Editor’s note: Bright Njuguna, a second-year university student, explains why he doesn’t fancy being a gentleman on campus.
I would rather perish gloriously than pass for a gentleman on campus. Not because I lack manners. But because the price is criminal, and the interest compounds daily.
Campus gentlemanhood is not a personality. It is a subscription. One you never knowingly activate, yet the charges keep appearing.
Allow me to explain. Slowly. Like the walk of a lady in high heels across cracked campus pavements found everywhere – from Nairobi to New York.
You are already late for a lecture. The professor dislikes lateness in ways that eventually affect your grade. Your attendance record hangs by a thread thinner than free campus Wi-Fi.
Then fate intervenes. A lady comrade appears. Elegant. Balanced on heels designed to challenge physics.
If you are chasing the gentleman badge, you must stop. You must match her pace. A pace slower than a campus tour group with no destination. A pace that mocks urgency.
You can neither jog nor excuse yourself. You must stroll. And you must talk.
The dangerous art of conversation
Gentlemen, it is believed, never run out of stories. They generate conversation the way vending machines generate regret – effortlessly.
Every campus has its buzzwords experts.
In America, majors and minors. Well, in Britain, dissertations. In Asia, workload trauma is disguised as humility. In Kenya, comrades talk about the politics and even boring topics such as rocks for geology students.
They explain things no one asked for. With enthusiasm. With diagrams.
They will take you back millions of years – before continents split, before student loans, before your lecture mattered.
Nothing drains romance faster than an unsolicited lecture. Nothing. Except perhaps a detailed account of an all-nighter that achieved nothing.
Conversation is dangerous. Because conversation leads to comfort. Comfort leads to suggestions. Suggestions lead to food.
Food is where gentlemen go bankrupt.
Strategic silence and the exit plan
Seasoned survivors know this. They practise silence. Strategic silence.
You walk together. and nod occasionally. You deploy a carefully tuned “Mmh”.
Not encouraging. Not dismissive. Just neutral enough to dissolve ideas gently.
When danger escalates, you activate the exit plan. You mention a friend – a very real imaginary friend – who has saved you a seat.
Front row. Near the corridor. Urgent.
Then comes the masterstroke. You offer her the seat.
Peak gentleman behaviour. High honour. Minimal cost. No receipt.
You walk away knowing that somewhere nearby – a cafeteria, a food court, a student centre – affordable joy exists.
Samosas. Hot dogs. Chips. Rice bowls.
No campus on earth has ever recorded an allergy to hunger.
Hunger always wins
Campus life revolves around food. Hunger speaks louder than romance.
Why should a student pretend fullness because someone attractive is watching?
Why should asking for extra rice or extra ugali (cornmeal) feel like a moral failure?
Gentlemen are expected to be satisfied immediately. They eat slowly. Delicately.
And, tragically, leave food on the plate.
Leaving food is an advanced skill. Freshmen attempt it. They fail, then adapt. They abandon the dream.
For three weeks, the new comrade pretends. Formal shoes. Buttoned shirts. Polished manners.
Then reality arrives. Mid-semester. With unpaid fees and shrinking meal plans.
Soon, he discovers affordable eateries with names that sound unofficial. He switches to jeans.
The formal shoes disappear forever.
This is not rebellion. It is economics.
The seasoned comrade’s truth
Meet the seasoned comrade. He is tired. When he meets a lady, stories are scarce. Energy is rationed.
If he speaks, he speaks of stress. Deadlines. Projects that took ten hours and still failed.
Engineers are the global champions here. They narrate suffering with pride – every error, every redraw, every near success.
At this point, the lady prays. Not for romance. But for the interruption.
Campus is not a romantic comedy. It is a situational comedy. Nobody wrote the jokes. They just keep happening.
The real gentleman, if one exists, is not the one who walks slowly, talks endlessly, or leaves food uneaten.
READ ALSO: 10 Steps to Getting a Campus Girl Go Out With You…Or Not
He is the one who knows when to excuse himself. When to save money. When to eat without shame.
Campus has taught me one universal truth: gentlemanhood is admirable. But hunger is undefeated. And lectures wait for no one.
PAY ATTENTION: Reach us at info@gotta.news.
