1. Do I look good?
This is a no brainer. If you want to know if you look good, ask your girlfriend, or a gay man. If you want to know if your man likes how you look, check his face for a (leering) smile or a frown of disapproval, that’s pretty much as good as it gets. If you want him to gush over you the way he did when you first met and all he kept saying was ‘shoree… you’re so hot!’, dream on, he was only saying that to get you into his bed and/or kitchen. He did mean it though. Really, he did.
2. What was she like?
Usually asked after he mistakenly called out her name in his sleep, or in a moment of drunken…conversation? You know how they say ‘know thine enemy’? Bullshit! The less you know about the ex the better, the last thing you need in your head is how she used to make the fluffiest ugali and give the best head ever, that’s the shit that sticks in your head and torments your waking moments. If the ex is a relevant detail, odds are he’ll bring her up himself so sit back and wait, but if you really must know about her, ask his boys, those langas are easily mined for information, with the right amount of cheap inducements that is.
3. Why did you do that?
Sometimes the man will do something uniquely foolish, seeing as how he is a man and therefore prone to acts of great foolishness. I’m not talking about serious life changing decisions like quitting a job or buying a house, I’m referring to the impulse decisions more often than not spurred by an unfortunate encounter with the right end of a bottle, like buying vegetables in a bar (who does that?). He goes shopping for unga and comes back with a 40 pack of toilet paper? Don’t ask. He goes out for nyama on Saturday afternoon and the next thing you know its 4 am and he’s in another province all together? Do you really want to know the thought processes involved in a loose plan made at midnight to see the sunrise over a lake? Some questions you don’t ask, not because you won’t get an answer, but because the answer you get will inevitably be useless.
4. Where were you, and who were you with?
Unless he has missed a crucial appointment with you, like the birth of your first child, or your wedding, or your 2 week anniversary, such like serious stuff, this is not a question you want to ask. Its not that you don’t need, or simply want, to know, but asking will make you look and sound clingy (apparently a bad thing) and it will leave you feeling like his mother (apparently not a good thing). As with all things relationship, some things may be best left unsaid.
5. Why didn’t you call me back?
This question cannot be answered, it’s a damned if you do and damned if you don’t scenario. Option 1: he tells you he didn’t call you because he was busy, in a meeting, otherwise engaged, for four days. You know he’s lying, he knows he’s lying, and the idiot sitting next to him in the bar as he concocts this tale also knows he’s lying. Option 2: he tells you he didn’t call you because he didn’t want to. He’s being honest, but you’ll be deeply saddened, or infuriated to the point of inflicting bodily harm on his honest ass. It’s a lose/lose proposition.
6. What do you want?
This also goes under the guise of ‘we need to talk’. All the jamaas reading this just involuntarily clenched their butt muscles. You did, didn’t you? I know us mamas we like to talk shit out, but this one question is guaranteed to have a man stammering and sweating like it’s the Spanish Inquisition and you have a glistening spike in your hand. I figure, rather than try to pry the words out of him, read his actions instead, because the truth is, you wouldn’t be asking this question if his deeds had already given you the answer you want, no? Asking this question is simply a quest for verbal confirmation of what your subconscious is screaming at you, and whatever answer he gives you will not shut that inner voice up because she has a very, very accurate bullshitometer. I’m just saying…
7. Do you love me?
If you have to ask, then you don’t want to know. Take that as you will…
And just so you know, I have been known to ask 3 of these questions regularly, and with limited success (well, none actually, but let’s not split hairs). Don’t ask me which ones, I’m not telling…
