Yet Another Single Gal

A strange phenomenon occurs whenever a group of single people in their 30s and 40s gather. If the gathering has any potential for socializing– a dinner party, an informal networking event or even a work-related meeting at a casual spot – the conversation turns to dating. It happens unintentionally. It can be triggered by any number of factors. I would imagine this diversion into the complications of dating in the 21st century happens in much the same way that partnered people who assemble for other purposes eventually end up swapping stories of crazy in-laws, challenging children and clueless companions who simultaneously make their lives more difficult and more manageable.

The discussions can get heated. I have come to realize that the main reason why they often get so intense and go well into the night is because there is often an inbalance of hormones at these gatherings. Usually the room in which the “the dating game” debate takes place is permeated with 83% of estrogen. The faint whiff of testosterone is often fading away into a mere memory by the time the debate has waged into its third or fourth round.

I’ve noticed recurring complaints at these impromptu town hall meetings.

Men: Women expect too damn much. They want the world and the blueprints for the galaxy you plan to build them by the third month of dating or they thrust an eye rolled “I can’t be wasting my time on you” right into the tenderest part of your heart, twist it around and sink it in deeper, just before strutting out the door.

Women: Men judge them too harshly. And on the wrong things. They are “blinded by the booty.” Particularly, in a city like New York where biscuit-needing models roam the city’s streets with their perfectly toned frames and freakishly flat stomachs as if their physical superiority is the norm. If a woman is smart, funny, strong, independent and even low maintenance, a man will STILL choose the pretty girl with the nice boobs who reads at a 7th grade level.

The topics sometimes change, but the respective complaints that the defense and the prosecution present…well, those remain stagnant for the most part.

Once, at a barbecue that was SUPPOSED to be a leisurely day of cueing, drinking and talking about nonsense, a Y chromosome picked a fight with the X chromosomes who for once, were too disinterested or too drunk to hurl “Why men act like they do” questions at the poor helpless Y chromosomes who stare ahead into nothingness like 8th graders being presented with a test they never knew they were going to have in a subject that had never made any sense to them.  His complaint: Women who base their decision to go out with a man again on how much money he spent on the first date.  “You should be going out with me because you dig me,” he asserted with such fervor it made me wonder just how recently some woman had strung him along just for a series of free meals.  “It shouldn’t matter if I spend money or not; you should accept the date because you are interested in me.”

An X-Chromosome told him he was out of his friggin’ mind if he really believed merely gracing a woman with his company for a few hours was enough to make said woman want more of his presence.  “I’m grown,” several women reminded the Y-chromosome.  “I am not in high school or college anymore.  Sitting on your futon and eating your leftovers while watching your favorite DVD is not cute.  Neither is it quant.  Take me to a movie.  Buy me a meal.  Or don’t call me.  Ever again.”

The Y-Chromosome grumbled.  Sought back up from his brethren.  His brethren recognized the abundance of estrogen in the backyard that afternoon as potential dates on whom they could spend money.  They looked on silently, allowing their short-sighted brother to continue hanging himself since he seemed hell bent on doing so, anyway.

Another time, I tagged along with a friend to have a few cocktails with her co-workers. Four women.  One guy.  The prosectuion presented its case: Working women have too much going on to worry about looking and behaving like the primitive male fantasy of women.  The lead attorney on the case was in the early stages of breaking up with a long term boyfriend and was ruminating on the daunting endeavor of “putting myself back out on the market.”  She was timidly knocking on  40’s door  and hadn’t put on a push up bra and a tastefully low cut blouse and sat across from a man in whom she was mildly interested in half a decade.  The idea of having to do it now irritated her. 

The defense spoke bluntly: “Here’s the deal: Whether you are a size 6 or a size 16.  If you are 23 or 43.  Fact is: you have to keep yourself up.  You have to look good, put together.  At least give us something to fantasize about when we first start going out.”  The defense went on to explain that whether or not women liked it, a man’s eyes didn’t linger on a woman at first meeting because she could engage in a great conversation or because he could envision her reading to their kids every night.  His interest was piqued by HOW SHE LOOKED.   How attracitve he found her.  And it was an attraction that had nothing to do with her charm, her intelligence, her open heartedness and all that other deep stuff women factored into whether or not they found a  man attractive.

The X-chromosomes were not happy.  And unlike the Y-chromosomes from the barbecue, they joined forces even before the defense attorney had a chance to present his closing argument.  Phrases such as sexist pig, think with the right head, men are dumb/simple/a pain in the ass were thrown around both playfully and with a little bit of malice.

After sitting through dozens of these town halls, I have ascertained that there is an undertone to these redundant complaints.  The beef that the Y-chromosome from the barbecue has with dating has little to do with women occasionally taking advantage of the expectation that he impress them with a date that shows off his financial success.  He fully expects to pay for her meal and movie ticket, can afford to pay and is eager to treat a woman to a nice evening out. The beef that the soon-to-be single woman has with dating isn’t about the expectation that women must use their outer beauty to obtain a man’s interest.  She has the beauty, anyway.  When and if she does put herself back on the market, she will have no problems catching the eyes of available men.

The real beef lies in what I once heard a man say when he complained that back when he was struggling financially, women didn’t give him the time of day.  They would tell him that they wanted a man who could bring something to the table and to give them a call when he was able to do so.  “I don’t think that’s fair,” he said.

God bless his delusional heart, I remember thinking.  He actually expects dating to be fair.

I think many singles expect the same thing. This illusion of a progressive, modern society where men and women are completely equal has led many of us to convince ourselves that what is expected of men and women in romantic encounters has also evolved with the times.  Unlike generations before us, we find it diffcult to accept that who we are, our wonderful uniqueness, is really not enough to get a mate.  That there are a host of biased judgments that a potential partner makes about us before he or she decides to date us, let alone commit to us in a meaningful way.  Men really want to believe that since women are now financially independent, we are not nearly as concerned with their ability to support and provide for us as women from previous generations.  She wants me just for me.  Women want to believe that how they look doesn’t matter.   That it is really our wit, our intellect, our vivacious personality that prompts men to ask for our phone number. These 21^st century men are different, we tell ourselves.  They want depth.  They want me just for me.   

Oh, if only it were that simple. 

There are some unfortunate truths about dating.  Truths that our parents and grandparents accepted without much thought.  Truths that ordered their lives and normally resulted in less town hall meetings about the unfairness of dating.  Perhaps they didn’t have to call these meetings like we do because they were too busy marrying; not dating.

Truth: If you are a heterosexual woman who seeks the company of a heterosexual male, it would benefit you to watch your weight.  It would benefit you to pay attention to your appearance when you leave the house.  While most men don’t expect you to have Tyra’s boobs and Halle’s face, they will base their decision to go out with you on how you look.  It is not fair.  It is truth.  An inconvenient one if you are a woman who is not naturally inclined to think about such frivolous matters as your hair, your dress size, make up and what not.  Here’s another truth: the woman who does devote some brain space to these silly matters will spend more Saturday nights in the company of hetereosexual males than you.  Not fair.  Just truth.

Truth: If you are male, your charm and “niceness” aren’t enough.  Yes, women want men who are kind.  They will give you their time and attention even if you are not making six figures.  But, simply being in your presence and basking in the glow of your “good man” status is not enough.  You will have to plan dates.  You will have to pay for them.  You will have to make effort.  She will take your decision to open up your wallet on a date as a sign that you are vested in her.  If you go the other way, so will she.  It is terribly unfair.  Particularly, if you are one of those nice, sensitive guys with so much to offer a woman.  The thing about truth is: While it does set you free, it is also indifferent to fairness.  This is inconvenient if you are a good guy who happens to be taking longer than most to live up to your potential.  Here’s some more truth: Until you live up to that potential, there is a good chance that you will be dateless most weekends.

No, dating is not fair.  One final truth: If dating were fair, the word lonely would not be in the dictionary.

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By the time she’s in her 30s, the average single gal has spent approximately 758 hours deeply engrossed in the complex, maze-like game of Deciphering the Y Chromosome.  A major stage at which this game starts (and often ends since it can easily encompass at least half of those 758 hours) is Figuring Out the Brain of the Y Chromosome.  We single gals embark on this journey of figuring out what the hell goes on in those brains of men over drinks at happy hour when we’ve just met a new one, curled up in the fetal position on living room floors after breaking up with one, and quite often we endeavor to Figure out the Brain of the Y Chromosome when we’re engaged in a conversation with the chromosome itself.

We know we shouldn’t.  To exert so much energy on a game that has been played by our mothers and grandmothers who have only been able to bestow this brilliant discovery on many of us: “Men are…not women. Good luck.”  But, we do anyhow.  We are strong, independent women; seeking out needless challenges that only promise to frustrate and exhaust us is just what we do.

Several days ago, I had dinner with two good Black men.  I’ve known these good Black men since we were teenagers and they were two good Black boys. One is married; the other is newly single after having been in a long term relationship that produced an adorable little girl.  Since both of these good Black men are my platonic friends, I thought it would be advantageous to play another round of Figuring Out the Y Chromosome with them.  Authors of dating self-help books continually suggest that women stop talking amongst themselves about what goes on in the heads of men and go right to the source.  What these relationship “experts” neglect to also mention is if a curious single gal wants an uncensored peek into the male brain, she should make it her goal to talk with a male with whom she is NOT having sex and with whom the chance of naked activities in the foreseeable future is very minimal.

Hence, my childhood friends: Roger and Greg.

According to Roger: “All women are crazy.  It is a matter of how crazy your woman is that determines whether or not you marry her.”  Roger has just completed his sixth year of marriage.  Apparently, Roger’s big brother has been married even longer than he has.  Roger credits his brother’s theory on the universal insanity of women for making it easier to argue with his wife, particularly when he’d like an argument to end in a concrete resolution.  

“See, it’s like when y’all say you want to deal with the problem, that’s not really true.  You really want to deal with how you feel about the problem AND the problem itself.”  Roger says after 6 years of marriage, he still has not figured out when his wife wants him to do either one.  When he tries to go right to addressing (and fixing) the problem, he is asked: “Can’t you just listen to me for once?”  When he spends the first few minutes of a conflict saying absolutely nothing, he is then in trouble for not doing anything to work on whatever the problem is.  (Sometimes, Roger is not sure what the argument itself is about or why his wife is displeased.)  According to Roger, this is quite stressful to men and further proves his brother’s theory about every woman firmly foot holding a spot on the continuum of crazy.

We exhaust men.  We have a lot of emotions and feelings and thoughts and needs swirling around all at once.  We can not turn off all of that complexity so they have to keep dealing with it.  Everyday.  

We can be tiring.

When I shared my suspicion that while men may not be as complex as women, they are in fact much more complicated than they admit, Greg was quick to jump in. “Yeah, those few times when we are complicated and emotionally complex it is when we’re trying to figure out what to say to y’all, how to say it and when to say it and keeping in mind how you will hear it, how you will feel about it and most of all, if what we say will make you happy with us.  Or at least, mildly pleased.  When we’re not doing all that…we’re simple creatures.”

So, apparently our insanity is the sole catalyst for men’s occasional descent into complexity.  

I want to stress that these two men with whom I had dinner are in fact, GOOD BLACK MEN.  That elusive category of male many women have been fooled into believing died off around 1983 or so.  Roger and Greg are not good black men merely because they have good jobs and ambitions and the restraint to not hit women when they are angered.  They are good men where it really matters.  Men who know right from wrong and govern their lives accordingly.  Men, who are flawed and no doubt have deserved the occasional shoe being thrown at their heads by the “crazy” women in their lives, but for the most part, honor and respect women.  Men who try to protect the women they love and raise their daughters with a strong sense of how they should be treated by the man they will eventually love after Daddy.

Even these type of men believe women have a screw (or two) missing?  Father, help us.

By the time we were wrapping up our meal, I was determined to make this round of Figuring Out The Male Brain result in a victory for me.  There have been so few over the years.  Since I do not see Roger and Greg very often, I wanted this dinner to be symbolic.  To represent the one time when I can truly tell my girlfriends I have gained some crucial insight into the Y chromosome that will unlock decades worth of confusion and mind-numbing misunderstandings.  

I wanted to know what was so difficult about having to deal with more than one emotion at once.  I explained to Roger that perhaps what causes his wife to get frustrated with his inability to know when to react with immediate action and when to switch gears and just listen is because she does it all the time, with little thought.  Her friends do it as well.  You need me to address this conflict while still acknowledging how upset/afraid/worried you are about the conflict?  Okay, done.  And if you don’t mind, while I’m doing that I’ll also call and reschedule my doctor’s appointment and lecture my kid about that D in Math, too.

It is second nature to us.  Being intuitive to a person’s needs and shape shifting to fit those needs before changing gears and dealing with that person in a different way.  Isn’t it just a matter of multi-tasking?  

“Why can’t you people just get better at multi tasking?”  Isn’t there one of those “dummy” books for this significant skill?

The good Black men looked at each other and then me.  I waited for just one little secret piece to be revealed.  Some insight that would declare victory.

“Look,” Greg said.  “We just don’t do it that well.  One thing at a time, please.  That’s all we ask.”

Roger smiled in agreement.

So, after another energizing round of Figuring Out the Y Chromosome, I have this to report:

Men are…not women.  Good luck!

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When I was 20 years old, I went on a date with a married man.  Breaking bread with an adulterer was involuntary on my part.  When you’re 20, you do not automatically look at a man’s ring finger when he introduces himself to you.  You figure it is only “odd” that he doesn’t offer you his home phone number (particularly, in the mid-90’s when a home phone line was more than something you only needed for an internet connection).  When a 20 year old woman accepts a date from a man a bit older than she, it never occurs to her that there is something amiss when he asks her out after two quick phone calls that took place after midnight and lasted about 3 minutes and 26 seconds each.  She puts on a nice pair of pumps and a cute dress.  She goes on the date.

I remember that date well.  Midway through my scrumptious turtle soup, this odd stranger changed the tone of our light banter by casually announcing: “I’m married; is that gonna bother you?” I distinctly recall thinking, Huh?  Is this how men go about having affairs? They just announce they are whoring around and then the infidelity commences?  How so unromantic.  Prior to this dinner, I held on to the rather quaint image of how affairs happen.  Man and Woman spot each other in the office (or at church) and exchange a pointed “look.”  One (or both) is married so they quickly turn their eyes away.  Perhaps redden a bit.  Man and Woman spend several months (or years) avoiding one another, occasionally coming into contact and reddening some more.  They slip up and agree to serve together on the organizational committee for the company picnic (or annual tent revival).  As they harmlessly chit chat while planning, they realize that their passion is unbridled.  Although they both fight the urges, they end up ravishing one another in the back pew after prayer meeting (or on the copy machine after everyone’s gone to happy hour).  I did not condone the Man and Woman’s immoral behavior, but this image made adultery more comprehensible to me.  In my mind, married folks did not go out looking to betray their spouses.  Affairs happened when people were not paying attention; when they couldn’t avoid it.

The married man who sat across the table from me 14 years ago truly stunned me.  I knew I would end up storming out of the restaurant (after I finished my soup, of course).  But, I was so intrigued by his casual offer to make me his mistress.  I think after he made the “I’m married” proclamation, he nonchalantly broke off a piece of french bread, buttered it and made a comment about how he loved this restaurant because the bread was always fresh.  “I hate stale bread…especially stale french bread.”  I stared at him for a few seconds, trying to find a way to participate in this conversation.  I managed a stammered, “Uh…you’re married?  Uhm…then, why…I don’t understand…this is a date, isn’t it?”  He chuckled and patted my arm.  It was this condescending gesture that finally moved me from bewildered to irate.  I asked him why he would ask me out on a date if he already had a wife.  “Why the hell am I here?”  I wondered.  He told me I was cute.  And seemed nice.  So, he thought he’d at least give it a shot.  “But, if you can’t handle it, then you know, I can understand that.  Not everyone is mature enough to handle such an arrangement.”

I got over my anger really quickly and chuckled myself.  I found his attempt to belittle me into sleeping with him so obvious and so counterproductive that I could no longer sustain anger.  Even at 20, I recognized that insulting a woman was probably not the best strategy to get her into your bed.  I finished my soup, informed him that he was probably going to go to hell and drove home.

Over the years there have been a handful of men who have just as casually mentioned the existence of a wife and a desire to “spend some time” with me in the same breathe.  At 34, I am no longer stunned by it.  I am still repulsed by it, but at this point I can spot an adulterer within a few minutes of his engaging me in conversation.  

So, last week when I walked into a friend’s dinner party and an attractive guy sat down next to me and began chatting me up, I took a quick look at his ring finger, silently admired he and his wife’s superb taste in jewelry and waited to see where the conversation would go.   The dinner party went well into the night.  Through out the evening, Aaron the adulterer made vaguely inappropriate inquiries into my private life.  All I laughed off with, “Stay out of grown folks business, bruh.”  Aaron circled the room and mingled with the other guests, occasionally coming back to sit next to me and make inappopriate comments until I no longer had the motivation to even blow him off.  I just ignored the comments altogether.

As the sun threatened to peek through the sky, Aaron the adulterer offered to drive all the women home.  Because of our chatting at the party, I knew that Aaron lived a few blocks away from me.  I knew that all the other women in Aaron’s car did not.  They lived far away from where the party was taking place, but not as far as Aaron and myself .  I knew that I would be the last woman in Aaron’s car who was being dropped off.  I knew Aaron would ask me to sleep with him.

After the last woman said good night and thanked Aaron for the ride, he turned to me and asked me two things.  Programming his GPS, he asked for my address and then he asked: “So, are you looking for company tonight?”  The only thing that stunned me was how dully predictable this scene was. I answered that I made it a point not to keep company with married men.  “But, thanks for checking to see if I was interested.  Particularly, the phrasing: Looking for company.  As if you just want to sit on the sofa and watch a movie and maybe, have some lemonade at 5 o’clock in the morning.”  Aaron came back with a quick inquiry: “It’s that serious to you, huh?”  He looked perturbed when I told him that yes, I was inflexible on my rule not to help a man betray the woman to whom he had committed his life.

Aaron the adulterer told me I sounded like a preacher.  (And this is where the standard “Will you be my ho” negotiation got a bit more interesting.)

Aaron tried to assuage any potential guilt I might feel by explaining keeping company with him could work out for both of us.  See, it wasn’t like he would be all clingy and be calling me and bothering me all the time.  We could have a good time and keep it at that.  I wouldn’t have to worry about “a brother being all in your face all the time.”  I nodded as Aaron argued his case. “So, you plan on sleeping with me and then never speaking to me again.”    I swooped my arms up and cupped by heart, threw in a pair of faux-doe eyes and let out an elongated exhale. “Wow, I feel like a princess.”

Aaron pressed on.  I think the innumerable cocktails he had consumed at the 7-hour dinner party rewarded him with an unbelievable resolve.  He told me he knew people like me.  People who made a big deal about stuff like this.  “I guess I’m different; it really isn’t that big of a deal to me.”  

Yeah, I kind of figured that out, bruh.

When we were about 10 minutes away from my apartment, Aaron the adulterer finally accepted that he would have to settle for having sex with his wife in the immediate future.  At this point in the night, he turned into one of those people who commits all manner of debauchery while drunk or high and then wakes up the next morning looking for a priest.  “I hope you don’t think I’m some sort of scum bag,” he asked with a level of sincerity that threw me off for a quick second.  “It’s not like I go around looking for this.  Just that, you know…I like your style and you were saying things tonight that made sense.  You’re smart.  You think before you voice your opinion; that’s cool.”

I should explain that the dinner party had taken place ALL UP IN Brooklyn.  I live ALL UP IN the Bronx.  I travelled three boroughs just to attend.  Although he was an adulterer, Aaron had proven himself to be a nice guy.  He saved me at least two hours on the train (during late night subway schedules which normally mean, just count your blessings if one comes every half hour or so).  I figured I could be his priest in exchange.  What was the harm in absolving him of his sins.  I listened as Aaron explained that he had never “done anything” before and that he hoped he wasn’t coming off as a jerk.  “Really, I’m not some scum bag,” he insisted.

“Dude, only God can judge you,” I offered to him.  “I am not God.  I am just the woman who won’t be sleeping with you.  Whether or not you are a scum bag is between you, your wife and the God you both serve.”

Sadly, these words did not offer Aaron the solace I had intended them to.  He looked offended.  Even as I thanked him for the ride and exited his car, there was a hint of disgust in his eyes.  (Or perhaps I was half asleep in the first place and imagined him being offended instead of plain ole indifferent.)

A week later, the stunned outrage that once boiled in my 20 year old feminist veins years ago has yet to even come to a healthy simmer now.  Perhaps it is just the shedding of naivete or the building of a fortress of cynicism that makes me find the conversation with Aaron absolutely hilarious.  While I know that the image I nursed about romantic affairs is probably more a prototype for romance novels than the standard for real life adultery, there is a part of me that wonders if this is what is truly sad about modern day infidelity? The fact that men like Aaron probably go into a marriage with no intention to remain faithful.  That when they do take on a “side piece,” she really is just that.  A woman who has the honor of getting sex from you when your wife is out of town or just away from the house for an afternoon.  There is no pretense of a connection. No attempt to feign even the most basic of concern for your “piece” as a woman with whom you have some sort of relationship, albeit a tenuous one. 

“I won’t bother you and be all up in your face,” Aaron proposed as a means of selling me on this infidelity thing.  So, thus, some married men want to continue their lives as single men in every sense of the word.  In the state of modern-day male-female relationships, even affairs have been drained of romantic courtship.  A single married man has no qualms about breaking his vows to his wife and no desire for his dating life to change simply because he has put a ring on some woman’s finger.  He is so indifferent that he doesn’t even save his shredding of vows for a former lover who resurfaced in his life or a true accident that occurred when he let his guard down and allowed his “office crush” to get too close to him. 

Since I have never had an affair, I am not sure how romantic they are.  I do wonder, however, if the modern version of cheating is as unfeeling, as impersonal, as removed from any real connection to another human being as just about everything else in the 21st century.

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I sometimes wish I were a loser.  Or at least a person who is content with a mediocre life, a safe, guaranteed 80 plus years of comfort and certainty.  While I am quite vocal about my bewilderment with such “average janes,” I do secretly envy these complacent souls.  I have a suspicion that these people do not spend a lot of time trying to “become.”  I am fairly certain that the reward of complacency is a life emptied of stress, anxiety, frustration and similar emotions that those of us who obsess over self-fulfillment and personal growth know at an intimate level.

Last week I found myself on a hill, questioning why “becoming” was so important to me.  Actually, the truth is I found myself crawling up a friggin’ mountain (ominously named “Breakneck Ridge”) quietly cussing out the friend who had convinced me to hike up said mountain.  The serene, vigorous stroll through the forest I had envisioned when this friend described the hike was threatening to become an extensive, 8-hour climb up and over hundreds of rocks and through trails that involved my having to slide down more rocks on my butt.  (The hike made good on its threat, by the way.  A week later, I am just now able to sit cross-legged on the floor without asking for help.)

When the evil friend who shall remain nameless (Nicholas L. Handville who currently resides in Fort Greene, Brooklyn) called to invite me on the hike, I was wallowing in my annoying state of becoming.  Becoming a woman who takes risks. Becoming a woman who runs, wide eyed and open armed, to the unfamiliar.  A woman who has big enough balls to fail.  A woman who does new stuff.  I was ruminating on this concept of “Just say yes, Girl!”  Pretend you’re a really cool Nike commercial from the 90’s.  JUST. DO. IT.  When Nick invited me to possibly break my neck scaling this ridge, I was recommitting myself to an experiment I began months ago.  Simply put: I would say yes to anything someone asked me to do…unless it involved crack or Tyler Perry movies.  So, Nick caught me at a particularly weak moment.  He asked me to climb up Breakneck Ridge and I had no choice but to say yes.  To just do it.  While I am not a hardcore outdoorsy girl who hikes for 8 hours, I reasoned, I can become one.  After all, I live to become.  

I will spare you the details of my forays into whining and refusing to take certain trails and having to be hoisted up rocks several times by patient “outdoorsy” people who smiled at me akin to the manner in which I smile at the student who raises her hand to answer a question that was asked 20 minutes earlier.  My 8 hour debacle in its hiliraious detail is not the focal point of this entry.  What the hike made me realize is the focal point.

Before the hike began, I looked up Breakneck Ridge at the collection of boulders that were piling on top of one another adding to the already extensive incline and thought about the massive amount of courage I would have to muster just to tentatively place one foot on the too-smooth surface.  I found myself almost breathless at how  difficult this was for me.  It was not the doing of it that was difficult.  It was the summoning of courage that rendered me almost useless before the hike even began.

Several times throughout the hike, I made note of this.  Before I could even think about how difficult it would be to scale a rock that sat wedged a gazillion feet above solid ground, I had to find the courage to convince myself to do it.  Then I had to dig for even more courage to actually do it.  Before I could do anything, I already needed to have conjured up copious amounts of courage.

And this is perhaps why becoming exhausts me.  To become anything involves having to silence a host of irrational fears (or at least ignore them) long enough to convince yourself that yes, you are able to do this.  The fear I felt on Breakneck Ridge is quite similar to the fear I feel when I attempt to make new friends.  I hear the same voice questioning me. Asking, “But, what if…”  The fear I felt on Breakneck Ridge is similar to the fear I feel when I write a query letter to yet another agent.  The same condescending, “But, what if…”  It is the same fear that causes me to labor for hours over spending more money than I’d budgeted for on any non-essential item.  An accusatory, “But, what if…”  In each occasion, I am sometimes awed at how the difficulty lies in the ability to convince myself that everything will be just fine if I talk to the smiling stranger, approach Edwidge Danticat’s agent, spend the extra 20 bucks on a backpack I will only use a handful of times.  And if things aren’t fine, in the comical way the Universe works…that, too, will be just fine.

Aside from the tenacity it takes to become the woman you want to be.  Forgetting about the devotion to evolving as a human.  It is the courage inherent in transforming into the woman the Universe has planned for you to be that seems to be the most difficult.  Courage does not come easy for many.  It is an intangible, elusive must-have that is a lot easier not to even bother searching for.  The average janes know this.  It stands to reason that they are a lot smarter than we “strivers” acknowledge.  Becoming is probably why I value naps as much as I do.

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Almost six months ago a casual acquaintance of mine disappeared.  Vanished into thin air.

For four days no one could find her.  The mutual friend we have in common had planned on hanging out with her and noted that she had not called a day or so before to confirm that they were getting together later in the week.  At first she rationalized that her friend of several years was just busy.  She had been in the final stages of defending her dissertation, for goodness sake. It stood to reason that she just could not find five free minutes to check in and see if they were still having drinks and a snack.  A little voice  in the back of her head grew louder, though.  Something is amiss, the voice demanded. Check on Paula.  

A few phone calls to friends and dozens of phone calls to Manhattan hospitals later, Paula was discovered.  Four days prior to the search for her, Paula had taken a nasty fall in the train station.  She cracked her head open and was rushed to the nearest hospital.  She couldn’t call her friends to reschedule appointments because she had been unconscious.

Paula is unmarried, unpartnered and several large bodies of water away from home and family.  

Paula is me.

Although I have worked vigorously to overcome it, I am a woman who is ruled by fear.  I am a self-proclaimed punk ass.  I cover my eyes at not only horror flicks, but action flicks with too many things blowing up at once.  I horde money in my savings account because of the vague possibility that I can end up unemployed and destitute at any given moment.  Upon seeing a mouse, I not only yell at the top of my lungs, but I also have been known to run into my bedroom, shut the door and call a friend who lives in Brooklyn, begging him to travel cross-borough and “rid my home of the rodent.”

Paula’s disappearance represents one of my greatest fears.  The fear that finds me lying on the floor of my apartment after having fallen from a ladder because I innocently wanted to change the light bulb in my bathroom.  No one comes to my house daily but me.  While I do have friends to whom I speak and with whom I socialize on a fairly regular basis, it is not unusual for me to go a week without hearing from those friends.  While we normally count those brief absences from each other’s lives as a case of “she’s busy,” what happens when that is not the case?

When Paula’s story was relayed at a group outing, I excused myself to go to the restroom. (I do this also when some movie decides to blow off some person’s head amid exploding cars or have a particularly brutal act committed on a child.)  I had a very visceral reaction to Paula’s accident and the fact that she could have lied in that hospital bed for another four days had our mutual friend not thought to listen to (and heed) the Universe’s whisper.

In the months that have passed, I have questioned why her story shook  me so.  Aside from the obvious concern that I could die if I had an accident and no one was around to come to my immediate aid, Paula’s story reiterated what smart single women, happy or otherwise, have always known.  A woman can definitely live this life without a man.  She can not live it alone, though.

For that was what unsettled me so when I heard Paula’s story.  She could have died because she was alone.  She, like so many of us, roamed Manhattan in this fog of “When something bad happens…” and that is where the statement ends.  Those who are partnered have a built in completion to that statement.  “….someone will call my husband/live-in boyfriend.”  The challenge presented to single gals is to find a completion to that statement so you are not a ghost for four days.  To do the extra work of connecting with people whom you love and who love you and making sure neither of you is attempting to walk the minefield that is modern-day life alone.

And that is what I fear the most.  Not never marrying.  But, living this life alone.  Before Paula’s story, I just thought it seemed terribly boring.  But, Paula has taught me that it is also incredibly dangerous.  If we kick ass, take over the world women are going to go forth solo, we need to create the systems that are automatic advantages of being married.  Someone who is responsible for you.  Someone who can be called within a moment’s notice for emergencies both large and small.  Someone who the many people on the periphery of your life knows is your “keeper.”  

I wonder if women who fret over STILL BEING SINGLE, really bemoan the lack of a husband mainly because husbands make stories like Paula’s less fearful.  More certain.  The laws of romantic love and legal matrimony by default give you a “keeper.”  Perhaps marriage creates less work in this sense.  I fall.  Crack my head.  Husband comes.  I do not die alone.

It has become clearer to me over the years that in fact, no woman is an island; nor should she be.  While there is no replacement for a mate in a woman’s life, she can arm herself with a companion, a person who is bound to her.  Such a bind needs to exist in a single gal’s life.

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Dear Fine Ass Dude From Trina’s Barbecue the Other Weekend:

Yes, we had a nice flirtation going on for about 15 or 20 minutes. When I walked in, I saw you get that, “Hey, new pussy” look that men who look like you often get when a woman who does not normally run in their social circle cruises into a party that rarely has new people. Your determination to make sure I and every other person in Trina’s backyard knew who you were was not very sexy, but those biceps and bald head made up for the slightly obnoxious behavior you displayed throughout the barbecue.

Mid way through our back and forth flirtation, you mentioned another party you were thinking about going to later on. You asked if I might be there as well. I thought for a second about saying yes although I was pretty tuckered out from Trina’s barbecue and am at a point in my life where hopping from party to party so as not to go home “too early” does not appeal to me. In case you were wondering why I never got back to you with a definitive yes or no, I want to share a perfectly harmless moment I just happened to catch in the corner of my eye.

One of the women with whom you are sleeping and who thinks she is your girlfriend walked into Trina’s living room from the kitchen. She was munching on a slice of cake when she slipped in next to you on the sofa. You chuckled as you asked, “I thought you were on a diet?” She guffawed and slapped you across the head. Both of you laughed. You laughed heartily as you poked her in the belly and noted, “You’re getting a little soft there, huh?”

Now, I could write a long diatribe about what an assholey thing that was to say to a woman. Particularly a woman who has an amazing body that could take the hit of a little “softness.” But, that would be off topic. Your comment in of itself was not what brought me to the conclusion that I would not be attending the party later on or giving you my phone number.

Fine Ass Dude, I am not the woman whom you seek. I have met men like you once or twice. I have had very candid conversations with them. You, Fine Ass Dude, strike me as a man who prefers that his woman keep it “tight and right.” While you would not “require” her to have a flat stomach that looks good in a two-piece bathing suit and arms that give Michelle Obama a run for her money, you would be severely disappointed if she did not possess these attributes. You would expect your woman to put the maintaining of a shapely, toned physique at the top of her priority list.

Hence, I am not the woman you seek.

Let’s be clear here, this is not a letter bemoaning how difficult it is to keep a body “tight and right.” Nor, is it veiled remorse that I am not toned enough to date you. It is simply an acknowledgment that had I gone out with you and pursued any type of relationship with you, our time together would have been quite brief. Because the things that are important to you are… well…Fine Ass Dude, they are simply non-issues for me.

I am well aware that I sport a slight baby bump although I am not actually carrying a baby in my bump. I am not blind to the flapping of my arms as I wave to a friend from across the street. The thing is neither of these things bother me enough to obsess over or even think about on a regular basis. If we were to date, I get the impression that at some point you would wonder why I am doing nothing more at the gym than taking a spin class or playing around on the treadmill. You would wonder why I am not aspiring to wear that two piece to the beach when we go away for the weekend. And that’s the problem Fine Ass Dude…only YOU would be concerning yourself with such worries. See, I have already figured out how my relationship with free weights works: I train with them once or twice a summer before I get bored and annoyed that they add an extra 20 minutes to my workout and never pick them up again until the following summer. I don’t fret about looking good in a two-piece bathing suit because Macy’s has a diverse selection of really cute one piece suits in which I look quite appetizing. Perhaps if Macy’s stopped carrying attractive one pieces, I would find motivation to get into that two piece.

Okay, that was an out and out lie, Fine Ass Dude. I would probably just go to Filene’s Basement.

Please do not think that this letter is a judgment. (only God can judge you, Bruh. Judgment is above my pay grade.) While this entire paragraph can be loaded with righteous indignation and a call for women to love their bodies for what they are, the thing is…it really is not that deep when I think about it. You want what you want. And there are more than a few women in this great city who can give you exactly what you want. Therefore, you should date one of them; not me.

I am a woman who exerts a lot of energy worrying about a lot of stuff.  Much of the stuff I fret over I can not control, which causes me to fret even more, actually.  I have parents who continue to age even though I repeatedly ask them to stop doing that foolishness.  I have a lump on my head that may or may not be a tumor.  I itch in the middle of the night.  I need to remodel my bathroom on a teacher’s salary.  My little brother is wasting away his youth and refuses to use his best years to actually accomplish something.  In the grand scheme of things, I really can not afford to waste perfectly good anxiety on the pursuit of a body that is “tight and right.”

So, in short…it is best that we remain really distant acquaintances who sometimes run into each other at random social events.  Again, I want for you the exact same thing I want for me.  TO GET WHAT YOU  WANT.  A woman who is not me.

I wish you well in all your future endeavors.

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I am the proud mother of a 5 year old daughter.

If any of you are surprised by this birth announcement, you are not alone.  So am I.

I was unaware that five years ago I gave birth until recently when a student asked me (in the abrupt, slightly inappropriate manner common among 8th graders): “Miss, you got a baby?”  I was explaining the rules to a game of tag that a group of the girls wanted to play while we had a little down time; hence I was expecting questions along the line of: “So, what happens if the octopus tags you” as opposed to random inquiries into my parental status.  The inappropriate 8th grader was sitting out this round of octopus so I quickly called across the gym: “Uh…does that sound like a question you should be asking while I’m trying to explain something to your classmates…ponder that for a moment, why don’t you…”

She apologized immediately (not for being intrusive, mind you; only for interrupting).  She explained her reason for the inquiry with: “They said you have a daughter…and she’s five.”  For a brief second I wondered who ‘they’ was and why these kids kept listening to what ‘they’ said.  ‘They’ seem to always disseminate inaccurate half truths that normally result in some kid getting in trouble. Yet, the kids keep taking ‘they’ at their word.

I informed this gullible 13 year old that “Once again, ‘they’ have lied to you.  You should stop listening to ‘them.’  ‘They’ never know what they’re talking about.” And here is the truly hilarious part: The girl INSISTED that I did, indeed,  have a child.  She even went so far as to remember seeing a picture of my daughter.  “Remember,” she tried to remind me.  “Last year, when I would come into your classroom.  You had a picture of a baby on your desk.  That was your daughter, wasn’t it?”

When I explained that this ghost picture she remembered so vividly could have been a picture of my niece or one of my friends’ children, she looked perturbed.  “So, you don’t have a baby?”  I apologized for disappointing her, but assured her I would have remembered giving birth and raising a child.  “No baby.  I am certain of it.”

I teach in East Harlem.  At an all girls school.  Half of the girls are Latina.  The other half are Black.  I am a Black woman  in her mid 30’s who does not have children.  And does not seem to be concerned that she does not have children.  I am an enigma.

This is not news to me.  I have been quizzed by students, boyfriends, family members and the occasional friend on my lack of frenzied panic over my dwindling childbearing years.  While grown ups don’t interrogate you about a child that does not exist, they do seem to assume that you are preoccupied with thoughts of your non-existent children and plans to bring them to fruition.

There are many time-honored misconceptions about the modern-day single gal.  Out of all of them, my favorite, hands down, would have to be: We all secretly yearn to be mothers.  If Black single gals, particularly, manage to make it to their mid-30’s childfree, it is only because they are bizarrely committed to the concept of having a husband before having a baby.  So, in short, if you are single and childfree, it is most likely a circumstance in which you have happened to find yourself.  One which you dutifully accept until you finally meet HIM.  And speaking of meeting HIM…yeah, you better get on that because well…don’t you want to be a mother?  There’s only a very short window of time we have to work with, now don’t we?

Over the last few years, I have spoken openly about my genuine disinterest in giving birth and raising children.  The reaction I often get explains why my students naturally assume I either have children or eventually want them.  EVERYBODY assumes what the 8th graders do.  The look of relief that takes over a date’s face when I tell him I don’t have any kids usually morphs into one of disbelief when I eventually share that I have  no desire to have them either.  For those men who have managed to make it to their 30’s or 40’s without children, this news gives them pause.  And something from which to save me.  Myself.  They either brush off my lack of interest in motherhood as a sign that I have not met the right guy or pity me as a woman who will live my latter years in remorseful sorrow.  Either way, this denial of my maternal instincts can send an overly eager hero-type into rescue-this-confused-pretty-woman nirvana.

Men who already have children seem to hold the look of relief longer on their faces. I assume they are more relieved than their childless counterparts because my choice to remain childfree signifies one less thing to complicate things between us.  I will, hopefully, be an easy one to please.  A woman who is not ruled by a ticking biological clock, thank god, I imagine them saying to themselves.  Interestingly, though, they still seem a bit incredulous and question if I am avoiding having children because of other reasons.  “You don’t have to worry if you don’t feel maternal right off,” one of them told me.  “When you see your child and it hits you that you’re responsible for him, then that parental instinct kicks right in.”  (I chose not to mention that over the four years I have taught I have encountered at least a half dozen kids whose parents continually disprove this sweet little theory of his.)

If men refuse to accept that a woman is perfectly happy with her choice to be childfree, other women seem to be practically floored by it.  I have found that for many women, particularly those who have children, my not wanting children is not the peculiarity.  Apparently, what makes me odd is my not having a good enough reason for not wanting children.  From comments I’ve gotten over the years, it appears that a woman who actually voices disinterest in motherhood has to put that disinterest into context.  Her disinterest goes down smoother if she has a valid excuse for coming to this place of childfree joy.  She has to preface her assertion with a long history of dating mishaps and heartbreaks that she has dealt with in some form of therapy that has brought her to this difficult conclusion that perhaps, marriage and motherhood are not in the cards for her.  “And now, I have decided to make peace with it.”

Medical reasons also place high on the Acceptable Reasons to Reject Motherhood list. Fibroids.  Rare blood diseases.  Infertile husbands.  Those not only get you nods of approval, but they grant you one of those get-out-of-jail free cards.  Women who share their medical reasons for not having children are not obligated to defend their childlessness again.  They are no longer asked about it.  Nor are they ever again casually chided for still not sporting a baby bump.  They have a real reason.  A sad one at that.  They get a pass.

One friend spent a good 30 minutes trying to help me find the real reason why I was claiming to not want children.  She spoke tentatively about my childhood as one of five children.  She speculated that my parents’ divorce and my mother’s subsequent single motherhood status soured me on having children.  “You had a lot of responsibility for your little brother,” she inferred.  “I mean, maybe in  your subconscious you decided that you had already raised one child while you were still a child yourself so now you don’t want to do it as an adult.”    I had thought about this years before when I was in my 20s and confronted by all of my friends’ quests for future daddy material in their boyfriends.  Back then, I thought a lot like my 8th graders.  If I didn’t want children, something had to be wrong with me.  There had to be a much deeper reason behind my disinterest than I was willing to admit.  Something I had buried.  So, my friend was about 10 years behind me in this armchair pyschological analysis.

“Perhaps, you have a point,” I allowed her.  “But, what if my reason for not wanting children is much simpler.  Much healthier?  What if I realize that motherhood is a calling?  And just like every person who happens to have a Bible probably shouldn’t be in the pulpit, perhaps every person who happens to have a uterus shouldn’t just by default carry a baby in it?”  That’s what confuses me about this disbelief that women can choose childfreedom from a place of RESPECT for the role of motherhood.  Why is it so difficult to believe that a woman chooses not to be a mother because she looks honestly and objectively at what such a role means and makes the responsible choice not to sign up for the job?  Doesn’t such a decision make a woman…thoughtful, smart, SELFLESS?  Isn’t the I-have-a-uterus-so-I-might-as-well-do-something-with-it mentality really the one we should question?

I have won over more than a few adults with the afore-mentioned perspective on childfree by choice women.  However, my 8th graders, although very bright, are not yet capable of grasping such nuanced philosophies on life.  So, I am left to construct an acceptable response to their inquiries into my childfreedom.  After the young lady interrogated me on my ghost daughter, rumor spread around the 8th grade that the English teacher had a baby that for some strange reason she didn’t want to tell people about.  (13 year old students get really bored around May.)

So now when the question does reappear, I have a response.  The next time I am randomly asked, “Miss, you got a baby,”  I will look the inquirer in the eye and reply, “Yes, I do.  I keep Rose in the book closet.  Could you give her this pb&j, please?”

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Another single gal and I were discussing Chris Rock’s highly underestimated movie, I Think I Love My Wife.  I remember quite a while ago standing in line to buy a ticket to see it and consciously expecting nothing but funny antics from Chris with a few of his unique insights about life sprinkled in here and there.  I was pleased to witness quite the opposite.  I Think I Love My Wife was noticeably light on Chris-is-funny-as-hell antics and heavy on nuanced portrayals of the quiet difficulties of married life.  Specifically, married suburban life that came with kids, middle class angst and painstakingly mundane routines.  It struck me as a very honest and humane depiction of how easily infidelity can creep into a marriage – regardless of how committed both partners were to the mate they loved and trusted enough to marry.

And this is what floored my single gal friend once she had gotten around to seeing the movie on DVD.  Chris Rock’s character came dangerously close to cheating on his wife because he and the wife had not had sex in MONTHS.  (I think they were working on one full year by the time they both went to the requisite marriage counselor.) “Who are these crazy ass women refusing to sleep with their husbands,” my friend wondered.  And why were they all outraged when their sexless husbands found themselves in hotel rooms with an eager to please secretary or waitress or Starbucks barista or any other woman with an inviting smile and a libido?

I laughed at my friend’s genuine shock of wives who refused their husbands sex.  Her point, of course, was if you don’t sleep with your husband for months on end, well, what else is there for him to do but end up in bed with some other woman.  I remember being confused by Chris Rock’s character’s sexless marriage when I first saw the movie, also.  But, I don’t think that part of the movie stood out for me simply because the wife was representing a bunch of wives who clear the path to infidelity when they withhold sex from their husbands.  I was and still am baffled by this concept of SEXLESS MARRIAGE.  The fact that they really exist and that often it is the wife who is not giving it up.  Like many things in life…I don’t get it.

Perhaps it is because I am a single gal.  And as a single gal, a fair amount of my life is spent strategizing how to have greater access to the happy stick.  While those who possess the happy stick would probably wonder why I would need to strategize in the first place, for many single women, getting sex from a man worth having sex with is…well, it’s like having a part-time job that only pays enough to give you pocket change, but still requires an inordinate amount of your energy.  There is the attraction and initial flirtation that is often fun and if it were up to him could easily result in access to the happy stick without progressing to the next stage at all.  But, for all of the single gals I know, the initial attraction stage is not all that is needed to result in partaking of the happy stick.  

And this is where I envy the few wives I know.  They no longer have to bother with the work that comes after the initial attraction/flirtation stage.  There are no requisite “getting to know you” activities staged in the midst of sexual tension that is so thick it is damn near suffocating both of you, but neither you nor he feel comfortable enough to acknowledge your loss of oxygen just yet.  There are no scheduling conflicts that get in the way of these “getting to know you” activities in the first place.  There are no clenched teeth when he says or does something asinine as you realize that this guy may not be worth shaving above the knee for. And once you have progressed to enjoying the happy stick as often as possible, there are no complicated readjustments of schedules, no traveling involved, no negotiating and analyzing what enjoying the happy stick now means for the both of you.  

To think that these wives have the happy stick right next to them EVERY SINGLE NIGHT and they say…”No, thanks, Hon.”  I. DON’T. GET. IT.

I see these wives on Oprah sometimes  explaining themselves.  They say stuff like, “I am so tired by the time we get in the bed.”  “I am so stressed with the kids and arranging for the pool guy to come and clean the pool and then getting the kids to softball practice…”  “I feel like I’ve lost my sex drive.”  When I hear these wives discuss their very legitimate ailments, I am even more baffled by why they are not having sex with their husbands.  If you are fatigued, spend a few moments with the happy stick.  I imagine that would give you a little more energy. After all, the happy stick can’t solve every problem in a marriage, bit it can make you…well, happy at least.  Stress?  Hello, what better way to relieve tension than by enjoying the happy stick?  And perhaps a key way to find your lost sex drive is to…HAVE SEX.  I mean, I’m no therapist, but…

I do not intend to judge women who find themselves in sexless marriages.  Life and love are complicated so I am willing to acknowledge that there are real, hard to articulate reasons why a wife would choose the running of a household and raising of children over a healthy sex life with her husband.  I do admonish these women to simply remember their lives before being blessed with 24 hour access to the happy stick, though.  How often they wished they could just get this one little thing easily…without effort.  Without work.  I encourage wives to not take such a gift for granted.  We single gals, although well adjusted and happy with our lives, envy you.  

PICK UP THE HAPPY STICK, WIVES.  

That is all…

I think.

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There is a hidden beauty in teaching adolescent girls.  I consider the 8 hours a day I spend amidst my 8th and 10th grade students a way of keeping my ear to the street.  My finger on the pulse of the young, the fiercely hip and clueless.  A recurring reminder of how we, as a nation, are simultaneously failing and succeeding in developing awkward, inappropriate girls into confident, powerful women.  I go to the girls often when I am confused about the world in which we force them to live and expect them to make sense of without our guidance.

In the midst of the first Twilight book, I had questions.  So, I went to the girls.  I was disturbed by the protagonist’s self deprecation and painstaking commitment to her vampire boyfriend.  I wanted to know why sweet, awkward little Bella responded to “warnings” her boyfriend, Edward, gave in the most bizarre ways.

I asked the girls, “So, you know that part when Edward says, ‘You should never be alone with me because I might end up killing you and sucking you of all your blood…by mistake’ why does Bella tell him how beautiful he is instead of running away like he tells her to?”

The girls spoke slowly as they patiently explained the way things were: Edward had low self esteem and thought he was really a bad guy when he wasn’t.  Yes, he could kill Bella, but that was exactly why he kept warning her so he WOULDN’T kill her.  He warned her because he loved her, you see.  And because he warned her and made sure they were never in a situation where he could kill her, then he was really a good guy.

I can be slow sometimes and this was one of those times.  I needed more clarification.  “But, I’m on page 300 and Bella has almost died like 3 or 4 times?”

But, one or two of those times EDWARD saved her, the girls reminded me.  

“Yes, but EDWARD was the reason she was almost killed in the first place.  How does his saving her from the near peril he caused her redeem him enough for her to keep hanging out with him?  He keeps telling her he might kill her!  Like every hundred pages or so.”

The girls were beginning to lose interest in helping me understand such an obvious concept.  He DID NOT kill her.  And he wouldn’t.  He loved her, for goodness sake.  One of them pointed out that not killing Bella was terribly difficult for Edward.  It took a lot of his energy not to react to the scent of her blood and gobble her up.  He had to struggle with it.  Therefore, Bella wasn’t the only one who suffered, you see.  

I didn’t.

Needless to say, when Chris Brown nearly killed the woman he loved and the picture of Rihanna’s bloodied, bruised face made its rounds on the internet, I went to the girls again.  I was confused.  I assumed they were, too.

I asked the girls to watch the follow up show Oprah was doing on the Chris-Brown-beating- Rihanna-like-she-was-a-grown-man-who-stole-something incident.  The next day, we sat in a circle and shared our thoughts about the show and the incident itself.

I got a lot of what I expected.  “I can’t believe she went back to him.”  “How could he do that to her?” “Well, if she forgives him, who are we to judge either of them?”  “Damn, what was she doing when he was hitting her like that?  I’d try to kill a dude who was beating me like I was some dog!”  (This last comment obviously came from a girl who has had the great fortune of not being locked in a seat belted torture chamber with her head half way out of the door of a speeding car as her boyfriend tried to push her onto the freeway…while punching her repeatedly as she flung about, trapped in her seat belt.  I’m happy for this young lady, actually.  She has lived a charmed life thus far.)

When I  saw the discussion turning into yet another round of useless retelling of gory facts, I brought things back to the statistic Oprah mentioned several times on her show.  One out of three teen girls will find herself in an abusive relationship.

Why do you think this is, I asked the girls.

The answers reminded me of all those times the girls tried to make me understand that Twilight was just a fictional story.  That I shouldn’t “get all o.d. and worried” because it wasn’t that serious.

The girls said:

1. A lot of teen girls REALLY want a boyfriend.

2. A lot of teen girls think boyfriends are not perfect and do stupid stuff all the time; this doesn’t mean you can’t at least try to work out problems in your relationship.

3. If your boyfriend is really, really sorry, then he might be worth the forgiveness you grant him.

4. Sometimes, the girls do pick, pick, pick at the boy just to make him mad.  “I’m not saying it’s right to hit a girl, but why you gon keep getting in his face when you know he has a problem with his temper?”

5. Sometimes, the boy has been through some messed up stuff and the girl understands that he is not a monster; he has his own stuff to deal with.  If she loves him enough, she’ll probably try to help him with those issues.

During our discussion, the phrase, “Sometimes you choose to forgive” came up several times. So, did the phrase, “I know he was wrong, but did you hear about what he went through when he was a kid?”  One or two girls admitted that if Chris Brown was really sorry and she was sure it wouldn’t happen again, she might go back to him, too.  But only if he was sincerely sorry for beating the shit out of her and threatening to kill her for calling the cops.

I asked another question: Why should Rihanna repeatedly sacrifice her dignity to save Chris Brown’s?  No one seemed to really get my question.  I elaborated by explaining that a man who subjects you to that level of violent torture is a man who probably has done and said several things before the seat belted torture chamber to take away your humanity.  To make you feel like you are worth less than the lint on his shirt.  Why should she expose herself to that in the hopes that he “heals his wounds?”

Most of the girls came around.  They swore that they would not let a man take away their dignity.  But in the back of the room, I heard one girl whisper to another: “Seriously, though, she HAD to have done something?  Why would she go back to him after he did that to her if she wasn’t at least a little bit at fault?”

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I’ve had two conversations with friends that have been hanging out in the back of my mind for a while now.  Each had, at its root, a distinct topic and context; however, after I’d rolled the conversations over in my mind for a while, I realized that at the root of each conversation was the same theme.

Friend #1 (lets call her Marie) was trying to convince me to find my way back to the Seventh Day Adventist church in which we were both raised.  That isn’t really accurate, actually. I don’t want to paint Marie as an intolerant proselytizer who was trying at all costs to re-convert me.  After one of our trademark 2 hour-long phone conversations, we had somehow gotten on the topic of religion and she’d begun explaining why she strongly believed every word in the Bible to be the TRUTH and a direct edict from God.  I admitted what I had never had the vocabulary (or courage) to verbalize when we were good little Christian girls in Sabbath School: The Bible has kernels of truth in it that can provide guidance and order to many lives;  it is a document written by men who sincerely believed they were called by God to bring his word to fruition.  I, personally, am not so convinced of its divine inspiration.  I, personally, believe that the many sects of Christianity foolishly believe in its total ability to keep things “in order” a bit too much.

Marie and I went back and forth to no avail because what it all came down to was she chose to believe in Seventh Day Adventism and religion as a whole and I simply didn’t.  Marie is an intelligent, rational woman so she didn’t doom me to hell or patronize me by implying I was lost and she would try to help me be found.  Since we have a long friendship, this very heated debate didn’t end in a nasty tone at all.  As a matter of fact, it ended in an exhausted one because it was about 1 a.m when we both were like, “Damn.  I’m too old to be talking to you until all hours of the night.  We ain’t 13 no more.  Bye.”

What stands out in that lengthy conversation, though, was something Marie said.  When explaining why she believed so strongly in the Bible, she mentioned, “Each and every time I didn’t do what God said, I got nothing but pain.  Nothing but heartache.  I should have followed his word.”  When I offered that perhaps part of the beauty of being a human was encountering pain and making ridiculous mistakes so one learned from them and formulated a life path that made sense for her, Marie stood firm and insisted: “No…EVERY lesson I learned when I was not following Him, I wish I hadn’t.  The pain and heartache I caused myself was not necessary.”

What I heard underneath that: “If I remain a faithful Christian, I will exempt myself from pain.”

Friend #2 (let’s refer to her as Pam) and I were commiserating about what every single gal commiserates about: dating and the tedium and time involved in engaging in it, particularly in New York City.  Particularly, when you are in your 30’s.  The problem: We were encountering men who were charming, respectful and genuinely interested in us, just disinterested in  committing to anything remotely long term.  The usual scenario: He is happiest when I expect nothing more than what we’re doing now.

Pam seemed to have developed what she thought to be a fool proof plan to not “have my time wasted.”  She had implemented  into her dating lexicon the policy of not sleeping with a man until they were in a committed relationship.  She spoke of several men who didn’t like her plan and off handedly asserted: “Yeah, he didn’t want to go out anymore because I wasn’t sleeping with him after we dated for three months.  But, he didn’t want to even answer me directly when I asked him where he thought this was going.”  I had no problems with Pam’s no-sex-until-you’re-my-boyfriend rule.  I’ll be frank: I didn’t plan to follow her lead, but I could understand why she’d implemented this into her strategy of snagging a boyfriend.  I did innocently ask, though, “Well, what if EVERY man is not meant to be your boyfriend?  What if some of them are just meant to be temporary companions.  Not that you have to have sex with them, but just because you want to ultimately end up in a committed relationship, does that mean you can ONLY spend time with a man if it looks like he is THE ONE?”  Pam saw this as a waste of time and implied that I was a little immature if I could do that.  She seemed to insist that simply going out with a man (sex or no sex) who just wanted to show you a good time was a stage that women in our demographic should be over?  When women did that, they were putting themselves in danger of getting too wrapped up in the guy and then disappointed when he wouldn’t commit to something “real.”

She again stressed how that was wasting her time and much like Marie, made a statement that stayed with me: “So, he gets what he wants and I get to keep going out with him without a commitment?  And then when’s he through, he moves on.”  Underneath that, I heard: “I have developed a way to not get hurt or disappointed in matters of the heart.  If I just don’t have sex too soon, I won’t be disappointed by men so much. Thus, I will lessen the chance of painful heartache.”

Perhaps I am reading more into Pam and Marie’s belief system than they would like.  Or I could be completely misinterpreting them, but the subtext of both of their rationalizations seemed to be that if I do this, I will save myself from pain.

In my humble estimation, that is ridiculous.

Although life is a wonderful journey full of moments of triumph, it is also cluttered with unavoidable moments of sadness, distress, darkness.  Yes, we can make choices that lessen the dark moments, but the fact remains, pain is weaved into the very fabric of the human existence .  It is a natural and NECESSARY part of the human experience.  How can I explain to Marie that she can follow every rule – the Big 10 and the myriad number of minor ones – and she will still find herself nursing a wounded soul at some point in life?  She can be a faithful Christian, but the fact is…the world, like humans, is terribly flawed and she should expect to be disappointed/hurt/downtrodden even when everything she’s doing should lead to nothing but rewards.  

And Pam…I know there are many theories on how WOMEN can control and modify the behavior of men.  If women______, then men will___________.  If women don’t ________, then men won’t ___________.  While these theories sell millions of relationship books and may result in the rare woman modifying her particular male’s behavior to meet her needs, the simple truth is: If you plan on canoodling with those HUMAN men, there is a great likelihood that you will be hurt, disappointed, heartbroken regardless of how you have pain-proofed your encounters with them.  If you have sex with him too soon, there is a chance that you will be hurt.  If you hold out until he anoints you as “the one,” there is a great likelihood, you still will be hurt.  

How life works?  It is a marriage of joyous, exquisite moments that will bring tears to your eyes and cold, bleak moments that will reduce you to tears.

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