GENERALLY speaking, these days a taste for bossy women is something of taboo. Men can openly desire a woman of any size or sexual persuasion, however, weird or wonderful, but not few would admit that they have a thing about bossy women because they fear being labelled a wimp! “Why would any sane man be prepared to have his life ruled by a succession of bossy women,” asked Caleb, an industrialist. “Women who’d take charge of his life and tell him what to wear, what to eat, who to be friends with, how to cut his hair, where he should live and how he should make love?”
Hakeem on the other hand, is one man who strongly believes there are loads of lovable things about bossy women. “For starters, what other men call bossy, I call assertive dynamic decision and drive – which are all attractive qualities to a lazy and indecisive man like me,” he said. “The first time I took my current wife out for dinner, we clinked glasses of chilled wine and stared into each other’s eyes, I leaned forward for a kiss, and she leaned forward and said: ‘You shouldn’t wear your hair like that (I had it a bit bushy). You look like a sixties man trying to be hip!’ I loved her for her boldness. On our next date, she tore at my clothes: Those trousers are outdated for a man of your age,’ she lectured. A few weeks later, she had me round the shops for a wardrobe make-over.
“After that, she went to work on my weight. She put me on all sorts of fancy diet; I wasn’t to argue or even so much as look at pounded yam and ogbono soup, or stout which was my favourite tipple. One of my friends who used to enjoy these greasy meals with me looked at my bowl of steamed rice and chicken with all the skin off and asked: “How could you fall in love with such a tyrant? What are you, a man or a cheese-eating mouse?’ I jokingly told him I wasn’t even allowed to eat cheese!
“Ever since we got married, I love the way my bossy wife gets things done. She just does it! No debate. No discussion. None of those tedious, time consuming ‘but what do you think, darling?’ interrogations you get with modern women who believe that a relationship can only work if it’s an equal partnership. Rubbish! Bossy women instinctively understand that the first rule of a successful relationship is this: never ask a man what he thinks. And that’s right. Men don’t think – about colour schemes for the living room, linen, types of cooker, the children’s education, their clothes, where to go on holidays or pension schemes. Bossy women liberate men from the boring bits of life.
To be honest, it took me quite a while to appreciate the advantages of being with a bossy woman. As our courtship grew, my wife took it upon herself to veto all my friends. Life-long friendships came to a sudden end with her dictates that this friend was ‘too boring’ and that one too ugly.’ I came home from work one day and found her shredding photographs of old girlfriends and their love letters to me. You can’t just destroy a man’s past like that, ‘I protested. ‘Oh really?’ she said, ‘just watch me.’ And that was exactly what I did!
Uche, now in his late 40s recalls his experiences with bossy women: “The things about them is that they may at times be overbearing, but they’re never boring. It might look as if we’re on our knees but a bossy woman keeps a man on his toes. She demands that a man be the best he can be. You, may call it domestic tyranny – I call it tough love, and it works. I’ve noticed that as soon as a bossy woman captures my heart, she redecorates my home. Before I got married, I had what I thought was a very stylist flat. No sooner had I met my better half than she immediately set about restyling the entire place. The flat ended up looking very feminine. I had literally been eased out of the picture. Was I cross? Maybe a bit peeved – what had been my flat, was now her flat – at least in terms of looks. But I had to admit that the place looked beautiful. If it had been left to me, the flat would have looked like something your neighbourhood carpenter knocked together!
“Since my marriage packed up, I’ve had quite a few bossy women. They go for the way I dress and my appearance. I’m either too fat or too thin. I either dress like ‘someone’s grand-dad’ or like an old man who thinks he’s a trendy teenager.’ I’ve had bossy women who demanded I stop wearing Y-fronts and go for boxer shorts ‘or else….’ Or else what, I was tempted to ask? The plus side is that bossy women actually make you a better man. A few months of dieting and you’d have lost two chins and several spare tyres. Since I met my new ‘bossy lady,’ I’ve never looked or felt healthier – or dressed better in my life. Friends who use to mock me for being a bullied wimp admit my girlfriend has done wonders.
“I’ve had relationships in the past, with women who weren’t bossy, who would let me dress how I wanted and let me eat whatever I wanted. And the end result was always the same – I got fat, sluggish and bored. And what about the bedroom? One ex-girlfriend would issue detailed instructions as to what I should do in bed. ‘No, over there! You’re doing it all wrong… go up a bit… to the left… now to the right…. “It was like having sex with a sergeant major in command! But it was so refreshing not to have to spend half the night looking for her erotic buttons! She was the exception though. Most bossy women have a down-to-earth attitude to sex – oddly enough, in this one area, they like the man to be in control!”
Vanguard
