Yesterday, my life was forever changed. The "King of Pop", Michael Jackson, died suddenly after suffering cardiac arrest in Los Angeles. (If you didn't know this, you must be living under a rock because there's been wall-to-wall news coverage for the last 24 hours.)
No, I didn't know Michael personally, but his music and his videos were pretty much the soundtrack to my childhood. And, everyone knew that you better not talk shit about my boy MJJ in my presence or else you would get a pretty scathing (and vulgar) earful. I have so many memories of Michael. I inherited the Jackson 5 "ABC" album (on vinyl) from my older sister. She was born in the early 60s, so she'd actually owned the album when she was a kid and by the time I got it, it was well-worn and the grooves were almost flat. I played that thing on my Fisher Price record player over and over again. We also had the soundtrack for "Going Back to Indiana", and my mother has an audio recording of me singing that song at the age of 3 (and I knew all the lyrics!).
The first album that I ever bought was Michael Jackson's "Off the Wall" and then I followed that with "Thriller". I was freaked out by the video, but I couldn't stop watching it. My aunt bought my cousin Michael's red jacket with all the zippers from the "Beat It" video and I begged my mother for one, but she wasn't having it. I got Michael Jackson's "Moonwalker" video on VHS for Christmas one year and watched it so much I knew all the lines from the movie, all the lyrics to the songs, all the dance moves. I was hooked!
As I got older, my affection for Michael grew even more and I became a true fan. Everyone in my family knew how much I loved him. Whenever he was giving an interview or making an appearance, someone would call or text me to let me know that I should switch to such-and-such channel to watch. And, just a few years ago, my father bought my Michael Jackson's #1s album for Christmas. I couldn't have been happier.
But the best memory that I have of Michael was when I actually got the chance to meet him in person. My brother was invited to a private reception for him at the home of a big-wig entertainment executive and was told that he was allowed to bring a guest. Well, he knew that if he took anyone OTHER than me, our relationship would never be the same because I would never forgive him. At the end of the night, the organizers set up a receiving line for people to go up and shake Michael's hand. The line was so long that we kept our seats on a nearby sofa and waited for things to die down. Eventually, we made our way up to the velvet rope, which was being guarded by a beefy bald man, and were about to be turned away. "Please, man. My little sister (at the time I was about 25, but I guess to him I will always be his "little" sister) loves Michael and I just want her to have a chance to shake his hand," my brother pleaded.
I could tell that the tough-guy was cracking and after a minute he actually cracked a smile and let us through the line. We were the last ones through the line and it was rushed, but I did get a chance to shake his (gloved) hand and tell him that I was a HUGE fan. He smiled and said, "Thank you. God bless you," and then... it was over. We were ushered away. It sucked because cameras weren't allowed, so I didn't get a chance to take a picture of this phenomenal moment. I didn't want a picture to prove the meeting to other people, but to prove it to myself! Even today, looking back on that night that I met Michael, it doesn't seem real. But I do know that I was blessed to have the opportunity to interact with the "King of Pop".
He was a very peculiar person, I won't deny that. He lived in an amusement park and had a chimpanzee for a best friend. He was really out there. But genius is a lonely thing. It separates you from the rest of the world. He lived a very troubled life, plagued with scandal and controversy in later years. He was never truly comfortable with the man that he was born to be. Being a brown girl with a broad nose and kinky hair (without a relaxer), I can understand what it's like to want to look different. Unfortunately, because he had the means to change his appearance, he did. And because he had the money and power and influence, he had no one who dared try to stop him. Michael, poor thing, was a tortured soul who's only consolation was to put everything he had into his music... which, in turn, was his gift to us.
I hope he has found peace and that he is finally able to see himself for the gifted and special person that we all thought he was.
Music will never be the same as a result of Michael Jackson. If it wasn't for him, our current R&B stars would be devoid of personality. Think about it... Ne-Yo, Chris Brown, and Usher would've had nobody to swaggerjack!
John Mayer put it best, I think, when he posted this tweet on Twitter: "A major strand of our cultural DNA has left us." We are forever changed and forever in his debt. Gone too soon, but never forgotten. We love you, Michael. Rest in peace.
Here are some of my favorite songs of Michael's. Rock on!
Got to Be There
I Want You Back
Remember the Time
Off the Wall
Billie Jean (Most Famous Moonwalk at 3:39 and 4:28)
Friday, June 26, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Letting go...
I’ve been beating my head against the wall trying to formulate a five year and 10 year life plan. I want to set attainable goals and come up with the best methods to achieve them, but… this is really hard! A lot harder than I thought it’d be. And I’m beginning to realize that the reason why it’s been so hard for me to achieve goals is because I don’t really have any goals in mind! That’s scary! I was always the kid who knew exactly where I wanted to go and how I was planning to get there. And somewhere along the line, I lost my way. It makes me sad and scared and frustrated to think that I don’t have any clear plans for the future.
I really tripped out when I wrote out the heading for my plan
“Lovely Brown Girl
5 Year Plan
(Deadline: 2014)”
Seeing 2014 written out seemed so surreal to me! And to think that a date like 2014 is only five years away! That seems a bit crazy…
The only thing I do know is that in the next five years I’d like to be making more money… and I’d like to have a kid. And maybe be married.
Okay, I know what you’re thinking… that sounds backwards. The thing is, I KNOW I want to have a child. And I’d prefer to be married before that happens, but the likelihood that I’ll marry in the next five years seems particularly slim these days. I’m not giving up hope or anything, but it just seems so far-fetched!
The closest I’ve come to linking up with a guy who wanted to wife me was The Older Man. He was a really great prospect. He was mature (or so I thought), professional, spiritual, respectful, protective, kind, full of compliments, attractive, and marriage-minded. But, for some reason, even when things were good, I was constantly pushing him away. He even said that for some reason I loved to tell him no. Anything and everything he asked me, my answer was always no. And, even before things fell apart, that’s why we could never progress past a certain point.
This weekend, I sat back and reflected on all my past relationships and realized that none of them have been particularly healthy, which was, on the one hand, shocking; and on the other hand, not at all surprising. I analyzed every relationship I’ve ever been in… including those that were “unofficial” and those guys that I “just dated”. My dating relationship with The Older Man replayed itself and I had an epiphany of sorts: one of the reasons why I was never able to go with the flow of that relationship was because, in my head, I was still tied up in knots over Mystery Man. Even though I didn’t move forward with anything with The Older Man until Mystery Man made it clear that he wasn’t interested in pursuing anything with me, I hadn’t fully let go.
I realize now that wasn’t fair to The Older Man. Even if circumstances hadn’t gotten in the way, the potential seed of our destruction had always been there, lurking under the soil anyway. We never would’ve made it anywhere because he wasn’t the one I really wanted. And coming to that conclusion led me to another revelation: I was guilty of doing to The Older Man what Mystery Man had done to me. I’d moved into a new relationship too quickly. I’d thought only of myself, without taking the feelings of the person who really liked me into consideration. I’d tried to cover a fresh wound with the flimsy band-aid of a new relationship.
None of that stuff ever works. The only things that truly get a person out of your system are space and time. I didn’t give myself either of those things. Oh sure, I told him (and myself) that I needed space… and that he needed it, too. But I’m still his friend on Facebook… I still check in with him from time to time. I can’t seem to leave him alone. And, so, probably the next guy that comes into my life will meet the same fate that The Older Man met.
As I sat there thinking on these things, I started feeling overwhelmed. This was a lot of information to process… a lot of inconvenient truths made themselves apparent.
I still think about him a lot. I wonder whether he thinks of me. I wonder why all the things I hoped for with him never actually materialized. I wonder why he didn’t want those things with me at all. And, typically, by the time I get to that final question, I feel hurt and then… anger. But, for some reason this time, although the hurt was still there the anger had nearly dissipated. So, now I think I get it. The things I felt for Mystery Man… those are the same things he feels about his ex. The same way that I couldn’t move on from him… and couldn’t let The Older Man into my heart, that’s the same reason why Mystery Man kept pushing me away. I kept wondering how he could think I was wonderful, and beautiful, and smart, and funny, and all those things that he always said I was, but then couldn’t bring himself to be with me. How could I not see? I did and said all those same things with The Older Man. He didn’t stand a chance. I guess I didn’t either…
But, nothing I did was done out of spite. I never meant to hurt The Older Man and I didn’t mean to cut him out before he could even really take a shot at building something with me…. but I did. I hope I won’t make the same mistakes with someone else. And I hope that, if by chance I do make those same mistakes, that they will be patient with me and won’t hate me in the end.
I don’t hate Mystery Man… I don’t think I ever could. He’s a good person and will always have a place in my heart (just hopefully in the future not such a big place). And now that I’m getting a better idea of where he was coming from, I’m not even angry about the way that things turned out. I am finally realizing that, as tempting as it might be, you can’t hold someone’s love against them. He loves her and not me and, even though that seems unfair, I gotta just let that go.
And, so, I begin again.
I really tripped out when I wrote out the heading for my plan
“Lovely Brown Girl
5 Year Plan
(Deadline: 2014)”
Seeing 2014 written out seemed so surreal to me! And to think that a date like 2014 is only five years away! That seems a bit crazy…
The only thing I do know is that in the next five years I’d like to be making more money… and I’d like to have a kid. And maybe be married.
Okay, I know what you’re thinking… that sounds backwards. The thing is, I KNOW I want to have a child. And I’d prefer to be married before that happens, but the likelihood that I’ll marry in the next five years seems particularly slim these days. I’m not giving up hope or anything, but it just seems so far-fetched!
The closest I’ve come to linking up with a guy who wanted to wife me was The Older Man. He was a really great prospect. He was mature (or so I thought), professional, spiritual, respectful, protective, kind, full of compliments, attractive, and marriage-minded. But, for some reason, even when things were good, I was constantly pushing him away. He even said that for some reason I loved to tell him no. Anything and everything he asked me, my answer was always no. And, even before things fell apart, that’s why we could never progress past a certain point.
This weekend, I sat back and reflected on all my past relationships and realized that none of them have been particularly healthy, which was, on the one hand, shocking; and on the other hand, not at all surprising. I analyzed every relationship I’ve ever been in… including those that were “unofficial” and those guys that I “just dated”. My dating relationship with The Older Man replayed itself and I had an epiphany of sorts: one of the reasons why I was never able to go with the flow of that relationship was because, in my head, I was still tied up in knots over Mystery Man. Even though I didn’t move forward with anything with The Older Man until Mystery Man made it clear that he wasn’t interested in pursuing anything with me, I hadn’t fully let go.
I realize now that wasn’t fair to The Older Man. Even if circumstances hadn’t gotten in the way, the potential seed of our destruction had always been there, lurking under the soil anyway. We never would’ve made it anywhere because he wasn’t the one I really wanted. And coming to that conclusion led me to another revelation: I was guilty of doing to The Older Man what Mystery Man had done to me. I’d moved into a new relationship too quickly. I’d thought only of myself, without taking the feelings of the person who really liked me into consideration. I’d tried to cover a fresh wound with the flimsy band-aid of a new relationship.
None of that stuff ever works. The only things that truly get a person out of your system are space and time. I didn’t give myself either of those things. Oh sure, I told him (and myself) that I needed space… and that he needed it, too. But I’m still his friend on Facebook… I still check in with him from time to time. I can’t seem to leave him alone. And, so, probably the next guy that comes into my life will meet the same fate that The Older Man met.
As I sat there thinking on these things, I started feeling overwhelmed. This was a lot of information to process… a lot of inconvenient truths made themselves apparent.
I still think about him a lot. I wonder whether he thinks of me. I wonder why all the things I hoped for with him never actually materialized. I wonder why he didn’t want those things with me at all. And, typically, by the time I get to that final question, I feel hurt and then… anger. But, for some reason this time, although the hurt was still there the anger had nearly dissipated. So, now I think I get it. The things I felt for Mystery Man… those are the same things he feels about his ex. The same way that I couldn’t move on from him… and couldn’t let The Older Man into my heart, that’s the same reason why Mystery Man kept pushing me away. I kept wondering how he could think I was wonderful, and beautiful, and smart, and funny, and all those things that he always said I was, but then couldn’t bring himself to be with me. How could I not see? I did and said all those same things with The Older Man. He didn’t stand a chance. I guess I didn’t either…
But, nothing I did was done out of spite. I never meant to hurt The Older Man and I didn’t mean to cut him out before he could even really take a shot at building something with me…. but I did. I hope I won’t make the same mistakes with someone else. And I hope that, if by chance I do make those same mistakes, that they will be patient with me and won’t hate me in the end.
I don’t hate Mystery Man… I don’t think I ever could. He’s a good person and will always have a place in my heart (just hopefully in the future not such a big place). And now that I’m getting a better idea of where he was coming from, I’m not even angry about the way that things turned out. I am finally realizing that, as tempting as it might be, you can’t hold someone’s love against them. He loves her and not me and, even though that seems unfair, I gotta just let that go.
And, so, I begin again.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Online Dating Bytes
Three new posts in as many days? I'm on a roll! I've got more to post, too! I should hold back and just post one every week and then at least I could be consistent, but... I'm gonna go ahead and post them as they come to me. I'm going to try to do at least two posts a week from here on out, but I've made that promise before... several times. And I've never held up my end of that bargain. So, I'm gonna stop lying and just commit to posting when I can. And hopefully "when I can" will translate to at least twice per week :)
As I was walking home from the train today, I was hit by the most overwhelming sense of loneliness! It was a gut-wrenching feeling that left me scared shitless. It’s not that I haven’t experienced this feeling before, but today I noticed it had a new intensity that I was not at all prepared for. I mean, I’m 30 fucking years old with no man in sight! To me, that’s sad. And it’s scary! If anybody had told me when Mr. Ex and I went our separate ways 2.5 years ago (describing it as “going our separate ways” makes it sound so civilized, and it really wasn’t at all) that I’d be single at 30 with no prospects on the horizon, I would’ve found that laughable. Today, it is my reality. And it sucks. Sometimes I’m okay with it… sometimes I’m not. Today was one of those “not” days. *sigh*
I guess that’s the same feeling (or something similar) that my homegirl was feeling when she notified me that she was going to start actively participating in online dating. I listed as she explained why she had decided to go that route and I actually provided her with some pretty sound advice on the issue. But I wish I could’ve been more supportive of her decision. It’s just that my homegirl is a black woman, and she’s seeking an educated black man. Online. And I have my theories about why she will be more likely to get struck by lightening than to find a man that meets her standards through an online dating site.
So, of course I’m not just going to tell you that I have theories about a particular subject and then not tell you the theories right?! Well, my main thought about this is that in theory, online dating is a great concept! It gives you an opportunity to make contact with a potential suitor… without actually having to make physical contact. That’s awesome! It also easily connects you with people that you might not ordinarily meet. For instance, maybe your soul mate lives in Philadelphia and you live in Atlanta. In the “old days” before the internet, you would only have a chance of meeting that person if you went to Philadelphia or if s/he ventured to Atlanta, or if a mutual friend introduced you… something like that. The chances that you’d cross paths with that person while sitting in your living room were pretty damn slim! But now, all you have to do is logon to Match.com or BlackPeopleMeet.com or Yahoo! Personals, set your search terms to meet your criteria, and you are instantly connected to likeminded singles around the world.
It works for a lot of people! On a weekly basis I read the B.I.O. section of the Washington Post Express, which is where the paper publishes wedding announcements. I would say that probably 80% of the people featured in B.I.O. met online! I also watch “Platinum Weddings”, “Bridezillas”, and “Who’s Wedding is it Anyway”, and a large majority of those couples also meet online. But the thing is, most of the people that publish their announcements in B.I.O. and are featured on those wedding-focused reality shows are… well… they are… not black. I’ve heard of and have known personally so many people who met their significant other/spouse on sites like J-Date or Match.com or whatever, but those people are all white!
See, black men… black men in DC especially… aren’t really hurting for dates. And, if they want to become involved in a relationship, it’s really rather easy for them to meet a very deserving woman just by walking out of their front door. It really is that easy. Around this town, a guy can trip over 10 beautiful, successful, educated, witty, and VERY SINGLE women just going from his house to the grocery store. The market is flooded with these types of women. And all these women are looking for the same (or similar) type of man. So, my thought is that any man worth his salt who even remotely meets the standards that women have set for being “eligible” won’t need the assistance of the internet to find a date.
I belong to this social group on Facebook that’s always sponsoring speed dating events in DC. Every time they host something, the group always sends out an email that says something like:
“Speed dating event in 2 days! Registration for women is closed. More men needed!!”
See how sad and pathetic that is? Women have overwhelmed the registration for the event while men are elusive. And if men know that tons of women are going to be in a given spot, why wouldn’t THEY be flooding the group with registrations? The answer is that men don’t need to participate in something like speed dating because they’re not desperate for dates!
So, what makes a man eligible? Well, if he’s employed, reasonably good looking, semi-literate, clean, and… well, really, for a lot of women, that’s about all it takes. Sad, huh? Yeah, the bar is set pretty low. I guess I should add “breathing” to the list. Anything else? Hmm… maybe I should add single, but then again, for some women that is not a requirement (shocking!). Any man who meets these minimum requirements probably has at least two women in the queue. While women who bring a lot more to the table than this are sitting around twiddling their thumbs on any given Friday or Saturday night.
But I digress…
Those same men are not going to end up paying money to participate in an online dating service when they can pull chicks for free. So who are the black men who actually throw dough at services like Match.com or Eharmony.com or BlackPeopleMeet.com? Outside of the (very rare) exceptions, the black men you’ll meet on the internet are likely womanizers, illiterate, seeking random sex partners, or socially-inept weirdos. That’s my theory, and I’m sticking to it.
I kept this theory to myself but I eventually ended up sharing it with my homegirl. Especially after she started sharing some of the messages she was receiving. Which proved my theory.
Like I said, in theory, internet dating is AWESOME. Like, I mentioned J-Date before. Just in case you were wondering, J-Date is a dating website that pairs up Jewish singles. My coworker met her husband on J-Date. My colleague who’s a few years younger than me met her fiance on J-Date. Apparently, she has three friends all around her same age who are all engaged and they ALL met on J-Date. After hearing these stories, I am thinking – wait a minute… you just go online, plug in your search terms and walk away with a cute guy and a 2-carat Tiffany engagement ring?
Sheeeeiiiiiiiit! (a la Clay Davis)
Sounds like a sweet deal to me!
I wish there was a J-Date for black folks. A B-Date, if you will. But unfortunately, as soon as sites pop up, they become hoodielicious (a word from my good friend) and or slutted out with people posting half-naked pictures and making open propositions about random sexual encounters. Just take a look at BlackPlanet. It has become a thugged out haven for illiterates and semi-professional prostitutes. And then, there’s BlackPeopleMeet.com. It started off pretty well, but as I was helping my homegirl sift through profiles on that site, I realized that none of the decent looking me on the site knew how to spell. But, wait… I guess that’s okay because it’s actually not one of the eligibility requirements I outlined above. *rolleyes*
I can’t tell you how many times a week I hear the question “Where are all the good black men?” It gets old. I’m tired of hearing it. And, I’m not one of those people who believe that there are no “good” black men out there. I think they’re out there... I just don’t think you’ll find him online.
As I was walking home from the train today, I was hit by the most overwhelming sense of loneliness! It was a gut-wrenching feeling that left me scared shitless. It’s not that I haven’t experienced this feeling before, but today I noticed it had a new intensity that I was not at all prepared for. I mean, I’m 30 fucking years old with no man in sight! To me, that’s sad. And it’s scary! If anybody had told me when Mr. Ex and I went our separate ways 2.5 years ago (describing it as “going our separate ways” makes it sound so civilized, and it really wasn’t at all) that I’d be single at 30 with no prospects on the horizon, I would’ve found that laughable. Today, it is my reality. And it sucks. Sometimes I’m okay with it… sometimes I’m not. Today was one of those “not” days. *sigh*
I guess that’s the same feeling (or something similar) that my homegirl was feeling when she notified me that she was going to start actively participating in online dating. I listed as she explained why she had decided to go that route and I actually provided her with some pretty sound advice on the issue. But I wish I could’ve been more supportive of her decision. It’s just that my homegirl is a black woman, and she’s seeking an educated black man. Online. And I have my theories about why she will be more likely to get struck by lightening than to find a man that meets her standards through an online dating site.
So, of course I’m not just going to tell you that I have theories about a particular subject and then not tell you the theories right?! Well, my main thought about this is that in theory, online dating is a great concept! It gives you an opportunity to make contact with a potential suitor… without actually having to make physical contact. That’s awesome! It also easily connects you with people that you might not ordinarily meet. For instance, maybe your soul mate lives in Philadelphia and you live in Atlanta. In the “old days” before the internet, you would only have a chance of meeting that person if you went to Philadelphia or if s/he ventured to Atlanta, or if a mutual friend introduced you… something like that. The chances that you’d cross paths with that person while sitting in your living room were pretty damn slim! But now, all you have to do is logon to Match.com or BlackPeopleMeet.com or Yahoo! Personals, set your search terms to meet your criteria, and you are instantly connected to likeminded singles around the world.
It works for a lot of people! On a weekly basis I read the B.I.O. section of the Washington Post Express, which is where the paper publishes wedding announcements. I would say that probably 80% of the people featured in B.I.O. met online! I also watch “Platinum Weddings”, “Bridezillas”, and “Who’s Wedding is it Anyway”, and a large majority of those couples also meet online. But the thing is, most of the people that publish their announcements in B.I.O. and are featured on those wedding-focused reality shows are… well… they are… not black. I’ve heard of and have known personally so many people who met their significant other/spouse on sites like J-Date or Match.com or whatever, but those people are all white!
See, black men… black men in DC especially… aren’t really hurting for dates. And, if they want to become involved in a relationship, it’s really rather easy for them to meet a very deserving woman just by walking out of their front door. It really is that easy. Around this town, a guy can trip over 10 beautiful, successful, educated, witty, and VERY SINGLE women just going from his house to the grocery store. The market is flooded with these types of women. And all these women are looking for the same (or similar) type of man. So, my thought is that any man worth his salt who even remotely meets the standards that women have set for being “eligible” won’t need the assistance of the internet to find a date.
I belong to this social group on Facebook that’s always sponsoring speed dating events in DC. Every time they host something, the group always sends out an email that says something like:
“Speed dating event in 2 days! Registration for women is closed. More men needed!!”
See how sad and pathetic that is? Women have overwhelmed the registration for the event while men are elusive. And if men know that tons of women are going to be in a given spot, why wouldn’t THEY be flooding the group with registrations? The answer is that men don’t need to participate in something like speed dating because they’re not desperate for dates!
So, what makes a man eligible? Well, if he’s employed, reasonably good looking, semi-literate, clean, and… well, really, for a lot of women, that’s about all it takes. Sad, huh? Yeah, the bar is set pretty low. I guess I should add “breathing” to the list. Anything else? Hmm… maybe I should add single, but then again, for some women that is not a requirement (shocking!). Any man who meets these minimum requirements probably has at least two women in the queue. While women who bring a lot more to the table than this are sitting around twiddling their thumbs on any given Friday or Saturday night.
But I digress…
Those same men are not going to end up paying money to participate in an online dating service when they can pull chicks for free. So who are the black men who actually throw dough at services like Match.com or Eharmony.com or BlackPeopleMeet.com? Outside of the (very rare) exceptions, the black men you’ll meet on the internet are likely womanizers, illiterate, seeking random sex partners, or socially-inept weirdos. That’s my theory, and I’m sticking to it.
I kept this theory to myself but I eventually ended up sharing it with my homegirl. Especially after she started sharing some of the messages she was receiving. Which proved my theory.
Like I said, in theory, internet dating is AWESOME. Like, I mentioned J-Date before. Just in case you were wondering, J-Date is a dating website that pairs up Jewish singles. My coworker met her husband on J-Date. My colleague who’s a few years younger than me met her fiance on J-Date. Apparently, she has three friends all around her same age who are all engaged and they ALL met on J-Date. After hearing these stories, I am thinking – wait a minute… you just go online, plug in your search terms and walk away with a cute guy and a 2-carat Tiffany engagement ring?
Sheeeeiiiiiiiit! (a la Clay Davis)
Sounds like a sweet deal to me!
I wish there was a J-Date for black folks. A B-Date, if you will. But unfortunately, as soon as sites pop up, they become hoodielicious (a word from my good friend) and or slutted out with people posting half-naked pictures and making open propositions about random sexual encounters. Just take a look at BlackPlanet. It has become a thugged out haven for illiterates and semi-professional prostitutes. And then, there’s BlackPeopleMeet.com. It started off pretty well, but as I was helping my homegirl sift through profiles on that site, I realized that none of the decent looking me on the site knew how to spell. But, wait… I guess that’s okay because it’s actually not one of the eligibility requirements I outlined above. *rolleyes*
I can’t tell you how many times a week I hear the question “Where are all the good black men?” It gets old. I’m tired of hearing it. And, I’m not one of those people who believe that there are no “good” black men out there. I think they’re out there... I just don’t think you’ll find him online.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
5 Random Thoughts
So work is not just slow… it’s basically come to a grinding HALT. And that’s fine by me! I’m using this time to make me a better person… and trying to help make my friends better people, too! I think my friends are fabulous and I love them for who they are, but there’s room for improvement in all of us! I hope that my idle time can result in some positive results for us all.
Since I’ve been back from the 30th bday vacay, I’ve been obsessively nursing this allergic reaction and the aftermath and also looking for ways to better myself (did I already mention that? LOL!), so that hasn’t given me much time or energy to write. I wrote yesterday’s post last Friday, but didn’t post it until yesterday because I was being lazy and didn’t want to proofread it. And I figured that I’d continue to write posts until I couldn’t write anymore and that would put me ahead of the game. I could enter them all into Blogger and set the little timer that allows me to have them publish whenever I want to see them show up on here. But, sadly, the “couldn’t write anymore” part came sooner than I expected!
It’s crazy because sometimes I’ll be on the train or walking home from the train station and all these blog post ideas will be swirling around in my head, but when I sit down and actually put fingers to keys… my brain shuts down. I guess that’s what people call writer’s block. It’s not that you don’t’ have the ideas, it’s just that something is standing in the way and preventing you from actually putting those ideas down on paper. And the shit is really frustrating! I think I mentioned this before in another post, but having writer’s block could be likened to being constipated. It’s no freakin fun… and unfortunately, there’s no such thing as Ex-Lax for writers! So basically, this mess has been kickin my ass! Ugh! I think I’m just going to regularly throw some bullshit on paper and post it… at least until I’m able to put a coherent thought together for y’all.
So, let me start by listing some things that have been on my mind this week:
1) I am really, really feeling Drake. I downloaded one of his “mixtapes” and I love every track! If you don’t know who Drake is, Google him… but be sure to say you’re looking for “Drake the rapper”. Otherwise, you’ll get a bunch of random rock bands and stuff and it won’t be who you’re looking for.
2) I still don’t get Twitter. Like… at all! I mean, wtf am I supposed to do – catalog my life in 140 characters or less? And the little text box at the top of the screen says “What are you doing?” But the worst part about it is that usually the only time I remember to tweet is when I ain’t doin shit! And who wants to hear about me twiddling my thumbs?! Nobody. My point exactly. And if I was legitimately busy, would I interrupt the flow to come up with some witty 140-character recap purely for the entertainment of my handful of followers? Probably not. Hence the one-month tweet hiatus. Don’t know if I’ll go back, but I’m highly doubtful.
3) I need a boo. Badly. I am still on this celibacy kick and, frankly, it’s getting old really fast. Unfortunately, I respect myself too much to make just anybody a jumpoff. I’m one of those breeds of women who finds it imperative to have the emotional/physical/spiritual connection fully poppin before the clothes come off. Sucks for me! I’ve put both MBF and TDH on notice that they are to be on the lookout for potential boos within their circles (they both know a lot of people!). They both agreed but neither was enthusiastic. Selfish bastards! Although, I guess TDH really isn't that selfish since he offered his services to me instead of helping me find a boo. But, as we discussed in a previous post, he is a fan of "no strings attached" sex and I am NOT. So, since we're not on the same page, I'll hold out until I run into someone who shares my sentiment on that. *sigh*
4) Facebook. I love it. I’m obsessed! I’m on it all day, everyday! I found this way to make myself only appear online to some people because I kept getting these random IMs from people I hadn’t spoken with in YEARS, asking me why I was on FB all day! It was embarrassing. So I figured if I made myself invisible to most people, then I can play around on FB whenever I want and nobody would know how obsessed I am… er… I mean… damn, I guess now the cat is out of the bag! Anyway, I tried to “detox” from Facebook a few months ago and wouldn’t let myself log on even once during the work week. I started on Monday, but by Thursday was so compelled to login, I broke my promise to myself logged in to see how many notifications I had. Lol! Pathetic. My sorry ass couldn’t even make it to Friday! I have to break the hold this thing has on me!
5) I want to move. Not just to a new place, but to a new city!! A new state! A new country! Okay, not a new country. I love the US of A way too much to cross borders and shit, but still… I need a change of scenery and a change of pace. I’m starting to feel like I’ve outgrown this city of mine, which makes sense since I was born and raised here. It just seems like every time I go out, I see the SAME people, I am constantly frequenting the SAME venues, and I end up with the SAME results – utter boredom. So, I want to move. Let’s face it, I’d really like to relocate to New York, and New York ONLY. No other location seems remotely appealing to me right now. If I wasn’t going to live in New York, then DC is the only other place I’d rather be. So, why is it so dang hard to pick up and move?! I’ve been asking myself that for 10 years now! For some reason, it’s not getting any easier. *sigh*
That’s all I’ve got for you at this moment. I’ll be back to shoot more random shit tomorrow (or the next day).
Toodles,
LBG
Since I’ve been back from the 30th bday vacay, I’ve been obsessively nursing this allergic reaction and the aftermath and also looking for ways to better myself (did I already mention that? LOL!), so that hasn’t given me much time or energy to write. I wrote yesterday’s post last Friday, but didn’t post it until yesterday because I was being lazy and didn’t want to proofread it. And I figured that I’d continue to write posts until I couldn’t write anymore and that would put me ahead of the game. I could enter them all into Blogger and set the little timer that allows me to have them publish whenever I want to see them show up on here. But, sadly, the “couldn’t write anymore” part came sooner than I expected!
It’s crazy because sometimes I’ll be on the train or walking home from the train station and all these blog post ideas will be swirling around in my head, but when I sit down and actually put fingers to keys… my brain shuts down. I guess that’s what people call writer’s block. It’s not that you don’t’ have the ideas, it’s just that something is standing in the way and preventing you from actually putting those ideas down on paper. And the shit is really frustrating! I think I mentioned this before in another post, but having writer’s block could be likened to being constipated. It’s no freakin fun… and unfortunately, there’s no such thing as Ex-Lax for writers! So basically, this mess has been kickin my ass! Ugh! I think I’m just going to regularly throw some bullshit on paper and post it… at least until I’m able to put a coherent thought together for y’all.
So, let me start by listing some things that have been on my mind this week:
1) I am really, really feeling Drake. I downloaded one of his “mixtapes” and I love every track! If you don’t know who Drake is, Google him… but be sure to say you’re looking for “Drake the rapper”. Otherwise, you’ll get a bunch of random rock bands and stuff and it won’t be who you’re looking for.
2) I still don’t get Twitter. Like… at all! I mean, wtf am I supposed to do – catalog my life in 140 characters or less? And the little text box at the top of the screen says “What are you doing?” But the worst part about it is that usually the only time I remember to tweet is when I ain’t doin shit! And who wants to hear about me twiddling my thumbs?! Nobody. My point exactly. And if I was legitimately busy, would I interrupt the flow to come up with some witty 140-character recap purely for the entertainment of my handful of followers? Probably not. Hence the one-month tweet hiatus. Don’t know if I’ll go back, but I’m highly doubtful.
3) I need a boo. Badly. I am still on this celibacy kick and, frankly, it’s getting old really fast. Unfortunately, I respect myself too much to make just anybody a jumpoff. I’m one of those breeds of women who finds it imperative to have the emotional/physical/spiritual connection fully poppin before the clothes come off. Sucks for me! I’ve put both MBF and TDH on notice that they are to be on the lookout for potential boos within their circles (they both know a lot of people!). They both agreed but neither was enthusiastic. Selfish bastards! Although, I guess TDH really isn't that selfish since he offered his services to me instead of helping me find a boo. But, as we discussed in a previous post, he is a fan of "no strings attached" sex and I am NOT. So, since we're not on the same page, I'll hold out until I run into someone who shares my sentiment on that. *sigh*
4) Facebook. I love it. I’m obsessed! I’m on it all day, everyday! I found this way to make myself only appear online to some people because I kept getting these random IMs from people I hadn’t spoken with in YEARS, asking me why I was on FB all day! It was embarrassing. So I figured if I made myself invisible to most people, then I can play around on FB whenever I want and nobody would know how obsessed I am… er… I mean… damn, I guess now the cat is out of the bag! Anyway, I tried to “detox” from Facebook a few months ago and wouldn’t let myself log on even once during the work week. I started on Monday, but by Thursday was so compelled to login, I broke my promise to myself logged in to see how many notifications I had. Lol! Pathetic. My sorry ass couldn’t even make it to Friday! I have to break the hold this thing has on me!
5) I want to move. Not just to a new place, but to a new city!! A new state! A new country! Okay, not a new country. I love the US of A way too much to cross borders and shit, but still… I need a change of scenery and a change of pace. I’m starting to feel like I’ve outgrown this city of mine, which makes sense since I was born and raised here. It just seems like every time I go out, I see the SAME people, I am constantly frequenting the SAME venues, and I end up with the SAME results – utter boredom. So, I want to move. Let’s face it, I’d really like to relocate to New York, and New York ONLY. No other location seems remotely appealing to me right now. If I wasn’t going to live in New York, then DC is the only other place I’d rather be. So, why is it so dang hard to pick up and move?! I’ve been asking myself that for 10 years now! For some reason, it’s not getting any easier. *sigh*
That’s all I’ve got for you at this moment. I’ll be back to shoot more random shit tomorrow (or the next day).
Toodles,
LBG
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Fanning old flames...
I just realized that I totally jacked up the formatting of my last post AND I cut off half of James's original article! But like I said, it was past 3:30 in the morning when I entered that last post and I hadn't slept all night. Then, in the middle of posting, my ride to the airport showed up and I had to jet... literally! Apologies, Jamesy! But I'm sure everyone got the gist and, by the way, I received a lot of positive feedback about your material. You can be a guest blogger @ Lovely Brown Girl anytime! :)
The 30th birthday celebration is officially over and the time spent in the Caribbean resulted in a delicious tan and five extra pounds!! But it was well worth it. I have NEVER had so much fun on a vacation. EVER! Glorious, glorious fun! The day after I returned to the States, I woke up with a fat lip, which then quickly progressed to a majorly swollen face! I was horrified when I looked at my reflection. I ended up calling out sick that day and spent the day icing my face and popping Benadryl like candy, but it was to no avail because the next day I woke up looking like Hitch! I'm telling you, my face looked a hot mess! So I called out again. At this point, I'm sure my boss thought I was making all of this up in an attempt to extend my vacation. But no such luck... I called out sick because I was really, really not in a position to show my face to anyone outside of my immediate family. My mother drove me to the doctor on Thursday and she kept stealing glances at me and making these weird faces (my mother is a lot like me in that she has a hard time controlling her facial expressions!). "Why do you keep looking at me like I'm some walking freak show?!" I snapped. "Sorry," she mumbled, quickly turning away. Yeah... my face was THAT bad. It was even beyond a face that "only a mother could love". My doctor, whom I ordinarily love, had very little to offer in terms of what was happening to me. She suggested that it could be a result of sun poisoning. And, believe me, I was definitely in the sun enough to have been poisoned. I was laying out from sun-up to sun-down, which was probably not a good idea seeing as I didn't use any sunblock the whole time I was away. (Hey, I am a BROWN girl, remember? We don't burn!) She also said it was possible that I could've gotten it from a tropical fruit like pineapple, or maybe, possibly I'd been bitten by some tropical bug during the night and my body was reacting. Whatever the case, I looked a hot mess and earned myself two additional sick days tacked on to my already too-long vacation and that resulted in a one-day work week that started and ended TODAY!
I still looked a mess when I walked in to work, but at least my boss knew I had not been lying to her. The minute I walked in, she gasped. Apparently, my face was taking everyone by surprise! But, whatever. She wanted me to come in to work, and I came in. Now, she was going to have to deal with looking at me all day. That's what she gets! I was sitting at my desk catching up on emails when an IM pops up from my friend Deon. D and I went to high school together and he's definitely a looker, but he just doesn't see it. An interested woman would have to hit him over the head with a frying pan before he would get that she was interested. He can be just that dense when it comes to affairs of the heart. That's why it didn't surprise me when I read this:
4:01 PM Deon: hey i got a message from a girl i went on a date with 7 years ago
on facebook
4:02 PM so im really confused
why she would contact me?
Brown Girl: lol
Deon: she is married w/ kids
BG: maybe she just wanted to say hi?
LOL
what did the mssg say?
Deon: Hi Deon,
I hope you remember me...it's Melissa!
We met about 7 years ago at the grocery store, went on a couple of "dates"...I've always wondered how you were. Let me know if you remember me, okay...
4:03 PM BG: uhh... clearly she's unhappily married?!
LOL
wow
Deon: theres more
BG: uh oh
4:04 PM ok
Deon: me: Yes it's me... How is everything?
her: I'm great. Married with two beautiful daughters, Krista is 4 and Grace is 2. I live in Delaware and I've been working at a hotel now for 5 years. How are you? Married? Kids? You still look the same...
Deon: Congrats on Marriage and the kids. I'm good. Single and living in DC
4:05 PM BG: k
i see where this is going
LOL
Deon: her: Still single, huh? I thought for sure you would be married with beautiful babies by now. I would love to see you and catch-up...I will be in DC on K Street next week for happy hour. A bunch of my friends and I are celebrating our birthdays with dinner and a little dancing. If you can make it, let me know...My cell number is XXX-XXX-XXXX
Deon: Things have been really busy lately...so I'll let you know next week
her: So, still single? I find that hard to believe. The Deon I remember was quite the charmer, witty, and has the most beautiful eyes ever!
4:09 PM BG: ooooh boy
yeah, that sounds like trouble
LOL!!
Deon: yeah ... thats what i thought as well
4:10 PM thought this was strange
not sure what to do about this
Wow. A MARRIED woman is making an attempt to link up with Deon - a single man she once dated - and proceeds to throw a slew of compliments his way in an attempt to lure him to the meeting place. I find it interesting that she would be so bold. And I wonder what would make Melissa contact Deon so many years later. Facebook and the internet, man... their power is often used for evil and not for good. But I just find stories like this so interesting. I mean, sure... I often think back to guys that I've dated in the past and wonder what happened to them. And sometimes, I even reach out just to say hey and see if anything interesting is going on with them. A handful of them were even cute and/or intriguing enough for me to be a little flirtatious when I reached out. But will I continue to do that sort of thing when I'm married? Geez, I hope not! And, believe it or not, it's not the first time I've heard something like this.
Several months ago, I had a conversation with Mystery Man about something similar. An old girlfriend from college emailed him out of the blue. This girl had broken his heart by dumping him for some jock and then marrying him a few years later. She'd Googled him and found his website and sent an email gushing about how she never should've married the jock and, instead, should've stayed with him. Clearly, she was unhappily married (with children), and she was mourning what "could've been" had she continued her relationship with MM. So, she tells him that she is coming to his city to visit an aunt in February and she hoped that the two of them could get together.
"You know she's making up a reason to visit. I bet she probably doesn't even have an aunt in your city?"
"You don't think so?" he asked.
"Heck no!" I laughed.
"So, when she comes to visit this phantom aunt, are you going to see her?"
"'Phantom' aunt?! That's funny!" he says.
"Well, are you?"
"Probably not. I might have to travel for work that weekend. Or at least that's what I'm going to tell her."
Dude, what?! "Probably not?!" This woman is married!! Anyway, I guess I shouldn't judge him because clearly she's the one who initiated this... and she's the one who is making up fake family members to visit in hopes of rekindling an old flame with her high school boyfriend.
Man, even though this happened days ago, I am still LOLing at unhappily married women contacting men from their pasts and making FB and email propositions. But actually, this is not a laughing matter. This is actually really, really sad. When your marriage is that bad, it seems to me that instead of trying to rekindle sparks, you should instead focus on either improving the marriage that you have, or taking steps to get out of it... BEFORE you go trying to start an extra-relationship with some old boyfriend. Granted, these two women are not representative of the myriad married women in the world, but the fact that I personally know of at least two who are trying to reconnect with old "friends" over the internet leads me to believe that this may be a pretty common occurrence.
I always knew that dating sucked, but... does marriage suck just as bad? I'm starting to lose hope again. *sigh*
The 30th birthday celebration is officially over and the time spent in the Caribbean resulted in a delicious tan and five extra pounds!! But it was well worth it. I have NEVER had so much fun on a vacation. EVER! Glorious, glorious fun! The day after I returned to the States, I woke up with a fat lip, which then quickly progressed to a majorly swollen face! I was horrified when I looked at my reflection. I ended up calling out sick that day and spent the day icing my face and popping Benadryl like candy, but it was to no avail because the next day I woke up looking like Hitch! I'm telling you, my face looked a hot mess! So I called out again. At this point, I'm sure my boss thought I was making all of this up in an attempt to extend my vacation. But no such luck... I called out sick because I was really, really not in a position to show my face to anyone outside of my immediate family. My mother drove me to the doctor on Thursday and she kept stealing glances at me and making these weird faces (my mother is a lot like me in that she has a hard time controlling her facial expressions!). "Why do you keep looking at me like I'm some walking freak show?!" I snapped. "Sorry," she mumbled, quickly turning away. Yeah... my face was THAT bad. It was even beyond a face that "only a mother could love". My doctor, whom I ordinarily love, had very little to offer in terms of what was happening to me. She suggested that it could be a result of sun poisoning. And, believe me, I was definitely in the sun enough to have been poisoned. I was laying out from sun-up to sun-down, which was probably not a good idea seeing as I didn't use any sunblock the whole time I was away. (Hey, I am a BROWN girl, remember? We don't burn!) She also said it was possible that I could've gotten it from a tropical fruit like pineapple, or maybe, possibly I'd been bitten by some tropical bug during the night and my body was reacting. Whatever the case, I looked a hot mess and earned myself two additional sick days tacked on to my already too-long vacation and that resulted in a one-day work week that started and ended TODAY!
I still looked a mess when I walked in to work, but at least my boss knew I had not been lying to her. The minute I walked in, she gasped. Apparently, my face was taking everyone by surprise! But, whatever. She wanted me to come in to work, and I came in. Now, she was going to have to deal with looking at me all day. That's what she gets! I was sitting at my desk catching up on emails when an IM pops up from my friend Deon. D and I went to high school together and he's definitely a looker, but he just doesn't see it. An interested woman would have to hit him over the head with a frying pan before he would get that she was interested. He can be just that dense when it comes to affairs of the heart. That's why it didn't surprise me when I read this:
4:01 PM Deon: hey i got a message from a girl i went on a date with 7 years ago
on facebook
4:02 PM so im really confused
why she would contact me?
Brown Girl: lol
Deon: she is married w/ kids
BG: maybe she just wanted to say hi?
LOL
what did the mssg say?
Deon: Hi Deon,
I hope you remember me...it's Melissa!
We met about 7 years ago at the grocery store, went on a couple of "dates"...I've always wondered how you were. Let me know if you remember me, okay...
4:03 PM BG: uhh... clearly she's unhappily married?!
LOL
wow
Deon: theres more
BG: uh oh
4:04 PM ok
Deon: me: Yes it's me... How is everything?
her: I'm great. Married with two beautiful daughters, Krista is 4 and Grace is 2. I live in Delaware and I've been working at a hotel now for 5 years. How are you? Married? Kids? You still look the same...
Deon: Congrats on Marriage and the kids. I'm good. Single and living in DC
4:05 PM BG: k
i see where this is going
LOL
Deon: her: Still single, huh? I thought for sure you would be married with beautiful babies by now. I would love to see you and catch-up...I will be in DC on K Street next week for happy hour. A bunch of my friends and I are celebrating our birthdays with dinner and a little dancing. If you can make it, let me know...My cell number is XXX-XXX-XXXX
Deon: Things have been really busy lately...so I'll let you know next week
her: So, still single? I find that hard to believe. The Deon I remember was quite the charmer, witty, and has the most beautiful eyes ever!
4:09 PM BG: ooooh boy
yeah, that sounds like trouble
LOL!!
Deon: yeah ... thats what i thought as well
4:10 PM thought this was strange
not sure what to do about this
Wow. A MARRIED woman is making an attempt to link up with Deon - a single man she once dated - and proceeds to throw a slew of compliments his way in an attempt to lure him to the meeting place. I find it interesting that she would be so bold. And I wonder what would make Melissa contact Deon so many years later. Facebook and the internet, man... their power is often used for evil and not for good. But I just find stories like this so interesting. I mean, sure... I often think back to guys that I've dated in the past and wonder what happened to them. And sometimes, I even reach out just to say hey and see if anything interesting is going on with them. A handful of them were even cute and/or intriguing enough for me to be a little flirtatious when I reached out. But will I continue to do that sort of thing when I'm married? Geez, I hope not! And, believe it or not, it's not the first time I've heard something like this.
Several months ago, I had a conversation with Mystery Man about something similar. An old girlfriend from college emailed him out of the blue. This girl had broken his heart by dumping him for some jock and then marrying him a few years later. She'd Googled him and found his website and sent an email gushing about how she never should've married the jock and, instead, should've stayed with him. Clearly, she was unhappily married (with children), and she was mourning what "could've been" had she continued her relationship with MM. So, she tells him that she is coming to his city to visit an aunt in February and she hoped that the two of them could get together.
"You know she's making up a reason to visit. I bet she probably doesn't even have an aunt in your city?"
"You don't think so?" he asked.
"Heck no!" I laughed.
"So, when she comes to visit this phantom aunt, are you going to see her?"
"'Phantom' aunt?! That's funny!" he says.
"Well, are you?"
"Probably not. I might have to travel for work that weekend. Or at least that's what I'm going to tell her."
Dude, what?! "Probably not?!" This woman is married!! Anyway, I guess I shouldn't judge him because clearly she's the one who initiated this... and she's the one who is making up fake family members to visit in hopes of rekindling an old flame with her high school boyfriend.
Man, even though this happened days ago, I am still LOLing at unhappily married women contacting men from their pasts and making FB and email propositions. But actually, this is not a laughing matter. This is actually really, really sad. When your marriage is that bad, it seems to me that instead of trying to rekindle sparks, you should instead focus on either improving the marriage that you have, or taking steps to get out of it... BEFORE you go trying to start an extra-relationship with some old boyfriend. Granted, these two women are not representative of the myriad married women in the world, but the fact that I personally know of at least two who are trying to reconnect with old "friends" over the internet leads me to believe that this may be a pretty common occurrence.
I always knew that dating sucked, but... does marriage suck just as bad? I'm starting to lose hope again. *sigh*
Monday, June 08, 2009
The People You Meet on FACEBOOK!
So, its 3:38am on Friday, June 5 and I'm waiting for my ride to the airport so I can catch a flight to the Caribbean to celebrate my 30th birthday. Surreal.
Anywho, I discovered this nifty little thing on Blogger that lets me post things today, but they show up whenever I want them to... who knew!?! So, this post is scheduled to show up on my birthday, which is June 8th. Happy birthday to me! I'm 30! Wow.
I wanted to make sure that you didn't get bored while I was gone, so I went ahead and asked James (jdavermann@yahoo.com) to be Guest Blogger again and he's provided me with another witty, insightful post. This was written a few years ago, so if it sounds dated, that's why! Enjoy!
being a relative term, of course, since I’ve only had any contact with roughly half the people I know on here in person. Does art imitate life, life imitate art, or does Facebook imitate life? Because like life, Facebook certainly has its share of characters. Here are a few...
The Friend You Never Knew You Had
This is the person who randomly adds you as a friend one day, and you’re absolutely certain you guys do NOT know each other. Yet when you go check to see if you have any mutual friends, you see some insane number like 300. How we've managed to have so many friends in common without ever having seen each other is beyond me. Seriously, How the fu-- do we have 300 friends in common and I’ve never met you?? This person has somehow existed in a parallel universe where they’ve been to the same places as you, same events, even met the same people, yet somehow never managed to cross your path until now. Amazing.
The Lovebirds
That friend of yours who is now in a relationship…and wants the world to know. Do they simply list themselves as being ”in a relationship” like normal people? Of course not. Instead they create multiple albums entitled “me and my boo” or “me and my baby” or “I’m in love”…where basically you see about 50 photos of them playing kissy face with their boos in each album….even worse are all their wall signings to each other that show up in your update: “I love you, sweetie” “I miss you, honey”. ABSOLUTELY SICKENING. Two things I find comical about this, though. #1 maybe it’s because I’ve been single for several years, but when the hell did couples ever spend the majority of their time just taking photos of each other together in a room? is that foreplay? #2 When breakup time comes, their entire page gets blown up. They’re now listed as single, albums are missing, photos are missing, notes and poems come down, a depressing status message comes up, and that boyfriend/girlfriend is de-tagged out of existence. You almost wonder if they were ever there in the first place..they disappear worse than one of the twins' exes on sweet valley high. Don't ask me how I know about sweet valley high.
The App Acceptor
This is the person who cannot or will not stop accepting facebook applications, no matter how useless they may be. You go to their wall to say hi, and you end up waiting half an hour for their page to load, because in addition to their regular wall they’ve got a superwall, funwall, top friends, music player, gifts, growing gifts, stickys , scrapboxes…the list goes on. So you say “fukk it” and just send them a note. But it gets worse…they start sending YOU vampire bites and zombie bites and superpokes and compare requests and “you’re a hottie” and motherfucking TV show trivia…wtf??? Tv show trivia??? DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE YOU GOT A 75% ON A ‘FAMILY MATTERS’ QUIZ? SHYT WAS ON FOR 20 YEARS YOU SHOULDA GOT A HUNDRED!
The Repressed Homosexual
For all the men on here…ever had a man send you a “poke”? Put a smiley face at the end of a sentence? Or maybe compliment you on any of your photos? They’ll say something like “looking good in that suit, man!” Pretty weird, isn’t it? It’s because those dudes are BLADES…and trust me, they’re lurking on the book. You suspect something when you get that random friend request, but you let it rock because you don’t want to seem shortsighted or ignorant. They then start signing your wall, commenting on your photos, and sending you notes, all without saying anything overtly gay, but you know better; they’re just a little TOO friendly. I personally raise an eyebrow when dudes I don’t know from Adam start greeting me with exclamation marks in their sentences. But you still don’t have enough hard evidence to rush to judgment. Then one day they hit you up on facebook chat at 3 am with a “hey, you”. If a man hits me up at 3 am it had either better be an emergency, he's in a different time zone, or he has some chicks lined up somewhere for us. Otherwise it gets filed under "gay".
The Birthday Greeters
You wake up one morning and there’s a friendly greeting on your wall…”happy birthday!” That’s strange…you don’t recognize this person…in fact you’ve never met them: It’s that girl you added as a friend a yr ago because you thought she was cute. For whatever reason, she accepted…but you 2 have never so much as said hello to each other. But because her feed shows it’s your birthday, she greets you with it. Still kinda strange but you appreciate it because it’s a nice gesture and she didn’t really have to do it. Then you see the rest of your wall throughout the day…who are these people? When did you make so many friends? Why haven’t we spoken in 364 days? Should I send each one of them a thank you ? (For the record I try to greet them on their b-days as well-no way I’m sending back 300 thank yous.). But there is something to be said for a person you hear from once a year like clockwork. It's like that deadbeat dad who sends you 50 bucks every b-day and proceeds to ignore you the rest of the year.
The person You Haven’t Seen In DUMB LONG
You were real cool w/ this person some years ago but they just vanished off radar one day…until you get that friend request on Facebook. They won’t even send you a message or anything asking how you’ve been…just a friend request. ITS UP TO YOU to then investigate their whereabouts. You hit them up and ask them “where the fukk have you been?” and they tell you “just been working and chilling”. Is that so? For years that's all you've been doing, huh? Motherfu---r, I’ve been doing the exact same thing but people still know where to find my azz!!!
JPD on CGI
JPD stands for Just Plain Delusional. I do believe beauty is subjective. I believe looks are not important. I am not superficial at all. BUT COME ON…WHAT ARE SOME OF THESE PEOPLE THINKING WHEN THEY POST PHOTOS OF THEMSELVES IN THESE CGI GROUPS? Why do you want random strangers rating you? What’s hilarious is that they will get on there and try to argue with all of the people clowning their photo. If you have to try to CONVINCE people that you’re attractive…well… it probably means otherwise. Then there are the ones who post up photos that HIGHLIGHT what might be wrong with the way they look. They’re just asking for trouble. If you have a unibrow, for example, is an extreme closeup really necessary? Is it really a good idea to include your way better looking friend in your photo? Is it really a good idea to appear shirtless if you way 91 pounds?
The Millennium Pic Club
I have 40 photos you can view on facebook and I willingly pose for maybe 12 new ones a year. There are some people on Facebook with 3,000…and counting. That’s a ratio of 80:1. For me to catch up, I would have to quit my job and sit in front of a camera 8 hours a day for 2 years, assuming I could snap 2 photos a minute and had access to 412 double A batteries and 100gb of memory, while giving up up food and water during those periods. The point being that having 3,000 photos on facebook might be a little bit excessive, especially if you’re not employed as a professional model. You do realize we have a pretty decent idea what you look like at about the 20th photo, right?
The Expensive Party Thrower
Say one of your friends has a birthday coming up. They’ll send out a mass note (which appears in your inbox about a half dozen times) announcing the party is at some nightclub, right? But they’ll try to make it seem like its not gonna cost you an arm and a leg to go. The note will typically read something like this:
“Just say you’re on Ramona’s guest list and admission is only 25 dollars before midnight!”
WTF kind of discount is that?
The Excited Freshman
Their page says class of ’13. Yup, this is that naive 17 yr. old headed off to college for the first time so they spend the entire summer prior adding everyone they can find from their school to their friend’s list and go on a wall signing rampage. It goes pretty well at first-until they stumble upon an athlete or frat dude’s page. This is where you better hope they have a strong father figure in their life because things are about to get very interesting from that point on. She can either become a) the groupie/passed around chick with a nickname, or b) the feminist academic who won’t take crap from men. If they ever land on my page I'll try to sway them towards B, although I’m more inclined to turn off my computer and consult with my attorney if I get a friend request from someone whose birthday is 1990.
The Facebook Player
First off, you can’t really be a player on facebook. Well you probably can, but it’s not without its challenges. The problem is, the chicks that you’re fucking like to monitor your wall and photo albums, not just occasionally, but VIGILANTLY. And if there is a woman she suspects has something going on with you, she'll make sure she monitors that page and wall as well. This is the guy who spends an absurd amount of time deleting comments and wall posts from girls that might get him in trouble, or detagging himself out of incriminating pictures he appears in with random women that would arouse suspicion from his main girl. These photos usually include him kissing and cuddling, or have descriptions from the girl putting them up like “me and my boo just hanging out”. He likes to hide his relationship status, so instead of being single or in a relationship, it will simply not have anything there. You can try Limited Profiling yourself but you will come to find that women who have sex with you HATE being limited profiled! Facebook has ruined as many relationships as it’s started, and you can be damned certain that your girl(s) is monitoring your page as we speak. So unless your women are all really stupid, one of them will notice the constant deletions or get to your page before you do. Then you end up like this guy:
http://dontdatehimgirl.com/posts/144276/
The Enthusiastic Tagger
This person will tag everyone and everything they can in every photo that they take. They'll even go to OTHER people's photos and start tagging people they know on there as well. Sometimes they’ll tag someone who just randomly wandered into the background. They'll even tag people who are NOT on facebook. This practice isn’t bad in itself, but it gets ridiculous once they start tagging people’s body parts that just made the frame…like a leg or the back of a person’s head. I can assure you, no one will be scanning your photos looking for Valerie’s arm or Jason’s elbow.
The Frienemy
You accepted this person’s friend request because you vaguely remember them from school... but some time later you realize something: you hate this guy’s guts. In fact, you’ve NEVER liked this guy, but for some reason they always considered you a friend. Then you find out they haven’t changed a bit. The reason you hated them in the first place is because they’re egotistical, pretentious, arrogant, brag too much, and are selfish. So you try to be nice and ask them what’s going on, and they send back a paragraph on your wall bragging about what they’re doing, what degrees they have, what model chick they’re dating, how much money they have, places they’ve been, etc. you’d like to write back and let them know you could give 2 fucks, but restrain yourself because doing so would mean you DO care. It’s a losing battle, man.
The TMI Feeder
Ever have someone you know leave something totally inappropriate on your wall? It’s like they don’t realize all of your mutual friends will see it in their feed. I’ve read stuff like “what happened with that guy you went home with last night?” or “still waiting on my STD results keep your fingers crossed!”
The Wall Terrorist
Aptly named, because this person literally blows up your wall. You ask them what’s up? They respond with a 2 paragraph biography…on your wall. You try to end the wall exchange by saying “ok, thanks talk to you soon” and sure enough you get a response 4 minutes later...on your wall. You ignore that last response and they just tack on something else in a couple hours...on your wall. These people are intent on actually carrying an entire adult conversation via your walls, and seem to have all the time and resources in the world to accomplish this. Can anything stop them?
The guy with no shot
This is the guy on facebook who has a crush on someone, but makes it ridiculously obvious. He always leaves a complimentary comment on any new photo she adds, and the compliments in question are usually so transparent you can picture the drool on his keyboard. But you notice she never hits him back. He tags her first in anything he writes, but she won't even respond to that. In fact, if he wasn’t the one hitting her up each time, they would never speak. For some reason, he thinks communicating via facebook increases the odds that she’ll go out with him, but that’s about as likely as having a black president Michael Jackson getting a babysitting reference.
Jeff Johnson
No introductions necessary. I'm Pretty sure every single person who reads this knows who I'm talking about. This man knows everyone-I mean everyone- on Facebook, even more so than the creators. I believe he is the one they call on for any Beta testing. There isn't an application that gets put in without his approval. What I'm trying to say is that this man is quite possibly Facebook's version of a higher power. Yup, God MC, him, J-hova. Were Facebook to go public, I suspect that his shares would be worth north of a billion dollars. To put things into perspective, since 2003, I've had about 1300 people sign my wall. In that same timeframe, I believe he has amassed 6 million. Let us pray.
Anywho, I discovered this nifty little thing on Blogger that lets me post things today, but they show up whenever I want them to... who knew!?! So, this post is scheduled to show up on my birthday, which is June 8th. Happy birthday to me! I'm 30! Wow.
I wanted to make sure that you didn't get bored while I was gone, so I went ahead and asked James (jdavermann@yahoo.com) to be Guest Blogger again and he's provided me with another witty, insightful post. This was written a few years ago, so if it sounds dated, that's why! Enjoy!
being a relative term, of course, since I’ve only had any contact with roughly half the people I know on here in person. Does art imitate life, life imitate art, or does Facebook imitate life? Because like life, Facebook certainly has its share of characters. Here are a few...
The Friend You Never Knew You Had
This is the person who randomly adds you as a friend one day, and you’re absolutely certain you guys do NOT know each other. Yet when you go check to see if you have any mutual friends, you see some insane number like 300. How we've managed to have so many friends in common without ever having seen each other is beyond me. Seriously, How the fu-- do we have 300 friends in common and I’ve never met you?? This person has somehow existed in a parallel universe where they’ve been to the same places as you, same events, even met the same people, yet somehow never managed to cross your path until now. Amazing.
The Lovebirds
That friend of yours who is now in a relationship…and wants the world to know. Do they simply list themselves as being ”in a relationship” like normal people? Of course not. Instead they create multiple albums entitled “me and my boo” or “me and my baby” or “I’m in love”…where basically you see about 50 photos of them playing kissy face with their boos in each album….even worse are all their wall signings to each other that show up in your update: “I love you, sweetie” “I miss you, honey”. ABSOLUTELY SICKENING. Two things I find comical about this, though. #1 maybe it’s because I’ve been single for several years, but when the hell did couples ever spend the majority of their time just taking photos of each other together in a room? is that foreplay? #2 When breakup time comes, their entire page gets blown up. They’re now listed as single, albums are missing, photos are missing, notes and poems come down, a depressing status message comes up, and that boyfriend/girlfriend is de-tagged out of existence. You almost wonder if they were ever there in the first place..they disappear worse than one of the twins' exes on sweet valley high. Don't ask me how I know about sweet valley high.
The App Acceptor
This is the person who cannot or will not stop accepting facebook applications, no matter how useless they may be. You go to their wall to say hi, and you end up waiting half an hour for their page to load, because in addition to their regular wall they’ve got a superwall, funwall, top friends, music player, gifts, growing gifts, stickys , scrapboxes…the list goes on. So you say “fukk it” and just send them a note. But it gets worse…they start sending YOU vampire bites and zombie bites and superpokes and compare requests and “you’re a hottie” and motherfucking TV show trivia…wtf??? Tv show trivia??? DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE YOU GOT A 75% ON A ‘FAMILY MATTERS’ QUIZ? SHYT WAS ON FOR 20 YEARS YOU SHOULDA GOT A HUNDRED!
The Repressed Homosexual
For all the men on here…ever had a man send you a “poke”? Put a smiley face at the end of a sentence? Or maybe compliment you on any of your photos? They’ll say something like “looking good in that suit, man!” Pretty weird, isn’t it? It’s because those dudes are BLADES…and trust me, they’re lurking on the book. You suspect something when you get that random friend request, but you let it rock because you don’t want to seem shortsighted or ignorant. They then start signing your wall, commenting on your photos, and sending you notes, all without saying anything overtly gay, but you know better; they’re just a little TOO friendly. I personally raise an eyebrow when dudes I don’t know from Adam start greeting me with exclamation marks in their sentences. But you still don’t have enough hard evidence to rush to judgment. Then one day they hit you up on facebook chat at 3 am with a “hey, you”. If a man hits me up at 3 am it had either better be an emergency, he's in a different time zone, or he has some chicks lined up somewhere for us. Otherwise it gets filed under "gay".
The Birthday Greeters
You wake up one morning and there’s a friendly greeting on your wall…”happy birthday!” That’s strange…you don’t recognize this person…in fact you’ve never met them: It’s that girl you added as a friend a yr ago because you thought she was cute. For whatever reason, she accepted…but you 2 have never so much as said hello to each other. But because her feed shows it’s your birthday, she greets you with it. Still kinda strange but you appreciate it because it’s a nice gesture and she didn’t really have to do it. Then you see the rest of your wall throughout the day…who are these people? When did you make so many friends? Why haven’t we spoken in 364 days? Should I send each one of them a thank you ? (For the record I try to greet them on their b-days as well-no way I’m sending back 300 thank yous.). But there is something to be said for a person you hear from once a year like clockwork. It's like that deadbeat dad who sends you 50 bucks every b-day and proceeds to ignore you the rest of the year.
The person You Haven’t Seen In DUMB LONG
You were real cool w/ this person some years ago but they just vanished off radar one day…until you get that friend request on Facebook. They won’t even send you a message or anything asking how you’ve been…just a friend request. ITS UP TO YOU to then investigate their whereabouts. You hit them up and ask them “where the fukk have you been?” and they tell you “just been working and chilling”. Is that so? For years that's all you've been doing, huh? Motherfu---r, I’ve been doing the exact same thing but people still know where to find my azz!!!
JPD on CGI
JPD stands for Just Plain Delusional. I do believe beauty is subjective. I believe looks are not important. I am not superficial at all. BUT COME ON…WHAT ARE SOME OF THESE PEOPLE THINKING WHEN THEY POST PHOTOS OF THEMSELVES IN THESE CGI GROUPS? Why do you want random strangers rating you? What’s hilarious is that they will get on there and try to argue with all of the people clowning their photo. If you have to try to CONVINCE people that you’re attractive…well… it probably means otherwise. Then there are the ones who post up photos that HIGHLIGHT what might be wrong with the way they look. They’re just asking for trouble. If you have a unibrow, for example, is an extreme closeup really necessary? Is it really a good idea to include your way better looking friend in your photo? Is it really a good idea to appear shirtless if you way 91 pounds?
The Millennium Pic Club
I have 40 photos you can view on facebook and I willingly pose for maybe 12 new ones a year. There are some people on Facebook with 3,000…and counting. That’s a ratio of 80:1. For me to catch up, I would have to quit my job and sit in front of a camera 8 hours a day for 2 years, assuming I could snap 2 photos a minute and had access to 412 double A batteries and 100gb of memory, while giving up up food and water during those periods. The point being that having 3,000 photos on facebook might be a little bit excessive, especially if you’re not employed as a professional model. You do realize we have a pretty decent idea what you look like at about the 20th photo, right?
The Expensive Party Thrower
Say one of your friends has a birthday coming up. They’ll send out a mass note (which appears in your inbox about a half dozen times) announcing the party is at some nightclub, right? But they’ll try to make it seem like its not gonna cost you an arm and a leg to go. The note will typically read something like this:
“Just say you’re on Ramona’s guest list and admission is only 25 dollars before midnight!”
WTF kind of discount is that?
The Excited Freshman
Their page says class of ’13. Yup, this is that naive 17 yr. old headed off to college for the first time so they spend the entire summer prior adding everyone they can find from their school to their friend’s list and go on a wall signing rampage. It goes pretty well at first-until they stumble upon an athlete or frat dude’s page. This is where you better hope they have a strong father figure in their life because things are about to get very interesting from that point on. She can either become a) the groupie/passed around chick with a nickname, or b) the feminist academic who won’t take crap from men. If they ever land on my page I'll try to sway them towards B, although I’m more inclined to turn off my computer and consult with my attorney if I get a friend request from someone whose birthday is 1990.
The Facebook Player
First off, you can’t really be a player on facebook. Well you probably can, but it’s not without its challenges. The problem is, the chicks that you’re fucking like to monitor your wall and photo albums, not just occasionally, but VIGILANTLY. And if there is a woman she suspects has something going on with you, she'll make sure she monitors that page and wall as well. This is the guy who spends an absurd amount of time deleting comments and wall posts from girls that might get him in trouble, or detagging himself out of incriminating pictures he appears in with random women that would arouse suspicion from his main girl. These photos usually include him kissing and cuddling, or have descriptions from the girl putting them up like “me and my boo just hanging out”. He likes to hide his relationship status, so instead of being single or in a relationship, it will simply not have anything there. You can try Limited Profiling yourself but you will come to find that women who have sex with you HATE being limited profiled! Facebook has ruined as many relationships as it’s started, and you can be damned certain that your girl(s) is monitoring your page as we speak. So unless your women are all really stupid, one of them will notice the constant deletions or get to your page before you do. Then you end up like this guy:
http://dontdatehimgirl.com/posts/144276/
The Enthusiastic Tagger
This person will tag everyone and everything they can in every photo that they take. They'll even go to OTHER people's photos and start tagging people they know on there as well. Sometimes they’ll tag someone who just randomly wandered into the background. They'll even tag people who are NOT on facebook. This practice isn’t bad in itself, but it gets ridiculous once they start tagging people’s body parts that just made the frame…like a leg or the back of a person’s head. I can assure you, no one will be scanning your photos looking for Valerie’s arm or Jason’s elbow.
The Frienemy
You accepted this person’s friend request because you vaguely remember them from school... but some time later you realize something: you hate this guy’s guts. In fact, you’ve NEVER liked this guy, but for some reason they always considered you a friend. Then you find out they haven’t changed a bit. The reason you hated them in the first place is because they’re egotistical, pretentious, arrogant, brag too much, and are selfish. So you try to be nice and ask them what’s going on, and they send back a paragraph on your wall bragging about what they’re doing, what degrees they have, what model chick they’re dating, how much money they have, places they’ve been, etc. you’d like to write back and let them know you could give 2 fucks, but restrain yourself because doing so would mean you DO care. It’s a losing battle, man.
The TMI Feeder
Ever have someone you know leave something totally inappropriate on your wall? It’s like they don’t realize all of your mutual friends will see it in their feed. I’ve read stuff like “what happened with that guy you went home with last night?” or “still waiting on my STD results keep your fingers crossed!”
The Wall Terrorist
Aptly named, because this person literally blows up your wall. You ask them what’s up? They respond with a 2 paragraph biography…on your wall. You try to end the wall exchange by saying “ok, thanks talk to you soon” and sure enough you get a response 4 minutes later...on your wall. You ignore that last response and they just tack on something else in a couple hours...on your wall. These people are intent on actually carrying an entire adult conversation via your walls, and seem to have all the time and resources in the world to accomplish this. Can anything stop them?
The guy with no shot
This is the guy on facebook who has a crush on someone, but makes it ridiculously obvious. He always leaves a complimentary comment on any new photo she adds, and the compliments in question are usually so transparent you can picture the drool on his keyboard. But you notice she never hits him back. He tags her first in anything he writes, but she won't even respond to that. In fact, if he wasn’t the one hitting her up each time, they would never speak. For some reason, he thinks communicating via facebook increases the odds that she’ll go out with him, but that’s about as likely as having a black president Michael Jackson getting a babysitting reference.
Jeff Johnson
No introductions necessary. I'm Pretty sure every single person who reads this knows who I'm talking about. This man knows everyone-I mean everyone- on Facebook, even more so than the creators. I believe he is the one they call on for any Beta testing. There isn't an application that gets put in without his approval. What I'm trying to say is that this man is quite possibly Facebook's version of a higher power. Yup, God MC, him, J-hova. Were Facebook to go public, I suspect that his shares would be worth north of a billion dollars. To put things into perspective, since 2003, I've had about 1300 people sign my wall. In that same timeframe, I believe he has amassed 6 million. Let us pray.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
The People You Meet at the Club (Guest Blogger!)
I believe I mentioned this in my previous post, but... in just a few days, I'm headed to the Caribbean with some of my best friends to celebrate my 30th birthday! Unfortunately, this is also a really busy time for me at work, so between working late everyday this week and preparing for my trip, I'm not going to have much of a chance to write. But for your entertainment, I've invited a guest blogger to fill in the gaps. I've never used guest bloggers before, although I have lifted posts (verbatim!) from other sites when I was too lazy to write something original. Lol! Relax, I've given credit to the authors! I'd never try to pass off anyone else's writing as my own.
For our first guest blogger, I've enlisted my friend James Davermann. James is a twentysomething professional, smart, funny (hilarious, in fact), extremely observant, and majorly insightful guy. He also asked me to mention that he's SINGLE and looking for a little summer romance. LOL! Anyway, I've never been disappointed with James's writing and I'm excited to share it with you. If you've got questions for James (or want to set up a blind date), you can contact him directly at jdavermann@yahoo.com.
So... this is my last post as a twentysomething. That shit is surreal! And when I return to the blog for my next post, I'll be lovelier (hopefully!), BROWNER, and (Dear God!) one year older...
Toodles,
LBG
Nightclubs are peculiar places. Where else will you find dudes paying 20-30 dollars just to get in while dropping another 50 -100 on watered down drinks for the privilege of dancing w/ females in a cramped, crowded spot to really loud, horrible music?
Personally, i hate those places and stay as far away as i can, but i have a number of friends who insist on dragging me to after work events, parties, birthday parties, etc...all at nightclubs. I'm more likely to just play the wall and observe, and I've seen a pretty interesting cast of characters. Here are a few:
The Usher Wannabee:
You know the outfit. dress shirt. jeans. white air force ones. Topped off With a Blazer and a fitted (baseball cap). Walk into any club on any given day and there will be at least 25 dudes with that exact same outfit on. It's one thing to want to be like Usher so you can bag chicks...but Usher circa 2005?? can we get an update?
The Dude Who's Too Old To Be At The Club:
These are the dudes that just refuse to let go of their glory days. They're not super old, but definitely closer to their 40s than their 20s. Fairly easy to spot. sometimes they'll have one thing on them that gives away their age. It might be a pink suit. A jheri curl. Some orange gators. A perm. Maybe they're carrying a pimp cane. Receding hairline a given. Might have the top buttons on their shirt unbuttoned with plenty of chest hair visible. NO BUENO. Sometimes they'll say stuff that gives them away. like calling girls "sugah". or ordering a "Colt .45" at the bar. Oftentimes they just look like that uncle you see at your family reunion feeling up on all your cousins. They should realize that kicking it to 18 yr olds makes them look even older, like grandpa old.
The Ugly Blocker:
Every group of pretty girls you meet has that ONE ugly chick whose sole purpose is to hate on you. They may not be nearly as attractive as the rest so they make it their mission to c-ck block any man who dares approach a pretty one. Their job is to keep you from bagging any of their friends at all costs...and they do it well. I swear every time i see a group of dimes come in they have one of these with them. The minute you approach the girl you're into her DESIGNATED U.B. springs into action. She'll start rolling her eyes at everything you say, will interrupt you nonstop, and will keep saying slick shyt in her girl's ear. Her body language and constant interference will make it impossible for you to get a rapport going. Here's a sample convo:
dude: excuse me, I...
UGLY BLOCKER (rudely interrupting): AIN'T NOBODY ASK YOU FOR YOUR EXCUSE!
dude: I wasn't talking to you.
UGLY BLOCKER: and you WON'T be talking to my homegirl either! go try to run your game on the next chick cuz she ain't the one!
dude: you don't even know me and you're jumping to conclusions. I'm a good guy and...
UGLY BLOCKER: N---AZ AIN'T SHYT! Come on, girl let's get out of here.
Worse, the pretty girls will look to her to determine whether to give you a shot or not! so if you end up telling the UGLY BLOCKER off, you may as well kiss the friend goodbye. Unless you have a good wingman willing to "take one for the team", your chances of success are slim at best.
The Professional Dancer:
ever start dancing with a girl and she treats it like a Ciara video shoot? She'll start doing backflips, pirouettes, spin moves poplocks...damn! they don't know anything about regular one on one dancing. Same with dudes. instead of grinding on a chick like a normal male, these dudes are out there looking like chris brown's little brother, spinning on their heads and shyt. This ain't Step Up 2! Is anyone really impressed with these displays at a nightclub?
The Fake Lesbians:
Ever been to a club and spotted that group of pretty girls who ONLY want to dance with each other? These ladies will turn down every request to dance-from a male. they will instead dance all over each other, feel each other up, get up on a bar and start doing it, and basically spend the night acting like lesbians. The kicker is they're really straight. Oftentimes they're having a "Girls Night Out" or are just on some man hating shyt (bad breakup, found out they were a jumpoff, etc) and this is the routine they use to keep the thirsty dudes away.
The Real Lesbians:
They do everything the Fake Lesbians do, except that they'll be making out in a corner before the night is over. Most of them go to regular clubs because they don't like clubs with labels (gay, straight, black crowd, white crowd, etc.). It's also probably annoying fighting over girls with the manly butch ones.
Jailbait:
Every club is littered with these 15 and 16 yr. olds trying to act grown. Nowadays you can't even really tell by looks alone. My advice to you: if she giggles alot, thinks you're smarter then you really are, can't accurately describe specifics about her career, wont let you call after 11, always has to meet you or get dropped off at random locations, and seems to be REALLY into you even though you have no prior history of being a ladies' man, you might be looking at 10-20 w/ the possibility of parole in 8.
L.L. COOL J:
This is the dude who is DIESEL AS HELL, but has on a medium shirt and walks around flexing. What a tool. You want nothing more than to pull him aside and say "dude, i can see your heartbeat-please go get a 3XL". But that would be suicide. So you let it rock.
The Pretty Bartender:
You can never tell if they're really flirting with you or just want a better tip. considering i've never managed to successfully date any, but probably handed over hundreds in tips over the years even though i don't drink, i'm inclined to believe the latter.
The Strobelight Honey:
Depending on the lighting in a club, sometimes you'll find yourself grinding on the girl w/ the sexy silhouette. Until the strobelight hits and you catch a glimpse of the face. Yuck. yup, it's the ugly blocker. You then proceed to do the running man.
The Big Girls:
If you're ever bored at the club do yourself a favor and find that group of Big Girls. Guaranteed they're the people having the most fun there. They just don't give a damn. You gotta chill w/ them...if anything just to see what happens when that song "Watchout for the Big Girls" comes on. you won't regret it. Time of your life.
The Thugs:
These dudes are somehow able to make it in despite the dress code. They walk around mean muggin' EVERYONE in the joint...even chicks. They roll deep and have enough drug money in their pockets to buy out the bar. They have more tattoos than the Denver Nuggets. if the song "Ante Up" comes on, hit the deck. The women there will all be strangely drawn to them. Tread lightly, don't make any eye contact, and apologize to them even if they're the ones who bump into you or step on your white kicks. They're the number one reason why clubs in the hood get shot up and your mans still has that champagne bottle stuck in his frontal lobe.
The Antisocial Dime:
Dresses very provocatively, holds on to her drink tightly, and looks like the 2nd coming of Rosalyn Sanchez. Simply put, a very aesthetically beautiful woman. But that's where it ends. Will stand smack dab in the middle of the place by herself....and proceed to turn down EVERY SINGLE MAN who approaches. She won't want to chat, talk, or dance. She will turn her head or roll her eyes if you even try to greet her. I'm still trying to figure out what they're doing in the club in the first place.
The Guy Who Cant Dance:
This dude is a pretty good catch. well dressed, educated, women think he's cute, etc...then some lucky girl will slowly creep up on him after T-Pain comes on, and she'll find herself witnessing a grown man doing the robot. This guy has spent so much time going to school and going to work, he never actually picked up dancing. he's stiff, never seems to get into a rhythm, goes in all the wrong directions, and looks very uncomfortable when a woman puts her a$$ in his crotch. DAMN SHAME.
The Dude Who Can Salsa:
you could be the best looking dude in the room. you can be the richest. you can be the tallest. You can be all three. BUT YOU WON'T STAND A CHANCE AGAINST THE DUDE WHO CAN SALSA. When he comes through, clear the floor. makes the biggest Alpha Male look average in comparison. he will have chicks swooning with his moves. He'll be dipping them, spinning them, and doing things that completely take their breath away. doesn't even matter what he looks like; the chicks will be lining up for this guy. Even if you're there with your wifey she'll be tempted to jump ship. This guy probably has the best chance of pulling a one night stand out of all the dudes in there.
The Single Girl With The Boyfriend:
This girl is actually pretty receptive to your advances initially. maybe you dance a couple of times-VERY closely. go to the bar and chit chat, or just hang out. FOR HOURS. You'll start feeling like you bagged yourself a good one. Not so fast... time and again, and i mean this never fails, she will find the most RANDOM time to tell you she has a BOYFRIEND. It's like clockwork! Never fails to amaze me, the creative way she manages to randomly insert mention of a BOYFRIEND into the conversation right when you've hit it off. you feel even stupider if you've bought her drinks by that point.
sample convo:
YOU: wow, we've danced all night; even to merengue. that's crazy cuz those songs run about 20 minutes
Her: I know, right! I didn't think you'd be able to keep up with me
YOU: Normally I wouldn't. but I was really having a good time
Her: me too. I had fun
You: Glad to hear it. Maybe we should do it again? well, anything else besides dancing, i mean
Her: Definitely! I'd like that.
You: great. so what do you do for fun?
Her: I like to go skiing. What about you?
YOU: Oh, that's cool. I pretty much do anything that keeps the adrenaline going. Skydiving, for example. And i like to race my bike
Her: oh, my BOYFRIEND just got a motorcycle. Those things are scary. He tries to get me to ride with him but I always turn him down. I'm worried he'll hurt himself one day.
YOU: umm...I beg your pardon?
For our first guest blogger, I've enlisted my friend James Davermann. James is a twentysomething professional, smart, funny (hilarious, in fact), extremely observant, and majorly insightful guy. He also asked me to mention that he's SINGLE and looking for a little summer romance. LOL! Anyway, I've never been disappointed with James's writing and I'm excited to share it with you. If you've got questions for James (or want to set up a blind date), you can contact him directly at jdavermann@yahoo.com.
So... this is my last post as a twentysomething. That shit is surreal! And when I return to the blog for my next post, I'll be lovelier (hopefully!), BROWNER, and (Dear God!) one year older...
Toodles,
LBG
Nightclubs are peculiar places. Where else will you find dudes paying 20-30 dollars just to get in while dropping another 50 -100 on watered down drinks for the privilege of dancing w/ females in a cramped, crowded spot to really loud, horrible music?
Personally, i hate those places and stay as far away as i can, but i have a number of friends who insist on dragging me to after work events, parties, birthday parties, etc...all at nightclubs. I'm more likely to just play the wall and observe, and I've seen a pretty interesting cast of characters. Here are a few:
The Usher Wannabee:
You know the outfit. dress shirt. jeans. white air force ones. Topped off With a Blazer and a fitted (baseball cap). Walk into any club on any given day and there will be at least 25 dudes with that exact same outfit on. It's one thing to want to be like Usher so you can bag chicks...but Usher circa 2005?? can we get an update?
The Dude Who's Too Old To Be At The Club:
These are the dudes that just refuse to let go of their glory days. They're not super old, but definitely closer to their 40s than their 20s. Fairly easy to spot. sometimes they'll have one thing on them that gives away their age. It might be a pink suit. A jheri curl. Some orange gators. A perm. Maybe they're carrying a pimp cane. Receding hairline a given. Might have the top buttons on their shirt unbuttoned with plenty of chest hair visible. NO BUENO. Sometimes they'll say stuff that gives them away. like calling girls "sugah". or ordering a "Colt .45" at the bar. Oftentimes they just look like that uncle you see at your family reunion feeling up on all your cousins. They should realize that kicking it to 18 yr olds makes them look even older, like grandpa old.
The Ugly Blocker:
Every group of pretty girls you meet has that ONE ugly chick whose sole purpose is to hate on you. They may not be nearly as attractive as the rest so they make it their mission to c-ck block any man who dares approach a pretty one. Their job is to keep you from bagging any of their friends at all costs...and they do it well. I swear every time i see a group of dimes come in they have one of these with them. The minute you approach the girl you're into her DESIGNATED U.B. springs into action. She'll start rolling her eyes at everything you say, will interrupt you nonstop, and will keep saying slick shyt in her girl's ear. Her body language and constant interference will make it impossible for you to get a rapport going. Here's a sample convo:
dude: excuse me, I...
UGLY BLOCKER (rudely interrupting): AIN'T NOBODY ASK YOU FOR YOUR EXCUSE!
dude: I wasn't talking to you.
UGLY BLOCKER: and you WON'T be talking to my homegirl either! go try to run your game on the next chick cuz she ain't the one!
dude: you don't even know me and you're jumping to conclusions. I'm a good guy and...
UGLY BLOCKER: N---AZ AIN'T SHYT! Come on, girl let's get out of here.
Worse, the pretty girls will look to her to determine whether to give you a shot or not! so if you end up telling the UGLY BLOCKER off, you may as well kiss the friend goodbye. Unless you have a good wingman willing to "take one for the team", your chances of success are slim at best.
The Professional Dancer:
ever start dancing with a girl and she treats it like a Ciara video shoot? She'll start doing backflips, pirouettes, spin moves poplocks...damn! they don't know anything about regular one on one dancing. Same with dudes. instead of grinding on a chick like a normal male, these dudes are out there looking like chris brown's little brother, spinning on their heads and shyt. This ain't Step Up 2! Is anyone really impressed with these displays at a nightclub?
The Fake Lesbians:
Ever been to a club and spotted that group of pretty girls who ONLY want to dance with each other? These ladies will turn down every request to dance-from a male. they will instead dance all over each other, feel each other up, get up on a bar and start doing it, and basically spend the night acting like lesbians. The kicker is they're really straight. Oftentimes they're having a "Girls Night Out" or are just on some man hating shyt (bad breakup, found out they were a jumpoff, etc) and this is the routine they use to keep the thirsty dudes away.
The Real Lesbians:
They do everything the Fake Lesbians do, except that they'll be making out in a corner before the night is over. Most of them go to regular clubs because they don't like clubs with labels (gay, straight, black crowd, white crowd, etc.). It's also probably annoying fighting over girls with the manly butch ones.
Jailbait:
Every club is littered with these 15 and 16 yr. olds trying to act grown. Nowadays you can't even really tell by looks alone. My advice to you: if she giggles alot, thinks you're smarter then you really are, can't accurately describe specifics about her career, wont let you call after 11, always has to meet you or get dropped off at random locations, and seems to be REALLY into you even though you have no prior history of being a ladies' man, you might be looking at 10-20 w/ the possibility of parole in 8.
L.L. COOL J:
This is the dude who is DIESEL AS HELL, but has on a medium shirt and walks around flexing. What a tool. You want nothing more than to pull him aside and say "dude, i can see your heartbeat-please go get a 3XL". But that would be suicide. So you let it rock.
The Pretty Bartender:
You can never tell if they're really flirting with you or just want a better tip. considering i've never managed to successfully date any, but probably handed over hundreds in tips over the years even though i don't drink, i'm inclined to believe the latter.
The Strobelight Honey:
Depending on the lighting in a club, sometimes you'll find yourself grinding on the girl w/ the sexy silhouette. Until the strobelight hits and you catch a glimpse of the face. Yuck. yup, it's the ugly blocker. You then proceed to do the running man.
The Big Girls:
If you're ever bored at the club do yourself a favor and find that group of Big Girls. Guaranteed they're the people having the most fun there. They just don't give a damn. You gotta chill w/ them...if anything just to see what happens when that song "Watchout for the Big Girls" comes on. you won't regret it. Time of your life.
The Thugs:
These dudes are somehow able to make it in despite the dress code. They walk around mean muggin' EVERYONE in the joint...even chicks. They roll deep and have enough drug money in their pockets to buy out the bar. They have more tattoos than the Denver Nuggets. if the song "Ante Up" comes on, hit the deck. The women there will all be strangely drawn to them. Tread lightly, don't make any eye contact, and apologize to them even if they're the ones who bump into you or step on your white kicks. They're the number one reason why clubs in the hood get shot up and your mans still has that champagne bottle stuck in his frontal lobe.
The Antisocial Dime:
Dresses very provocatively, holds on to her drink tightly, and looks like the 2nd coming of Rosalyn Sanchez. Simply put, a very aesthetically beautiful woman. But that's where it ends. Will stand smack dab in the middle of the place by herself....and proceed to turn down EVERY SINGLE MAN who approaches. She won't want to chat, talk, or dance. She will turn her head or roll her eyes if you even try to greet her. I'm still trying to figure out what they're doing in the club in the first place.
The Guy Who Cant Dance:
This dude is a pretty good catch. well dressed, educated, women think he's cute, etc...then some lucky girl will slowly creep up on him after T-Pain comes on, and she'll find herself witnessing a grown man doing the robot. This guy has spent so much time going to school and going to work, he never actually picked up dancing. he's stiff, never seems to get into a rhythm, goes in all the wrong directions, and looks very uncomfortable when a woman puts her a$$ in his crotch. DAMN SHAME.
The Dude Who Can Salsa:
you could be the best looking dude in the room. you can be the richest. you can be the tallest. You can be all three. BUT YOU WON'T STAND A CHANCE AGAINST THE DUDE WHO CAN SALSA. When he comes through, clear the floor. makes the biggest Alpha Male look average in comparison. he will have chicks swooning with his moves. He'll be dipping them, spinning them, and doing things that completely take their breath away. doesn't even matter what he looks like; the chicks will be lining up for this guy. Even if you're there with your wifey she'll be tempted to jump ship. This guy probably has the best chance of pulling a one night stand out of all the dudes in there.
The Single Girl With The Boyfriend:
This girl is actually pretty receptive to your advances initially. maybe you dance a couple of times-VERY closely. go to the bar and chit chat, or just hang out. FOR HOURS. You'll start feeling like you bagged yourself a good one. Not so fast... time and again, and i mean this never fails, she will find the most RANDOM time to tell you she has a BOYFRIEND. It's like clockwork! Never fails to amaze me, the creative way she manages to randomly insert mention of a BOYFRIEND into the conversation right when you've hit it off. you feel even stupider if you've bought her drinks by that point.
sample convo:
YOU: wow, we've danced all night; even to merengue. that's crazy cuz those songs run about 20 minutes
Her: I know, right! I didn't think you'd be able to keep up with me
YOU: Normally I wouldn't. but I was really having a good time
Her: me too. I had fun
You: Glad to hear it. Maybe we should do it again? well, anything else besides dancing, i mean
Her: Definitely! I'd like that.
You: great. so what do you do for fun?
Her: I like to go skiing. What about you?
YOU: Oh, that's cool. I pretty much do anything that keeps the adrenaline going. Skydiving, for example. And i like to race my bike
Her: oh, my BOYFRIEND just got a motorcycle. Those things are scary. He tries to get me to ride with him but I always turn him down. I'm worried he'll hurt himself one day.
YOU: umm...I beg your pardon?
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