RING AND WRING Public proposals = public humiliation . . . by a tired father talking to his son, the Dliwayo of the family

SON, February ends and March begins with a flood of shaky videos, knees on cold tiles, crowds gasping and phones raised like torches. Then silence. Then the no. The month after Valentine’s Day is a cringe carnival, a social media parade of misguided men and broken pride.

You see a brother sweating through his shirt in a mall, his boys filming for clout, and the lady backing away like the ring is a fire alarm. Cameras keep rolling. Hearts stop. The internet eats.
Let me tell you something hard. Most of these guys have themselves to blame. You cannot ambush commitment. You cannot crowdsource courage and expect love to fold. Nine out of 10, a public proposal is not romance. It is pressure. And pressure makes people run.

I have watched you, son. Money bleeding from your pockets while your mother stretches mealie-meal and the family starves as you chase hyenas. You call it love. I call it stupidity and feeding a thankless woman with unending appetite. The pattern is loud. Weeks of silence unless you initiate conversation.

Every hello from her is followed by a request. Airtime, rent, hair, Emergency number seven… You oblige like a saint with a debit card. Then you convince yourself a ring will lock it down. It will not.

The red flags flap before the proposal. She avoids future talk. She dodges meeting your people. She keeps you off her page but keeps the page busy. She shows up when the wallet opens and disappears when it closes. She says she hates labels but loves benefits. She is juggling options like a street performer and you are one of the balls in the air.

Obviously, she will turn you down. Because a public yes would shut doors to other simps like you, contributing to her expensive tastes. Because a ring ends auditions. Because the spotlight exposes what private conversations already decided.

Some of these ladies are hustlers with lipstick, prospectors panning for comfort, charmers on retainer. She drives while 103 of you, amazingly dull brothers, walk your soles off to finance her lavish lifestyle. She is a shameless mercenary, who will never spare your feelings when it works to her advantage.

Son, the simp psychology of stupidity is simple. You think bending over backwards to give her stuff you cannot even afford will make her love you. You think you are the only one in her world while the world laughs at you and needs extra hands to count the number of your fellow simpletons that she strings along, on its fingers. You think cornering her in public will bring consent. It cannot. She’s only in it for the money and will not hesitate to dump you the moment the benefits end.

So, spare yourself the mall floor and the viral laugh track. Read the signs. Feed your family. Keep your dignity. If she wants you, she will show up without asking for “favours” and without a shopping list.

Leave romance to those in genuine love. As long as you keep running with these hungry anacondas, you will go around lying that umjolo uyanyisa. You don’t know how God has saved you when the parasite finally runs out of your life, leaving you holding the ring in a mortifying meme of manhood massacre…