At 11:45 p.m. (that’s right close to midnight) a couple of Tuesdays ago, I get a call on my desk phone. I know what you’re thinkin’ … and, well, think again. Nobody noteworthy even has my work number.
I only picked up because I thought it was my sister wanting to ask me about the R. Kelly show and discuss her newfound obsession with Wendy Williams.
To my surprise (with a little fear on the side), it was Nate. Remember him? I kind of put him on blast for lightweight stalking someone for the better part of 25 years two weeks ago.
At first I thought he had hacked into our server some kind of way and was calling to cuss me out about my column.
My imagination is vivid, to put it mildly, so my mind automatically ventures into unbelievable, outrageous territory.
“Have you turned your story in yet?” Nate asked with excitement.
“I did,” I responded. “Why, what’s up?”
“I have a little update for you,” He said. “My girl just left here. And things got pretty heated.”
“Um, okay … good to know,” I replied.
“So, you gonna add that to the story,” he asked.
I informed him that the story was already finished and submitted. He was disappointed because he wouldn’t get an opportunity for him to say, “I told you so,” as a P.S.
He called back again, first thing in the morning, to make sure that I got the run down about their “close encounter.” He spared no intimate details – but I will.
He was just callin’ me back to say, “In yo’ face!”
Because, obviously if someone is willing to get physical with you, there have to be some feelings involved, right? I mean, people don’t just have casual sex.
If you haven’t caught on already, please understand that the aforementioned comments are a special blend of sarcasm and cynicism.
In his state of blind (I won’t say “ignorant,” even though I want to) bliss, Nate didn’t realize that in his attempt to provide me with a sidebar, he laid out a whole new topic that plenty of us are all too familiar with: love and lust don’t have to have anything to do with each other.
I’ll take it a step further and say that desperation can even trump a lack of love, lust or like.
I felt like Nate and I had gone in circles enough before he got some reserve fuel for his flame. So I just let him enjoy the moment as best I could.
“What do you think that this means?” I asked him.
“I think she knows that there is something there,” he replied.
Then he tells me that before things could “go there,” she came to her senses and left his place. She didn’t want to go to the point of no return and told him as much – even telling him why.
Let’s face it. Men can be so persistent that sometimes lines get crossed just because we don’t have anything better to do or anyone better to do them with.
And women can have the assumption that by enticing a man into making a physical connection means, an instantaneous earth-shattering phenomenon will take place and that man won’t have any choice but to fall in love, want to marry us and live happily ever after.
Most of the time, either or both scenarios result in an impulsive act chased with mixed signals and “unmutual” emotions.
“What’s love … got to do … got to do … with it?” Nothing seemed more appropriate to say, or sing.
Sometimes – well, quite honestly, plenty of times – sex or “near-sex experiences” aren’t the physical expression of love that we make them out to be. If necessity is the mother of all invention, then desperation is the father of all regrettable physical encounters.
Now I’m not saying that someone who is not interested in you could never grow to feel otherwise. But it would be foolish to think by leading someone – who has made their stance loud and clear – to the bedroom that they are going to emerge from the covers, couch or floor with a newfound appreciation and reciprocation with respect to your emotions.
Nate, as well as plenty other folks (myself included) before him, found this out the hard way.