In the fast Lane
With Wang w'Angamba

This might piss off a few people, but who said I am in the amusement business? If I spent my life trying to make people happy, I would be one miserable son of you-know-what.

Now that I have justified my rather unmannerly – some people would say unmanly – intention to reveal a few secrets (sorry, no names), let’s get down to it.

Lately, I have become – and I am not bragging – rather popular with thirty-something year-old women. In a typical week, I have an average of three girls inviting me out for lunch or dinner, either in their homes or in restaurants. And when it is the restaurant, they pick the bill. Some of these, I don’t even know quite well. They are someone I had polite conversation with at a party or someone I met with some friends.

It is not just the lunches. I have also been receiving e-mails from people I can’t even remember and don’t even think I know. While I am not complaining about all this – in fact I am enjoying it – I have been wondering why, all of a sudden, all the attention?

The answer came via my Guyanese friend who is herself in her thirties. Apparently, she has been doing some research, for obvious reasons, and discovered that men who don’t marry early – like myself – tend to get married before they hit 40.

“It is a psychological thing. Men will rush to get married before they reach 40. They realise that time is running out on them. Once a man goes beyond 40 without a wife, chances are that he will never get married,” she said.

She didn’t have to add that this makes men approaching 40 fertile hunting ground for women in their 30s who are desperate to get married. What she did add, however, is that most men don’t marry women who are more than 10 years younger than them. So apparently, girls in their twenties are shut out of the market for the men in their late thirties. All of which explains why, at almost 37, I am becoming ever more popular with women in their thirties.

This is all so good that I am beginning to think that when I reach 40, I will, for once, start lying about my age. Because if the girls know that I am over 40, they will write me off as a hopeless case. But if they think I am in my late thirties, they will continue to flow in, hoping to capture me before I reach 40. Come to think of it, it might be a good idea to raise my age to 39 just now.
Man, I love research. Even more, I love women in their thirties.

wang@ugandaobserver.com