About two days ago, I had an interesting conversation about what counts in the men we date. Women are different you know; some won’t go out with a guy just because he talks funny, others because he should be driving his own car and not mingling with locals in ‘twegerane’ and others, well, because he doesn’t seem to have a plan in life.

One friend of mine stated that never under any circumstance can she date a guy who owns a car but has no land or house to his name. When asked why, she said that just shows how unserious a guy is. What is he doing buying a car when he can buy land or a house instead? 

I’m thinking there’s nothing wrong with a guy getting fed up of a conductor’s sweaty armpits and strangers trying to strike a conversation – all the woes that come with public transport. And motos? Well, I’m thinking there’s nothing more annoying than telling the moto chap ‘gyenda buhoro’ and he translates it as ‘show me your speeding skills’. This frustration is enough to drive any man into buying his own car. That way, if it stinks, he can blame only himself and he can control his speed. 

What I find odd though is a man getting a hefty bank loan to go buy a Mercedes he doesn’t really need. Now that’s just being stupid. So after he gets his Mercedes and the bank is cutting heavy chunks off his salary in refund and he can barely keep up with paying his landlord and he probably also has some DNA running around the world somewhere that he has to support, then what? 

When we were younger, these details didn’t matter; it wasn’t important that a guy didn’t drive or live in his own house. Now, things are different. Women are looking for serious commitment and wedding rings. Women are planning anniversaries and thinking of baby names. You can’t blame a sister for dumping the Mercedes obsessed chap with no long term goals whatsoever. 

"I’m not a live-in-the-moment kind of girl. I want a man smart enough to plan for the future because I have every intention of being in it,” my friend said. She also added that guys who live spontaneously are the very ones that waste all their money on things they don’t really need, and then start drowning their partners in debt too.

This reminded me of one my favourite movies, Think Like a Man, and I came to the realisation that my friend, just like many other women, are sick and tired of what Steve Harvey called The Dreamer. That’s the man who wants one thing today and another the next. It’s okay to have goals and dreams, actually it’s pretty awesome, but when these dreams push you to unrealistic measures, something’s wrong. I can now see why it would make more sense for some women to respect the guy living in his own house than the guy cruising a Bentley and still paying rent. But that’s just some women…

So what do you want? Is it the car, the house, that land title…or simply that glint in his eyes that tells you his whole world revolves around you and that the day you leave him is the day he’ll take his last breath? Hey, don’t judge, we love differently.