality is for new spaces with new people. You’re already used to being comfortable, vulnerable, and in constant communication with someone. (And my ex is a world class communicator. I had to edit that in.) Meanwhile the person sitting across from you is holding all their cards ati anakusoma. And that just makes you sooooo much more tired of them and their silly looking games. Instant lethargy. Y’all don’t even know how many times I’ve told my mom to bail me out of a date with, “Cirū, uko?” As in, I’m texting mom to give me a curfew during a dinner date. And she’ll soon start resisting because she’s looking for a son-in-law and grandbabies.
So what scares me about being single?
That I’m really not in any moods to play any kind of mind games, that I have zero patience for the slow and annoying process of getting to know each other, that I am irreverent. So irreverent. Which means I’m asking “we’ve been married for twenty years” questions on the first date without batting and eyelid. Juzi I asked someone’s son if he’d talked to his mom in shagz and how she’s been doing on date two. He’d only previously told me where she lives in that “naishi South C lakini kwetu home ni Kericho” type of way. Mimi huyo, ready to send her upkeep myself and ask about her cows. And of course my irreverent ass laughed hard when I saw his recoiling shock. You know how you even have that ka-shame for, “Cirū it’s too much, too soon”? Nothing from me. And yes, I’ve shown up in a dhera and rubber shoes to a date too. 😂. He could tell I didn’t try and didn’t care that I didn’t try. Oops!
I’m a hazard on a date right now – basically. I’m kinda not sorry about it though. You’ll just have to deal with this even less chills having Cirū.
The most scary bit, that I would rather stay single than fight for any kind of anything. If it takes work which I consider unnecessary, I’m sitting it out. And damn near everything feels unnecessary right now.
