If a guy is talking to you about any random thing while at a party, he may be interested. But at all cost, avoid the cracked face.
I’ve seen it, felt it and would only wish it on people I don’t like. By cracked face, I mean humiliation as a result of romantic rejection.
Not a good look for anyone. Trust me. I experienced the cracked face in adolescence and have been traumatized as a result well into adulthood.
Some brothers never recover from it. Others find a way to persist by developing immunity to the effects of cracked face.
Guys with immunity may be easy to spot in a club situation. Anyone with a Goldie-from-the-Mack aura (yes, the 1970s Blaxploitation film) has the ability to brush off rejection and keep it moving until satisfied.
This brings to mind the very different experiences had by me and my homeboy, which should be instructive for those hoping to avoid this confidence-crushing phenomenon.
My homie is light-skinned, and I’m brown. Think of Kid ‘n’ Play without the self-aware corniness. We are the same height, same build, same hair texture, same eye color and same age. Wait, he has dimples, or a dimple. I’m not sure because I never checked for it, but I heard about it.
Like our skin tone and his alleged dimple, our confidence levels are different. Our lives are like a longitudinal study on the cracked face.
The initial scarring happened at our junior high hangout, Northwest Plaza. We were around 13 years old. Before NWP became a ghost mall, it was the Facebook of teenage social activity on Saturdays.
Kids expressed likes and comments directly by staring approvingly at people or approaching them. We’d be walking around, broke half of the time, looking for a “friend” to hang out with, particularly in dark movie theaters.
Like many juvenile males, my boy and I would walk around in search of girls. It was in this environment where my homie first transformed into the smoothest cat I know.
Dressed in our flyest apparel, we’d wander until we found someone. But I didn’t feel fly. I felt uncertain. At that moment of low confidence came my first test.
My boy said, “I think she’s looking at you,” referring to a girl who looked like she was waiting on someone outside of a boutique.
I disagreed. He persisted, adding, “You better get on her.” She did look my way, but it could have been at my homeboy or past me. He nudged me, and I caved.
I inhaled deeply and approached her. She continued to look toward me. As I got closer, she seemed to fix her gaze directly as if I came into focus. At that moment, she walked inside of the boutique. Cracked faced.
The cracked face does not have to be a solitary experience. This time our teen crew was three-deep. We knew, almost instinctively, that we needed to find a group of girls. After hours of lapping NWP, we spotted three females around our age.
My boy subtly nudged me, saying, “Hey, you see them?” Of course, I did. I was already thinking about the next step.
Our approving stares caught their gaze, and it seemed like our meeting was inevitable. Before we could make a move, the third guy fully turned toward them, stopped his movement, and extended his arms as he asked, “Do we have a problem here?”
My homie and I dropped our heads, the girls dropped their interest, and we dropped young Ice Cube from the crew.
Group cracked faced.
As an adult, I generally avoid cold come-ons and marvel at guys who appear to be masters of the craft, particularly my boy.
A few years back when Nappy DJ Needles mixed records at 609, I invited my homie to the set. I found a spot in between the bar and the dance floor, and my boy followed suit. We both see women whom we find attractive.
He approaches one. I THINK about approaching one. He gets her number. I THINK about getting another drink. Cracked faced trauma.
Sad, right?
MK Stallings co-hosts Urb Poetry at Legacy Books and Café on Friday Nights. Follow him on Twitter. Twitter.com/afroscribe.
