In an old episode of the animated cartoon series Boondocks that aired over the holiday weekend, Aaron McGruder and his producer Reginald Hudlin have some things to say on the Black & Single tip – from a black man’s point of view.
In this episode, the old man who has custody of the two boys gets into an online dating trip that goes bad. Way bad. The mistakes Granddad and his online blind dates make along the way have something to teach us flesh and blood creatures.
The old man’s first few dates do not come as advertised. They are gorgeous on the MySpace, but ghouls on the front porch. The message here is pretty clear – you’ve got to represent as you really are, even in social media.
The best bet is to update your profile pic every time you get a new picture of yourself. Yes, even if it is not as flattering as the last profile pic you had. That is kind of the idea here. Most people do not improve with age, and you need to let folks know what they are getting – not what they would have been getting had they found you last year, or last decade.
Then Granddad lands one who looks too good to be true – curvy, pretty in the face, and thirty years younger than the old dude. It turns out she is too good to be true, in hilariously horrible ways we will get to next. But first, let’s consider this “Miss Perfection” phenomenon.
Whoever we are, and however good we may be, we are none of us too good to be true. It is foolish to present ourselves in that way, even when we are trying to seduce a promising stranger. Not that you need to trash yourself, but be real. Early in a new flirtation, online or otherwise, you should let drop a few things the other person will need to know.
Does any of this sound like you? “I have some trust issues.” “I said I want one partner, and I do, but I also have a fear of commitment.” “The father of my children blows through my life every few months and does his best to make a complete mess of it.” “I expect my partner to show at least some interest in my children, once I’m ready to go there.” “When my profile said I have zero tolerance for illegal drugs,that includes smoking weed with your boys every NFL Sunday.” If so, say so.
Here is the deal. If you find someone who seems right but will run screaming for the exit at the first sign that you are a flawed, complicated human being with expectations, then you’re better off not letting that person through the entrance to begin with.
As for Miss Perfection in the Boondocks cartoon, she turns out to be a certifiably psychopathic mankiller trained in esoteric martial arts. That’s a problem, thankfully, that very few men will ever encounter, but McGruder and Hudlin have some sly fun with her character by adding a dimension that every man knows all too well.
When Granddad and the boys first get wise to her, and Huey spies on her, he catches her talking on her Bluetooth. We expect her to be speaking to the rest of the gang that is waiting to come steal every thing in this man’s house, but it’s not like that at all. The joke is, she really is looking for a good man and thought she had found one. On the other end of her cell phone call is her sister girl, talking her through some blind-date butterflies.
Fearing for his life, the old man puts his date out of the house with a preposterous lie – it’s his buddy Fidel Castro’s birthday, and he has been called away to Cuba. Driving away from the disappointment, our martial artist learns from sister girl, who has been Googling, that it is nowhere near Castro’s birthday, and sister girl sends mankiller back to the house on the attack.
In the end, it is mankiller who ends up dead in her exploded SUV. Her Bluetooth device, thrown from the wreckage, is still broadcasting sister girl’s manhating – which, ultimately, is self-hating too.
McGruder and Hudlin – who hails from East St. Louis and knows our local scene intimately – are telling y’all something. If you have a sister girl whispering poison about men into your ear, night and day, then maybe it’s time to pick a new best friend. As this column testifies every week, it is hard enough to find a good man. Don’t make it harder by filling your head with non-stop hating about how bad men are. That’s a sure fire way to stay single.