I must inform all of you that my black and single days may be numbered, because I signed up for seven free days at Faithmate.com.
Just kidding. I did receive an e-mail sent to me PERSONALLY regarding the service and laughed to myself about changing that scripture to “he who e-findeth a wife findeth a good thing…”
Was that blasphemy? I hope not.
Anyway, since I put myself on the topic of seeking and finding, I might as well stay on course while baring my soul about (another) one or two of my impediments when it comes to the dating (and, ultimately, mating) game.
Am I the only one who has serious disability with respect to flirting with someone I’m actually interested in? I didn’t think so.
I can go up and talk to ANYBODY about ANYTHING with no apprehension or reservations, as long as I haven’t formulated the slightest possibility of a romantic connection.
This is not to say that my subtle attempts at freshness are only relegated to the bottom-barrel brothers. I’m just saying the person I end up getting into a flirt-off with is someone I wouldn’t consider for myself.
I don’t typically consider the “Mr. Popularity,” “Prom King” “Captain of the Football team” brother or “man on the scene.” I’m more laid-back and behind the scenes, and the objects of my affection tend to act accordingly.
While I’m laughing and joking it up with the number one stunner, I’m secretly wishing that I could formulate the right words to kick off a conversation with someone else, who I’ve usually talked with in passing. I’ll see them – only every now and again – standing against the wall, vibing to the music.
It’s ridiculous, but true. Meanwhile the wallflower is completely oblivious that I’ve considered and decided against approaching him in my head at least a dozen times.
This brings me to my next point. Why is it that many of us – especially me – feel to the marrow of our bones that the man must be the one to step to us?
“If a guy likes you, I don’t care how shy or socially inept he is, he will let you know,” I’ve been quoted as saying to anyone who will halfway listen.
But even though I don’t ever take her advice, my self-appointed surrogate grandmother Ms. Priscilla Evans refutes my personal Negro Spiritual over, and over …and over again.
I love Ms. Evans to death. Not to tell her age, but she’s closer (if she hasn’t reached it already) to 90 than she ever will be to 80. Despite the fact that she’s creeping slowly but surely towards her centennial, she has this modern woman vibe that she sprinkles on top of her wisdom and advice.
“Baby,” she says in her deep Mississippi drawl, “you gonna be the oldest old maid that ever lived. Just keep doing what you are doing.”
I’m laughing because it’s true.
“Just ask this man you call yourself likin’ out to lunch, and see what happens,” she said. “If he says no, then you know he don’t like you back and you can move on to somebody else.”
I’m not having it.
“But you know that a man should always love you more than you love him,” I reply. “So I’m already dooming things by cranking it up first.”
I know it’s an excuse, but in my mind a completely valid one.
Ms. Evans says, “Just because you like him first, doesn’t mean that you’ll like him the most. You sound right silly, girl.”
I have to give her props for working’ up the nerve (on the regular) to ask men out on a date when women had just received the right to vote, even if I’m not planning to do so myself in the second decade of the new millennium.
“What happened when you would ask men out back in the day?” I ask. “Did the other women think that you were fast?”
“When I asked men out, we went!” Ms. Evans said in a voice that let me know that she was THE baddest chick on the block during her day.
“And yes, the other women thought I was fast, but they had a lot of time to think about it, because, like you, they were sittin’ up somewhere by themselves.”