Flying solo is not only a scary mission, but also one of the easiest ways to strike out. Hitting on a girl, whether at the bar or at any other social function, comes with its fair share of challenges. Don’t kid yourself, girls may look all fluffy and rainbows, but they can chew you up alive. That is where the wingman comes in.
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Having someone smoothen the playing field before you step in to score the touchdown might be a 50/50 gamble, but it is a gamble worth taking. A wingman is your number one cheerleader, your personal hype man or hype woman, the Kelly to your Beyoncé, and, most importantly, that person with the almost telepathic ability to know exactly what you are thinking before you even say it.
For whatever reason, you have to wing for your boy.
Lucky for the shy folk, there is Wingman Uganda, a bubbly and exciting social event where your friends get to pitch you to an audience in the hope of helping you meet someone new. The catch? They get just two minutes and a PowerPoint presentation to make their case.
If you have been on the socials and spent some time on Rihanna’s internet, as we like to call it, you have probably seen the name Wingman Uganda floating around, usually paired with its banter filled tagline, “Cleaning Kampala streets, one date at a time.”
And in this case, cleaning the streets has very little to do with litter. They are talking about being single, or more specifically, the state of walking around without a partner.
So What Exactly Is Wingman?
At its core, Wingman is Kampala’s own spin on the “friends pitch friends” dating format. It happens every two weeks at Tehilas Café & Grill on Yusuf Lule Road, where friends get the chance to make a very serious case for why their single friend deserves to find someone.
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Before the event, friends put together a PowerPoint presentation pitching their single buddy. Then, on the night, they get two minutes on stage to convince the room that their friend is the one worth taking a chance on. They get into the important stuff too. Hobbies, non negotiables, the kind of person their friend would like to meet, and pretty much anything else they think will help their case. Nothing is really off limits.
Once the pitches are done, the audience gets a chance to throw in a few questions before the presenting friends line up at the front. The crowd then picks the most convincing pitch by show of hands.
And this is where things get interesting.
The person who has just been pitched gets blindfolded, while two or three volunteers from the audience step forward to make their own case for why they should be chosen. They pitch themselves live, the blindfold eventually comes off, and the winning pair walks away with a dinner coupon courtesy of Tehilas.
But here is the best part. You do not even need to have a friend pitching you to be part of the fun. You can show up without a PowerPoint, without a date and without any particular plan other than watching the madness unfold. Some of the biggest laughs in the room come from people who simply came to watch and somehow end up becoming part of the show.
Holding everything together is an entertaining hosting crew led by Josh Caleb and Queen Lakeli, who keep the pitches moving and the crowd’s energy up between the reveals. Then there is Mitch Isabirye, “the Poet,” who brings his own flavour to the night as a spoken word artist and MC.
My Take
I went in expecting to just watch and ended up laughing harder than I have at most actual comedy shows this year. There is something genuinely hilarious about watching friends stand on stage and “sell” their friends to a room full of strangers, only for the audience to start debating whose presentation deserves the win.
Then comes the blindfolding, the volunteers pitching themselves and the inevitable suspense over who gets chosen. It is equal parts ridiculous and, weirdly enough, quite sweet.
Because beneath all the jokes, there is something wholesome about friends going out of their way to help their single friends meet someone. Whether it actually results in a relationship is another conversation, but at least everyone gets a good story out of it.
Is it matchmaking? Sort of. Is it good entertainment? Absolutely. Either way, if you have a single friend, or perhaps you are the single friend, Wingman Vol. 3 is worth showing up for. The next edition happens on September 16 at Tehilas Café & Grill on Yusuf Lule Road.
Perhaps Wingman is not the ultimate solution to Kampala’s loneliness and the ongoing singlehood pandemic among young people, but much like first aid given to a casualty, it might not fix the entire situation. At least it helps.