By Timothy Bukumunhe

WHAT happens when your partner gets too comfortable? One woman complained that although she had made a big deal about her and her boyfriend of four months feeling “comfortable” with each other, and being able to relax together because they work long hours, he has now become far too comfortable.

The noises, the smells, the generally graceless things that should probably be kept under wraps are now out in the open.

Meanwhile, she is thinking how lovely and comfortable it feels not to have to hold in her stomach any more, or swan around in lingerie that looks lovely, but does not feel so. The crux of this matter is about comfort.

It is almost always an issue of opposites — what is comfortable for her is not for him and vice versa. Or is it about extremes — feeling relaxed in each other’s company by kicking off your shoes and socks is one thing, but farting is quite another.

When talking about opposites and extremes, the key is compromise. “I woke up one morning and out of the blue, there she was. Not that it was the first night she had spent at my place. But stealthily she had moved in and I did not even notice, says Daniel Musoka, a water engineer.

He adds: “It is one thing having a girlfriend over for the weekend. That is manageable. Having her as a live-in is something different. You see a side to her — a murky side that you previously have not seen.

Over the weekend, because we were always out late, when we got back it was never straight to bed. I would delight in seeing her undress, because she always had some sexy underwear on — some frilly lacy bra and matching knickers — enough to get the blood boiling. And they came in a variation of colours.

“A year into her moving in, the question on my mind is what happened to the sexy underwear?

It was no longer a thrill to watch her get undressed because that sexy stuff has been replaced by knickers which ought to be thrown away. The elastic was gone, they were full of holes and were worn-out while her bra looks like one of those antiques made in the 1960s!

I, Edward, who works for a television station has issues with the hair net. “What is a hair net and what purpose does it serve? Whenever I stayed over at her flat or she came over to my place, she never wore a hair net. But when she moved in, out it came.

One night during a love making session, I tried to run my fingers through her hair as I always did. This time the ‘hair’ felt different. It felt artificial and the more I ran my finger through it, the more the ‘hair’ began to move. It felt weird because in the end, it came off!

I had to stop what I was doing and switched the lights on to see what was happening. And that is when I saw it lying next to her head. She told me she wears it to ‘keep’ her hair intact. It is not the same anymore.

But if Edward is having issues with the hair net, then spare a thought for James Kavuma who works for a medical company in Jinja. “I met Helen while she was still a first-year at Makerere University. I was in my third year.

I made numerous visits to her room in Mary Stuart and all over her bed were teddy bears or dolls. It is something that I expected, after all she had just come from Namagunga and just about every first-year girl had a teddy bear. I half expected that by the end of her three-year stint, the fad would have been lost.

When she moved in with me, I was away in South Africa. When I got back, I was amazed at the way she was able to transform my flat from a cold place into one that had warmth.

My bed sheets which once also doubled as curtains had been replaced by real curtains. There were more cups, plates and saucepans in the kitchen. And in the bedroom, in the middle of the bed, were her bears and dolls from campus.

The first night as I got into bed, I flung a bear into the corner of the room, a move which did not go down well with her. For the next four months, Helen and I shared the bed with either the teddy bear or doll. But sleeping with dolls did not do it for me.

But the problem of getting comfortable also works the other way round. Women today say they meet nice men, who they assume are caring and take control. And those men did. But once they moved in, they found out that that nice man is no longer the nice, caring man they thought he was.

“I met James at a friend’s wedding meeting. He was the auctioneer and he did a grand job. He held it together. At the wedding, he was superb in his organisation.

When we got together, he was everything I thought — in control!
When taxi drivers would cut him up as he drove, he would assure them and I liked it. When I moved into his house, I expected him to take control and he did, except that control went too far.

He became a control freak with weird habits. If we were leaving at 10:00am, he would be in the car at 9:55am and just sit there. On the dot of 10:00am, he would start the engine and set off.

“That is why planes are never delayed,” he would say. He was also the keeper of the television remote control. He knew everything we were going to watch once we got home because at work, he would highlight the programmes on the television page.

All we watched was the live screening of football. Then we would watch the repeat, then the highlights.

The following day, a friend would call him and he would switch channels back to the highlights to discuss how the goal was scored. The relationship did not last,” lamented Susan.

But Helen and Susan’s issues look mild when compared to Maria’s woes. Maria, a graduate, literally did not know what to think when she moved in with James, an architect. “I once went to a house party and the men’s toilets were a mess.

The seat was wet and the floor was ‘flooding’. I thought there might have been a water leakage until I found that men piss the floor and not in the toilet when they have had too much to drink.

Living with James was a nightmare. He would always pee on the seat or on the floor. If not, he would soil the toilet after he had been for a long call and never cleaned up.

It would anger me to walk barefoot into the loo in the middle of the night and have to wade thorough his urine. If not, I would sit on on a wet seat, yuck! I told him over an over again, but he never seemed to get it.

Whenever we have friends round and he has been to the toilet, I always go and clean up after him. He was and still is embarrassing.