CONVERSATIONS with a generation-plus apart-can be revealing if levels of trust can be developed. Recently I had a chat with two groups of young women over two weeks after a quick exchange on an unbelievably current gender-interaction custom of practice, previously with a young lady whose mom I knew as a neighbour some years ago. True to fact, nothing is entirely new. Still, sometimes an overflow of certain behavioural patterns signals an imbalance of the current normal that can develop into a significant cultural change. This can lead, as in the context of this article, to more non-positive, gender-based issues if the usual indifference in attitude is continuously applied. They say that young men today practise the following: they would invite a young lady out and expect her to pay the bill, expect her to pay the taxi and then in some cases, ask her for a loan. This is unbelievable. In flashback mode, there were always gigolos, but they were the difference, these were not the normal crew. Men, whether stevedore, bankroll snatcher or engineer, subscribed to the custom that there were male responsibilities to courtship. In many cases, dinners with wine and gourmet meals at expensive restaurants were not the norms. Most of our population were not rich, but if you get the permission to visit the home, and it’s not a hide and seek, backstabbing ‘ting,’ then the shopping would be done. ‘Sweet and Sour’ ingredients, baked chicken with stuffing’s, etc. and depends, with homemade liquor or purchased wine, you visit the home for dinner made by the girlfriend, now lady. After that the familiar warm family chat, which was in true context, cordial scrutiny and interrogation would commence, but there was honesty and chemistry at work here, until the friend with the taxi that was arranged in the afternoon came. It depends on where you were living. No, in the 70s and even in the 80s every home in Georgetown did not have a telephone and the cellphone was still in the realm of the SCI-FI ‘Star Trek’ fantasy. Then, there were always the ‘Teaspoon Baba’ experience, that’s a younger man with an older lady. Here’s a true-to-life case example, between a 21-year-old ‘Banna’ (G/T colloquial for male) and a well-proportioned lady of around 30-something from Adelaide Street, Charlestown: she bought him a pair of CLARKE’S desert shoes and two Chambery shirts (This material and its origins are a mystery, spelt here as pronounced). However, she also broadcast her gifts to some older friends the youngster had, some of them water-front workmates who hung out at a beer garden on Durban Street opposite the prison, not far from our own Isaac Hayes look alike, a fore-runner in the scrap- metal business, the then famous ‘Daly-Malali.’ The youngster was subjected to some heavy tantalising, with embellishments of his acts of compromised male creed, he took it with good jest. Concealing his anger, he left for Ruimveldt and early the following morning with the gifts, knowing well that her inquisitive neighbours would be an uninvited audience, and with some drama returned the gifts.

This is not an 18th century story, this story is less than 50 years ago, so what has happened? Social change throughout human history is driven by cultural currents and values that evolve or retrogress social behaviour; we are no different. Two areas of development are obviously in the forefront of the social and cultural deterioration that have produced the issues of this discussion. Others have like opportunistic tentacles contributed. The infusion of drugs on a grand scale in Guyana have contributed to an imposition of a metamorphosis Jekyll-Hyde with the malignant aspect of the split nature in control. I witnessed it within my family, the promise of swift money at all costs, values and principles abandoned, the cheapening of lives, creeds and obvious logic aborted, leaving in the end, a vicious and bitter persona non grata, the remains of the day. The schools, especially some of the new private schools, became incubators for the children of the nouveau riche and the contemporary middle-money competing with them. Out of this a new female emerged. Not timid in a dangerous world without rules, impressive male youth without means were purchased, thus began a trend, whose details this article cannot articulate as necessary; next would be the social media ego-rush of fanfaronade posts and selfies and an absence of real content that engaged the majority in competitive tirades. How the mentioned social phases impacted on our especially ‘youth culture’ has never been explored, nor have we erected the edutainment drama dialogue to counter the invasive, disfigured logic; thus, distorted ideals have with some success, inserted itself, unchallenged.