“Women have gone through so much to become richer, tougher, more powerful – but you still want a man richer, tougher and more powerful than you. Admit it! The higher you have climbed, the harder it is going to be to find a man more accomplished than you – because the number of options gets smaller and smaller.”
I picked that from an unlikely source, a chick-lit novel I just finished reading to de-stress titled Hope For Harmony; Baby-Makers Vs Peter Pans.
But it served its purpose; it triggered a conversation inside me that I now want to throw out to every single girl out there searching for the perfect man to bring the jolly herd of pink elephants and harmony into her life:
Could it be that what you need is a beta man?
Women are drawn to that take-charge, alpha male; the ultimate bad boy we can hopefully tame for ourselves; the quintessential virile guy that knows everything about fast cars, Bayern Munich, how to kill a cobra and believes in ‘my wallet is your wallet, babe’; that guy Philly Bongoley Lutaaya sings about in his 1987 song, Nakazadde, whom every girl needs to change her car tyres.
Well, there are simply no more beasts to slay; if anything, I have seen a girl kill a snake, and I have seen a man almost die after smearing his whole body with paraffin because a small caterpillar crawled up his arm.
More single women are the take-charge kind and don’t need any financial security from a man. They are building swanky houses on land they bought with their hard-earned cash and driving fast cars not financed by daddy or a sugar daddy.
Girls change the flat tyres on their cars – Philly would have been disappointed to discover that, had he lived longer – and wash the cars every Sunday more efficiently than a kanaabe.
And don’t get me started on the average corporate girl’s job description. Maybe what these alpha females need to look for is a beta male then.
Someone who needs, and is turned on by a take-charge woman because of the sheer oppositeness of their characters.
Someone who understands a wife that comes with financial security, serious chops in the bedroom but is not necessarily a domestic goddess. A beta male who actually listens when you talk, enjoys your choice of TV programmes, likes to cuddle and is not afraid to cry when situations call for a good dose of bawling.
The truth is, the ultimate alpha male is either taken, or is busy searching for a beta woman, because your power and accomplishments intimidate him.
The power and ego clashes in many modern unions that result in the pattern of grand weddings, followed by short-lived marriages can be blamed on alpha male meeting alpha female with none of the two willing to back a notch down.
Where alpha males coexist in perfect harmony with the alpha females they call wives, you will find that they built their way to the top of their respective empires together. They know their beta versions, witnessed each other’s first big break and transitioned together from beta to alpha.
But where an alpha female has gone in search of a male more powerful than her, she has possibly found him, made it down the aisle, and is now trying to figure out why they are constantly fighting. Unless she was lucky to find the odd one not daunted by her power.
Sigh!
This conversation has been making a lot of sense in my head. I hope it does the same in print. The thing is, there are ‘good men’ out there. Men that don’t abuse alcohol, don’t beat women, are perfect gentlemen that believe in monogamy…
They just possibly look too boring and ‘ordinary’ for the powerful, single and searching corporate girl. She is waiting in her Land Cruiser V8, for a single-with-no-baggage knight in shining armour to ride up in the 2018 Mercedes Benz G-class and sweep her off her feet.
Well, good luck. Otherwise, it could be that your true happiness, pink elephants and forever-after are way outside that box.
carol@observer.ug
