Shelaring

I am a product of the 80’s and the 90’s….but somehow, I got through that whole period without ever learn to shela. Now, any self-respecting boy from the hood grows up with the skill. I don’t know who teaches the skill. Just like I don’t know who teaches us how to spin a spinning top. Another skill I just don’t have.

All I know is, even when we were growing up, we would be playing soccer with my friends and when a beautiful young lass walked by, one of the guys would go running after her and would inevitably either walk with her for the next thirty minutes, walk all the way to the shops and back with her and he would then come back and announce that she will tell him tomorrow whether she is now his girlfriend or not. This was, inexplicably referred to as a “half-moja” which basically means, “she didn’t reject him outright, so he still has a half-yes”. The flip side would be that the guy would come back within seconds, calling the girl stuck up and an ugly slag that he never wanted in the first place.

I remember an older guy putting me on the spot and saying: “Pretend I am a pretty girl and ask me out.” And I had to do this with everybody in the taxi listening. I wanted to jump out of the moving car, it was so bad. I can even remember what I eventually mumbled : “Ke a tlala ka wena. Wa nkenya kapa wang ntsha?” And everybody in the kombi was cracking up.

I was reminded just the other day on the radio, of just how eloquent some brothers used to be, when they asked girls out. Stating from the intro; “Sawubona sisi. Bengicela ukubeka amabili amathathu.” Through to the crux of the matter (I thought this one was classic) “Ke kopa mme waka e be mmago” WOW!

Either way, I could never ever get myself to do this. It was just too scary a prospect. The crushing humiliation would have been too much to bear. My very first “girlfriend” literally showed up at my doorstep. I walked out of my bedroom, an innocent twelve year old and there she was, sitting on the couch. I almost peed in my pants, she was so beautiful. She was friends with my cousin and they had just dropped in to visit. And the next year was nothing but confusion, stumbling around like a drunk man in the dark and loads of phone calls.

She and I LIVED on the phone. Her aunt used to fetch her from school at 4pm, sharp. And I usually got home at around 3pm. So, she would call me from the tickey box at school every single day at 3;30 and we would sit on the phone for half an hour every day. This was long before Telkom’s crushing call rates.

Mind you, we hardly saw each other at all, because she had a very strict aunt.

Having her as my “girlfriend” came with two huge benefits: 1. She was the most beautiful and also the most sought after girl in the neighbourhood. So that gave me major street cred. 2. I never ever had to endure the bone crushing humiliation of being forced to ask a girl out. I had a girl and everybody knew who she was and envied me for it.

Incidentally….she and I never ever had the “are we officially dating?” chat ever. Even after having kissed a few times and all the phone calls, I only really discovered that we had actually been officially dating the day she broke up with me.

All I know is, whenever she walked by, I would be the one walking down with her to the end of the street. And I could feel the envious looks of all my friends as we walked down and then stood at the corner and chatted.

That is how all my future relationships started. I usually met them all through a friend and we became friends, then eventually she became my girlfriend. Obviously this was long before the days of social networks. Intros were the order of the day.

One thing about me…I have always been an odd social animal. When among strangers, I am as quiet as a cat. But the moment I feel comfortable in the company I am in, I will literally take over the situation.

If I walk into a room full of people and I recognise nobody, you better believe, I will get myself a drink, and a quiet corner and I will shut up. The moment somebody else has said, on my behalf “Hello everybody, this is Linda” I jump right in and everybody will think; Wow! That is one cool, calm and confident people person.

I was reminded of just how extreme this is the other day, when I went to address a ladies seminar in Pta. I arrived just as they were about to break for lunch and got to meet some of them during the lunch break. But, on the whole, I withdrew into my little corner and spoke to nobody. And I just watched….it was only once we had gone back in and I was given the platform that the “other” Linda came out. I spoke their ears off! And we had an amazing session.

Everybody that I have stayed in contact with since that day still points out how I came across as very quiet and possibly even a bit stuck up during lunch and how a very different side of me came out afterwards.

Nothing in the world is better than an intro, or a hookup. It is like your own personal recommendation. It is like a friend saying “This is Linda…he is a great guy. I trust him. And you can trust him too.”

SO…..i guess that is how I managed to date even before the days of social networks….With a little help from my friends. When I say I have never shela’d a girl in my life, I am not saying that I am stud and that girls come to ME. My relationships were all evolutionary processes where I just somehow GREW on the woman and we eventually became a couple.

This is probably one of the reasons I have absolutely no interest in diving back into the dating pol right now. I just don’t enjoy all this back and forth and uncertainty of dating.

I think I’ll just fly solo for now.