Is it just me?

I am not one to kiss and tell, so if anyone, especially Daisy, ever asks if we had this conversation, IT DIDN’T HAPPEN. I will deny and swear by my Great great grandfather’s grave that it wasn’t me.

Sigmund Freud

I have heard far too often that there is nothing like ‘deep friendship’ between boys and girls, men and women, males and females …you can finish off the list. Reason being very simple, as my good old friend Sigmund Freud says without flinching a muscle, it’s all about sex. If she is not my sister or first cousin, then yeah, trust Freud, it’s all about sex.

Males and Females, human and animal alike, are drawn to each other by purely sensual bonds, supported by a deeply rooted but also hugely tacit hope that at one point in the near future, the so called ‘friendship’ will culminate in sexual gratification. Yes he is your boy from the hood, yes you have known him since he was wetting his pants, yes you even saw him naked once, yes you two have been through too much together to even consider that option, yes even your mother thinks of him as her son, yes he says sometimes he even forgets that you are a girl. Deep inside, deep deep inside, like really deep inside, he hopes you two will one day do it, if you haven’t done it already. Oh, and here’s the best part, you too share the same sentiments. Hard to believe until you end up in my kind of quandary then you stop hating on Freud.

You see, I always thought Freud was a deeply disturbed person who in his time could have benefited greatly from psychiatric help. I have friends, girls, whom I have known as we like to put it, ‘like since forever’. We played ‘Kati’ and ‘Cha mama’ and other games whose names escape my lazy mind for now. We splashed mud on each other on our way from nursery school, made fun of each other all through primary school, and wrote hilarious letters to each other through out high school.

One such girl was Kate. A sweet girl around her parents, a naughty girl around her friends and extremely notorious in high school. She must have had at least 3 suspensions during her spell in some obscurely named school in the back of nowhere. Her parents knew nothing about these suspensions thanks to jobless middle aged men and women in a nearby town, who performed marvelously in posing as the summoned angry parents during these episodes.

Anyway, Kate mysteriously scored good enough grades to be posted to one of the local universities, unfortunately in the opposite end of the country. We lost touch for the four years that followed.

This was Kate anyway. A random call every once in a blue moon would suffice for keeping in touch and life moved on. This was until Facebook notified me that I had a friend request.

Like many other females I know, Kate had named her profile some queer name, probably from a movie she once watched. As nonchalantly as I always accepted requests from such strangely named ‘friends’, I accepted this one as well. Then her profile picture caught my eye.

Click click and I was viewing a slide show of her other equally eye catching profile pictures. I could not remember her hair being that long and that black. I could not remember seeing her in a top that was barely supported by her now full-grown bosom. And I definitely could not remember that Tattoo on her arm. The Kate (a.k.a Janice Pops) that I knew always wore wide rimmed glasses that gave her a geeky look. She didn’t have them on in these pictures, and yes, those naughty crystal eyes definitely caught my attention.

My boss’s abrupt entrance into the office prompted my fingers to do their thing with keyboard shortcuts, but I definitely did not forget Janice Pops.

Fast forward to several days later, and I’m briskly walking across the City centre, only to see the very familiar face of Kate, with her glasses on and hair held back just like she used to before Facebook. I grab her hand, a moment of fright before she recognizes my face, a tight hug ensues and I immediately forget where I was headed. Nairobi is indeed a very small town!

Oh yeah, I was headed for a friend’s birthday party across town. Kate didn’t have any big plans for the evening and of course we had a lot to catch up on. Daisy had oh so conveniently refused to accompany me on the grounds of feminine issues. I wasn’t particularly upbeat about this until I met Kate.

Fast forward to the Party, where the company was great, the food delicious and the ‘Viño Veritas a.k.a Akoho a.k.a the root of all evil’ was flowing freely. Oh yeah, and Kate decided to let her hair go, got rid of the spectacles and freed herself from the sweater she had been imprisoned in earlier. The comfort with which she would let herself into my arms on the sofa, or gyrate her behind in the environs of my groin on the dance floor left my defenses very feeble.

Late into the night, tired from the dancing, with my mind compromised by a concoction that had acquired a special name that night, Kate and I were directed to our sleeping area, strategically tucked away from the roving sober eye.

I vaguely remember the events thereafter up to a certain point, after which I choose not to poke my memory any further for fear of the painful truth. Daisy would not be happy if she knew about this, and neither would my mum, nor her mum, nor the rest of the clan.

So now I have crossed over to the Freudian side, and I urge you my dear reader to do yourself a favor and do the same. There is nothing like ‘just friends’ between boys and girls. When the moment is right, shock on you, it will happen like you never imagined.

If you feel me say Amen!

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