Ah, these modern ways of relationships!

When it comes to relationship between members of opposite sex, I envy the young man still growing his wings under my roof before he flies off on his own to the waiting wide, wide World out there.

He is the same person who now and then wears enough decent, and properly fitting, clothes for people to recognize him as the second born child of Mzee Chesi Mpilipili!

I envy him because as opposed to what we, his parents, went through regarding matters of the heart, technology is allowing him to start and end relationships with the opposite sex with a single push of the ‘send’ button on his mobile phone!

He laughs when he hears that ‘centuries’ ago when one met a maiden he though something might develop between him and her, it all depended on the ‘memory chip’ in the head of the maiden.

Usually, the maidens of those days memory ‘chips’ were nothing to write home about when it came to remembering important dates and time such as the day and time to meet you!

Yes, you met a maiden and politely asked her if she could meet you somewhere appropriate because you had something very important to tell her.

She pored over her imaginary diary on her head for some hours before telling you that she could meet you at 1400 hours the coming Sunday, which was six days away, at the Mnazi Mmoja garden!

So at 1200 hours the said Sunday you were smartly sitting at the Mnazi Mmoja grounds waiting for the Maiden. At 1600 you were still looking at the ‘Man’ silently beating his drum in the centre of the Mnazi Mmoja garden, but the maiden was still nowhere to be seen. There was no mobile phone to ask her if she will be coming or not!

At 1800 you decided to call it a day and you went home dejected, turning at every other step to see if she was behind you, straining your innocent neck in the process!

Two weeks later you met the maiden who when you asked her why she did not honor your appointment, replied easily that she had forgotten about it! Just like that.

This process could be repeated up to four times before out of the blue, the memory chip on her head functioned properly and she remembered, met and listened to your love nothings and asked you to give her time to consider your ‘application’, a process which normally took three weeks to three months! Looking for a job was much, much easier.

Indeed, by the time the maiden was truly your girlfriend and you could introduce her as so to your friends, you had aged considerably.

The dotcom person living under my roof is laughing when he hears this because he does not need to wait at the Mnazi Mmoja garden for five hours just to start a relationship with a maiden he is interested in.

In this age of science and technology, when he meets a girl he thinks something might develop (and they are many!), he just exchanges mobile phone numbers with her, through the day let his fingers do the ‘talking’ through messaging and by evening of the same day the two are already a couple!

He may laugh but I seem to have the last laugh because when the maidens of our time finally accepted to be our one and only, it would take several friends committees and peace talks’ vikaos for her to break off the relationship.

The dotcom persons are not so lucky. Their modern maidens can break off relationship simply by sending him a message on his mobile phone telling him ‘chukua time yako!’ or ‘achana na mimi!’ or other modern words to that effect, and that is that!

I may envy the dotcom person on how easily he can start a relationship yes, but I also feel sorry on how the modern relationship can end just as much easier.