The mixed signals men get

Gentlemen just brighten a girl’s life. They never disappoint me, ever.

Well… He’s that guy smiling, holding the lift door but you can’t thank him because he has his ear to the phone. I can but smile.

He’s the guy in the bakkie to your right in a traffic jam you think is flirting but all his hand signals are really telling you is “roll up your window, stay safe”.

I can but smile even broader.

He’s that guy who without thinking grabs your runaway trolley in the parking lot with one hand, never losing a stride in his conversation on the phone clutched between his ear and shoulder.

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I am now beaming. It seems I never really get to talk to gentlemen, but hand gestures are our silent signal of appreciation of each other.

But then there are… brekers. If you don’t quite get what I’m talking about, meet the guy in the Merc behind me.

Not a big Merc and it has a butterfly tattoo which tells me he grabbed his wife’s keys this morning because he, surely, drives a twin-cab bakkie with a double rollbar, shiny chimney and lifted suspension to accommodate his larger-than-life tyres.

But I digress. I’m at the red traffic light, keeping my car-length distance that – as any girl knows – you need should a skelm come knocking on your window asking for your cellphone.

So what is that angry hooting behind me, I wonder as I look around to see the offender. Turns out it’s me, I learn hardly a half a- kilometre later.

We’re on the highway now, bumper to bumper during peak traffic, me keeping a safe distance from the car ahead as the rules of the road dictate, even if you’re crawling.

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I now have frantic lights flashing in my mirror. I use my silent signal with gentlemen and smilingly throw my question-mark hands in the air.

He flaps his furiously telling me to get closer to the car ahead.

Road rage on another level, I think as I slow down ever so slightly more. He’s a tail-chaser, I decide – probably at the office, too.

And why do I think he’s going to take the Heidelberg turn-off and head to his Alberton home?

Turns out I’m right. I kept him trapped for a good 5km before he could storm past fuming at me.

I gave him my breker signal: speak to the finger.