Guide to Everything – Part 2 Section C

 

How to make a man fall in love with you

 

The first date

 

Now that you have your man codified and assigned and you know precisely what you are dealing with, it is time for the first date.

Let him decide where to go. This will create the illusion that he is in charge and will save you a lot of trouble further down the line. However, if you have had to do all the work up to this point, then you will probably have to set up the date as well. Take the initiative.

Some men are slower than others and you may well have landed yourself one of those indecisive types who find it almost impossible to take a decision without some kind of divine guidance. If you are one of those women, leave immediately and don’t look back. I have seen relationships where nobody can take a decision and, “I dunno… what do you think?” can only be taken so far before the entire shebang collapses in on itself.

There are many places you can take a man on a first date, but avoid taking him to the one place that he really wants to go. Your place. Sooner or later someone will cough at the copy machine and you will think she said “slut” and you won’t be able to stop yourself from gouging her eyes out with the office stapler. Instead, try going to a place where other, more normal people might be gathering.

Restaurants are generally a safe bet. They also give you a valuable opportunity to see if he knows his wine and his way around the cutlery.

He will also be watching you closely and, since you are hoping that he will have fallen in love with you by the time desert arrives, it is best that you do not embarrass him with an epileptic fit after the first hit of wine.

Men are impressed by women who eat heartily. Unless, of course, you happen to be a big fat pig, in which case devouring plates of food can be decidedly unattractive. But tucking into your meal with gusto will send a subliminal message that you have a healthy appetite for all things hedonistic.

If your meal arrives first, wait for his to get there before laying into it. Starting without him sends disturbing signals on all levels, although men are increasingly open to playing from a handicap.

When it comes to ordering something to drink, take your cue from him. If he orders a beer, try to refrain from ordering a triple Mai Tai with two flaming Drambuies on the side. You will come across as high maintenance and maybe a little mad. Instead, have a beer with him. Even if you have to go and throw up afterwards, it will have been worth it. Half the battle will be won. But don’t keep on ordering beers, even if he does. He will start picturing you with a boep and once that happens you may as well put down your knife and fork and walk right out of there. However, you should at least try to keep up with his pace. No man wants to be ordering his seventh drink while the woman is still nursing her first glass of watered-down wine. It makes him feel like an alcoholic, and even if he is one it is important to remember that alcoholics in particular resent being made to look like alcoholics simply because they can’t stop drinking. So try to keep up without looking like a complete boozehound. Men have a curious respect for women who can hold their liquor without turning violent.

Don’t hog the conversation. Even though most men prefer silence to conversation of any kind, this does not mean that they have nothing at all to say. Very few men are sparkling conversationalists, but most manage to hold their own if they are given enough time and alcohol.

Early on in the date, make gentle enquiries about his education. You do not want a situation arising where you say between mouthfuls, “So, do you think Noam Chomsky was right when he said children are born with an inherent knowledge of the structure of language?” only to be met with the response, “I don’t believe in gnomes.” If this does happen, try not to fall off your chair laughing. Men enjoy being made to feel stupid marginally less than they enjoy having their testicles crushed in a metalworker’s vice.

When it comes time to leave the restaurant, let him call for the bill. If you do it, there is always the chance that the waiter will hand it to you. You do not want the bill. But nor can you hand it to him without him asking for it. If he has not noticed that you have the bill, slide it very slowly across the table using a napkin as cover. Distract him and remove the napkin. He will spot the bill and start fumbling for his wallet. This is your cue to start fumbling with your bag.

“No, no. I’ll get it,” he will say. “At least let me get half,” you will say. At this point, most men will insist that dinner is on them. Even if they have just blown half their monthly salary, most men do not have it in them to allow the woman to pay her share, let alone the entire bill. Like rape, this has nothing to do with money and everything to do with power. Indulge him. But don’t sleep with him yet. Unless you really want to.

 

The sex

 

Paulo, a Brazilian kickboxer who goes out with my neighbour’s third cousin on his father’s side, said that he once had a girlfriend who was so bad in bed that he used their intimate moments together to work on his hip action for the next fight. He said she never seemed to notice, but I find that hard to believe.

A man will have sex standing up, sitting down, crouching, standing on his head, standing on your head, driving, in his sleep and in the middle of Christmas dinner. You only have to say the words: “Do you want to have…” and he will be on you like a cane rat on a baby dove.

Sex is about the most dangerous and intensely personal thing that two people can do together. That, and sharing the same bank account. But even though most men are aware of the emotional significance of an inaugural coupling, they do not award it the same level of importance that a woman does.

While you are more likely to be worrying about whether you should be taking such a big step, he will be praying to all manner of gods that the dreaded attention deficit disorder does not strike him in the nether regions. He will also be worrying about the size of his willy, thanks to the endless articles in women’s magazines telling him that there is nothing to worry about.

 

To be continued …

We All Have Assburger’s Syndrome

Birds aren’t the only creatures that make a yummy meal when deboned and compressed. Donkey, goat and buffalo are as delicious as any turducken.

Mmmm dongobuffillet. Donkey stuffed into a goat stuffed into a buffalo.

Serve with a glass of chilled Chardonnay, a bag of sticky marijuana and a private performance by three Ukrainian lesbians and you have the makings of a fabulous evening.

It involves pushing one animal inside the gastric passage of another. It’s called engastration. I’m talking about the food, here. What you do with the lesbians after the show is your business.

The French are particularly partial to this kind of thing. The Marquis de Sade, for instance, was a big fan of … no, wait. That’s different.

In his 1807 Almanach des Gourmands, gastronomist Grimod de La Reynière proudly presents his rôti sans pareil – a bustard stuffed with a turkey, a goose, a pheasant, a chicken, a duck, a guinea fowl, a teal, a woodcock, a partridge, a plover, a lapwing, a quail, a thrush, a lark, a bunting and a garden warbler. This was a man who clearly loved birds.

A vegan turducken, made with tofu and other meat substitutes like wheat gluten, is called a tofucken. True story. And because it’s a real word, we don’t need to fanny about with stars so as not to risk offending the lunatic fringe.

In my research, while I rarely bother with, I also came across an item traditionally served at Bedouin wedding feasts. Here’s the recipe. Cook eggs. Stuff eggs into fish. Cook the fish. Stuff the fish into cooked chickens. Stuff the cooked chickens into a roasted sheep. Stuff the roasted sheep into a camel. Cook the camel over a charcoal fire and season to taste.

Perhaps there is something wrong with me, but I am struggling to build up a decent head of outrage over the news that there is goat in our beef, donkey in our mutton and buffalo in our pork.

There are families in rural Somalia that celebrate for days after finding a locust. And I can’t imagine anyone in Sudan complaining about weevils in their annual cup of UN-sponsored rice. The weevils are the French contribution to the relief effort. And it’s no coincidence that the French invented complaining. I’m not sure where I am going with this, but I have a feeling that if I continue, it’s going to end badly.

The last thing I need is Francois Hollande diverting his fighter jets from Mali to my house. The neighbours already have a problem with me and I expect they would use an aerial bombardment as an excuse to get the body corporate to evict me.

So. Of 139 samples of meat, 68% tested positive for ingredients other than those declared on the packaging.

The study was done by the University of Stellenbosch, the same institution that educated the likes of Hendrik Verwoerd, Andries Treurnicht, Magnus Malan and Martin Welz. Big meat eaters, every one of them.

Everybody lies on their packaging. Everybody except me. I’m talking about you, here. People present themselves as packages and lie shamelessly while selling their bodies and brains to the highest bidder. Yes, we buy. Even though there are no guarantees.

There’s 12% buffalo in your boerewors? Please. That’s nothing. I’ve got 65% psychopath in my boyfriend. Really? You’re lucky. I have 72% slut in my girlfriend. And so it goes.

I tried to buy a flat screen television this week and quickly found myself bogged down in a quaqmire of lies and subterfuge, mainly on my part.

“Do you have a TV licence,” asked the shop-soiled assistant.

“Of course I do,” said I.

“Can I see it?”

“No, you can’t. Just give me the fucking thing. I have money.”

What a peculiar country. You can pay someone R250 to kill your wife, but a shop that is in all likelihood selling counterfeit goods cobbled together by seven-year-old Asian girls won’t take your R2 500 and give you a 32” Sinotec because they think you might be an undercover SABC licence inspector dressed as a homeless person.

I was also lied to on the packaging on a TV stand. Easy assembly, it said on the box. Easy if you were the engineer on the Sydney harbour bridge, maybe. Not so easy if you got 13% for technical drawing in matric.

Insert dowel into bottom? Really? Fifty shades of DIY. Cover nuts (B) with plastic caps (C). I covered my nuts and went drinking.

Let’s get back to the wildlife the producers have been feeding us. The shops are panicking. Meat is big business in this country.

You need a machete to get a braai pack on any given Saturday in rugby season. As you hack and chop your way through the seething mob, butcher’s assistants are standing by to collect the severed limbs, shrink wrap them and put them on the shelves as legs of lamb. This is the way it should be.

The butcheries don’t care. Have you seen the kind of people who buy their meat in butcheries instead of supermarkets? They love the smell of blood in the morning. Their eyes glaze over at the sound of circular saws tearing through the haunches of cloven-hoofed animals. That’s in Joburg. In Durban, even vegetarians go to butcheries in February. Not for the meat, for the air conditioning.

So how are the shops that cater to the BMW-driving, diamond-smuggling, coke-snorting, mineral-pilfering, tender-fiddling classes dealing with this crisis?

Woolworths was quick to saddle up its high horse. “Random checks, such as DNA testing, are conducted routinely on meat products,” they said snortily.

The forensic science laboratory is run by the police. They hope to have the results of the Verwoerd case by the end of the year. My money is on the tapeworm.

Here’s what I think should happen. Woolworths offers a one-stop forensic service – maybe in the cold meats section – and the police start selling ready-cooked meals. I don’t care what they are. Seagulls stuffed in honey badgers stuffed in zebras. If it comes with olives and feta, I’m in.

The undignified corporate scramble for the high ground continues.

Nestlé, billing itself as is the world’s leading nutrition, health and wellness company, dropped a Spanish supplier after certain products were found to contain horse meat. What a shame. I rather liked their Shetland-flavoured chocolate.

Shoprite also does DNA testing. On its meat, not its customers. Although you never know when they might be running a special. Buy a kilo of wors and make sure the brat is really yours. Whitey Basson is nothing if not an innovator.

Pick n Pay, too, claims to conduct spot DNA tests. But in their case it’s probably on the staff to make sure they aren’t white.

Bon appetit. Or, as my mother used to say, shut up and eat it.

My 2008 European Holiday – Part 4

“Before we head for the forgotten island of Ibiza, we need to go to bull country,” I said to Brenda.

I have always wanted to stab a bull through the heart and slice off its ears so that I may nail them to my study wall as a conversation piece.

Like in every other city bigger than Fish Hoek, we got repeatedly and hopelessly lost seconds after taking the turnoff to Cordoba. If Columbus had hired a female navigator, Jamaica would be called America today.

Eventually we came upon what the Spanish laughingly call the “historic centre”. Brenda prefers to stay in these areas because they have “character”. Give me a break. Old buildings are like old people. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.

I simply cannot stand before one more crumbling edifice heavy with statues of sad-faced people and say, “Hmm. That really goes back.” History has very little significance when one travels without guide books of any kind.

What did intrigue me in Cordoba was the Mesquite. When I first saw the name, I thought it was a strip joint and was wondering how I could give Brenda the slip for a couple of hours, but it turned out to be a giant, cavernous structure built, oh, I don’t know, about a million years ago.

It was constructed by the Moors and for a long time used as a place of worship by both the Jews and the Muslims. At some point the Knights of Santiago got wind of this unseemly arrangement and rode hell for leather to Cordoba where they killed everyone in the name of Christianity and converted the mosque into a cathedral. Today they charge tourists an entrance fee and warn them against being unduly impressed by the godless Moorish architecture.

Like the rest of Spain, Cordoba was stuffed to the gills with Catholics. There was no room at any of the inns and the sidewalks were overflowing. Apparently only a damn fool arrives in Cordoba in early May without reserving some sort of accommodation.

The city was gearing up for a marathon of festivals ranging from celebrating the cross, the onset of spring and, I think, the ham. These people love their ham. They string it up by its back legs right above your head, but it’s difficult to relax when you’re worried about the hindquarters of a pig landing in your lap just as you order your next beer.

The Spanish also love their children despite them being infinitely more worrisome than falling ham. Give me Spanish ham over Spanish children any day. Ham is at least disciplined and rarely speaks out of turn. In fact I would go so far as to say that Spanish pigs behave better than Spanish children, even as they prepare to sacrifice themselves so that we may gnaw on their scrumptious buttocks. The pigs, not the children.

In Africa, if you come across a lion cub in the bush, you run like hell because mom or dad can’t be far behind. In Spain, if you come across a couple between the ages of 16 and 50, you run like hell because their children can’t be far behind.

They will be shrieking or crying or doing something that will set your teeth on edge and make you want to commit unspeakable atrocities upon their swarthy little heads.

We have the pope to thank for this appalling state of affairs. Spain would be a far more pleasant country to visit if the men didn’t think they would burn in hell for putting a latex sock over their willies every time they felt the need to copulate.

Making matters infinitely worse, Cordoba was also full of latter-day Visigoths. These travelling barbarians might have swapped their swords for ice creams and prefer to think of themselves as Germans, but you only have to look into their faces to know that they come from a terrible place in history.

Seeking refuge in the restaurant at the end of the Mesquite, Brenda amused herself with a jug of powerful sangria while I fired off several frames from the old Nikon whenever something caught my eye.

A comfy chair, cold beers, warm tapas and an endless supply of sultry, underdressed Andalucían women in the cobbled roads. This was travel journalism at its best.

The sangria went to Brenda’s head and she asked me when exactly I planned on fighting a bull. “Fight?” I laughed. “Forget fight. Fighting is for sissies. I’m going to eat one of them wild beasts.”

I stared unflinchingly into the eyes of the waiter and said, “Bring me the rabo del toro. Pronto.”

The crowd in the restaurant fell silent. Somewhere in the back streets a fiery-tempered flamenco dancer rattled her castanets and an old war hero plucked his 12-string Ibanez.

Buzzards circled overhead and a boy with a goat stopped to watch.

Ten minutes later the waiter returned. He set the mound of steaming bull before me and moved quickly for the safety of the bar. As the guitar solo reached its dizzying crescendo, I fell upon my plate and devoured the animal with consummate skill and courage. Not to mention relish and gusto.

Rising up to my full height, not easy in a sitting position, I stabbed my fork into the last fist-sized chunk and fell back, exhausted.

“Olé!” I cried.

“Torero!” responded the crowd.

“La cuenta!” shouted Brenda.

After the bloodied remains of my conquest had been removed, I offered to buy Brenda a pair of boots. “We have to eat them and wear them,” I said. “It’s the only way to get any respect around here.”

I found the perfect pair in a seedy shop down a blind alley for just 15 euros. Brenda said she doubted they were made from real leather.

“Nonsense,” I said. “I’m talking genuine bull, here.”

I explained to her that her bull had probably taken one look around the ring and said “you want me to do what?” then promptly died of fright.

Boots made from gay bulls will obviously be cheaper than boots made from bulls that kill three matadors and two horses and then jump into the stands and start goring the crowd.

I could see Brenda was uncomfortable with the idea of wearing boots made from an effeminate bull so I changed my story rather than risk paying more.

“Or,” I said, “it’s more likely that your bull walked up to the matador and said: It’s because I’m black, isn’t it?’ Then he refused to fight and was dragged around the back and shot in the head because nobody likes an uppity bull.

“Think of him as a Martin Luther King bull,” I said.