A little confidentiality on your part, if you will, for I genuinely wouldn't want it to become common knowledge — this is a confession of sorts, and one I’ve been aching to get off my chest…

I've always known I suppose that I'm not entirely like my mates. I enjoy shopping (my housemate, Camilla, and I used to stroll through six-hour marathons without breaking sweat, leaving a trail of hysterical shop assistants in our wake of tried-on-but-not-purchased clothes). I rather like the crooning of Simply Red's Mick Hucknall, and there's more — I can spot a Jimmy Choo from a Manolo Blahnik at 100 yards.

In fact I watch Desperate Housewives. I cannot — and I say this with the abiding sense of shame that accompanies any South African man making this particular admission — handle a braai, not at any stage of its cooking process. Light entertainment beside the fire, yes, but managing anything remotely meaningful in the grandest ritual of the South African man — no.

Verging dangerously on pink

Throw in the fact that I've just hit 29 and am still very much unmarried — the catalyst for my dear mother, technologically illiterate until recently, to master email, text messaging, Skype and Facebook, in order to ensure regular enquiries as to the whereabouts of her grandchildren — and my inner red-blooded South African man appears a watered down rouge, verging dangerously on pink.

To be honest, though, none of that — not even the 'Best Names For Your Newborn' paperback my mum sent me last Christmas — worried me greatly.

Shopping is great fun, not being able to braai means someone else does the cooking, and marriage will come about just as soon as Steffi Graf ends her ridiculous infatuation with Andre Agassi, and heads to Cape Town.

But then there's the issue of cars, and with it much subsequent introspection, I've been thinking of buying a new car for some time now. The endearing but slightly battered Golf I bought straight out of university having lost a little of its über-cool menace.

The tinted windows and sunroof that once attracted admiring glances from leggy blondes, now garners little more than suspicious glances from passing cops.

The issue at hand

Cue several discussions on what I was after: something cool, quick, and in a rather fetching colour. Had I but realised what I was letting myself in for…

My mate Esther works for Audi, and we've had endless conversations about wine, restaurants, shopping, travel — but until last month, never about cars. Cue my gentle opening gambit: "So, Est, I've been thinking of getting a new car".

Fifteen minutes later, I was a dazed, slack-jawed figure, mown down in a verbal assault of motoring gibberish. Torque, revs, suspension, valves, trim, over-steer, under-steer, lunar landing capability… I don't know if I've ever been on the wrong end of a more emasculating exchange.

Courtesy of...

Shape Magazine

Grant suggested an array of sports cars, because "you'll score loads of chicks, bru" (Grant is not the thoughtful type). And Kingdom, my mate from Zimbabwe, told me his cousin's husband could get me any car I wanted in 48 hours, just as long as I supplied him with the address said car was currently residing at…

The result of my informal market research left me aware that my feel for cars is up there with Robert Mugabe's feel for democracy. But I've decided to take it on the chin. If I can't braai, enjoy shopping, and don't have a clue what 18-inch mags are, then so be it. It hasn't stopped me from deciding what car I’m going to get — a black one.