It is all about donor fatigue

Dear Biggie,

I have been dating this wonderful young man for five years. I may be employed but he used to spoil me to bits. If I needed airtime, he was on hand to provide. I only needed to complain about the stifling heat before he would take me to the lake. If I wanted to go out on the town with my girlfriends, he would ensure we painted the town red. We hit uptown bars, ate choice steaks and washed it all down with copious Amarula, Spin, Hunters… You catch the drift? I was the envy of my friends.

My man has completely changed. Previously, if I asked him for K1 000 worth of airtime, he would send K2 000 immediately; these days he takes his time before he does—if at all—and usually it is less than what I ask for. He doesn’t take me out on the town and he gives me one excuse after another. I’m worried; I love him with all my life and I don’t know what I would do without him. Despite his bitchy behaviour, he, too, has professed his love for me on more than one occasion. Biggie, do you think he is pulling wool over my eyes, that he has found another woman on whom he is lavishing the gifts which he used to spoil me with? I sure do have the looks, but is he cheating on me?

Anita, by email

My Anita,

You have every reason to be worried. I can assure you—and swear on the grave of my great-great-grandfather—that your man is not sipping from other well. What you are going through is what is known as ‘donor fatigue’ in developmental economics. You, my dearest, are just incorrigible.

One lesson I have learnt in life is that when a woman tells a man she loves him, he has to mind his wallet. Few, if any, women will tell a man they love him gratis. He will have to pay for it one way or the other, like you were doing with your man. On the other hand, a man’s needs in a woman are simple: when he says he loves you, he actually means, “I want to have sex with you.” Just that!

You are employed yet you cannot buy your own airtime. Your parents or whoever paid your school fees should be ashamed of you. They sent you through school so that you could become independent. In case you don’t own a dictionary, “independent” means “not depending on another for livelihood or subsistence”—which is everything you are not. By independent, I mean buying your own phone, even if it is Mose wa Lero, with your own money; topping it up with your money; enjoying the caressing breeze of the lake with your own cold, hard cash; painting the town red with your money; eating succulent steaks and washing them down with champagne, Amarula, Hunters or Tequila with your money… I trust that you, too, catch the drift.

Women like you, the parasitic type with financial wherewithal but still feeding off men (simply because they are men), are the reason some people don’t take the whole female emancipation movement seriously. What is your claim to independence if you can’t buy your own airtime or a glass of wine? If you can switch roles one of these days and you did the buying of airtime, steaks and alcohol, you would appreciate what financial pressure your man is exposed to by your unreasonable demands!

Let me tell you a story about my former girlfriend. She was every inch just like you. Demanding! Insatiable. A show off. She turned me into her personal banker and airtime dispenser. Whenever she wanted money or airtime, her conversations would always be signposted by some endearing term such as ‘darling’, ‘dear’, ‘sweetheart’. I knew at the end of that conversation I would be left poor.

As you can guess, I soon developed donor fatigue when the excitement had died down. As for you, your time is up.

As for your looks, well, you could have killer looks but, as a friend recently observed, more beauty but less brains makes the private parts suffer.