Not hating, Just stating…

Why do you talk so hard?

You need to read my Unsolicited Advice 4 Men in the DC Metro Area…. TWICE!

I am not one of your boys in the street. Why are you cursing, overanunciating your mispronounced words and using so much slang with me. EASE UP! You make me uncomfortable… and a little scared. You want me to come over to the otherside because I need a young man in my life to pull over on the side of the road with??? ummm, that sounds DANGEROUS! I guess you thought you were being “sexy” but PART of being sexy is being eloquent. SO the ummms, & I’m sayins, and all that slang with which I am unfamiliar nullified your argument for why I should choo-choo-choose you!

At first you were persistent, then that turned into a little pressedness, followed by doing too much too soon. And then there was the straw that broke the camels back… You were solemnly and in earnest trying to convince me to be your, and I quote, “muhf^##!%” lady!” Where at do they do that? You are so impressed with what you have & where you have been & what you have done, you haven’t had a chance to work on WHO you are. You have some growing up to do. And it seems that you don’t really want to do it, but you insist that I am not trying to make that change & you are right. That would not be a wise move. I have NO idea if you are a man of substance, respect, INTELLIGENCE, or anything. Because you are so focused on ME being YOURS you haven’t told me WHO you are; nor have I asked, because, frankly I don’t care.

Here is a tip: Please learn the difference between a lady, a muhf^##!% lady, and your boys, they all require a different approach. You have traveled overseas so you should KNOW that you need to adapt- not to fit in, but to COMMUNICATE and get along. Isn’t that what relationships are about? Or am I missing something? Did you notice that when I speak to you I use a very professional tone and the only time I have ever used slang or had to get LeDroit Park on you was when I informed you that: “You be doin too much! All this right here you doin is too much too soon!” I thought maybe you would understand, but apparently that only made matters worse and as I type this you are texting me wondering why I am not responding to you. Did it ever occur to you that TWICE you have asked ME to go out with you and TWICE I have said whatever just call me and TWICE you have not called. I mean where at do they do that? Perhaps if you listened to what I was telling you instead of charging at me and putting the full court press on me via call & text, you would get it. I’m just not that into you, I have said it before, PLEASE don’t make me say it again.

 Ok? Ok!

Who do you think you are?

No, REALLY… inside your head and when you look into the mirror, who do you see? Some cornfed, white bread all-American midwestern girl? Because that squeaky clean “ohmiGAWD!” voice you were using on DWTS last night was like nails on a chalkboard.

Honey, do you know who you used to be? Are you reinventing yourself like Madonna? Are you reinvienting yourself INTO Madonna? When you look into the mirror who do you see? Barbie? Barney? What?

You have massacared yourself & are now unrecognizable to your fans, yourself & probably the lawd himself! Seek help! How can you hate yourself sooooo much!!?!? Do you hate not being Faith or Charli Baltimore that you are CARVING yourself into something similar?? I wonder if you cry when you see the old you… and if you do are you crying because you USED to look like that or that you will NEVER look like that AGAIN! I hope you are going to counseling because you need it. I am sure Biggie is NOT cool with what you have become and are still trying to be… WHATEVER that is, I hope you come around soon, hunny.

God bless ya!

Why are you invading my personal space?

It seems that some men in this area have NO idea how to talk to you and NOT invade your personal space. They move in sooooo close as if they are feeling a vibe. UH UH, back up! Just last night I had to tell a 40++ year old man that he was IN MY SPACE! He didn’t seem to notice or care. He said: “I have heard that I can be ummmm, what’s the word?” So I gave him a l ist of my observations in the 15 or so minutes we had “known” each other: rude, annoying, invasive, abrasive, loud, imposing? He said he liked the way imposing sounded. I said, “That figures.” He came up to the bar at about a 10 while everyone else was about at 7, then as he began introducing himself and talking to people at the bar, he kicked it up to 15 & then 20- touching, leaning, laughing close, talking closer. He seemed oblivious to his invasive ways. at one point he was LEANING on my friend as he talked to the woman next to her, so much so she couldn’t move her arm to finish eating her food. I am shaking my head at the thought. Of course when I informed him he was so close she could not eat, he got close to ME.

This is not an uncommon occurrence, people getting too familiar too quickly.  I have been known to do the same, but only when there is a vibe. And apparently some men cannot sense when there is no vibe & they are much too close for comfort. Here is how to tell:

• If you lean in to talk to her & she leans back; you’re too close.
• If you place your hand on her arm, back, leg, etc. & she looks down at your hand and stops talking; you’re too comfortable.
• If you are talking to her, giving her your BEST Billy D. & she seems to be staring JUST over your shoulder; there is no vibe.
• If you give her a nickname before you even know her name &  she looks at you like you just called her a b¡+¢#; there is a problem.

SIMPLE, YES? It astounds me how common courtesy just isn’t that common anymore. Respect me, respect my space… plain & simple. Simple & plain. If you wonder why the woman you are talking to has an attitude, maybe it’s you. Maybe you are too close, too loud and too familiar too soon. Just because a woman doesn’t want to be called BooBoo by a someone she just met 5 minutes ago, does not make her uppity. Just because a woman doesn’t want your arm around her AS you introduce yourself, does not make her stank. Just because a woman asks you why you are talking SO loud, does not mean “she thinks she’s like that”. These are ALL real scenarios & they ALL happened LAST NIGHT! Yes, a grown man told me that I think I am like that. To which I replied, “Yes, I am kind of a big deal!”

Gentlemen of the Metropolitan Area, I challenge you to respect a woman’s space this week and see how far it gets you.

Ok? OK!

This morning, my radio was tuned to Tom Joyner becauseI was listening to oldies yesterday afternoon. Just as I was about to turn to talk radio, I heard my friend’s brainy boo, Roland S. Martin, so I listened in. I must say that I was disappointed in what I heard.

Apparently some Barnes & Noble Bookstore in Coral Gables, FL had a display of Barack Obama books and some IGNORAMUS placed a monkey book in the middle of the display. *sigh*

Roland was upset because Barnes & Noble apparently turned down an initial interview. Then, when the interview was granted, they didn’t like the man’s answers. A member of Tom Joyner crew’s (Sybill I think) ”solution” was to block off all the displays in all the bookstores to prevent this from happening again. The man’s solution was to have security on the windows at THAT store because this was an ISOLATED incident. That wasn’t good enough & they were talking boycott. That is when I got out of the car, I couldn’t take it. What more do they want them to do over an ISOLATED incident? It wasn’t as if someone who WORKS for them did it. I am tired of the hypervigilance over the race issue. I understand that more & more there are racist things going on more BLATANT and institutional than this… but come ON!

I began having stereotypical thoughts MYSELF. I was thinking too the people talking boycott: “Oh, so now you will buy your ‘hood lit’ elsewhere? Now when you want to buy some self-published NONSENSE book about sex, drugs and money you have to go to Borders or Books-a-million because you didn’t support the small black bookstores that used to try and EDUCATE our people? Did you even READ any of the Barack Obama books? How long was the display up before someone noticed?”

There is a such thing as overanalyzing & I think that that is the case here. I am not saying that racism is ok or racist foolishness should just be brushed off, but in THIS instance, for THIS ISOLATED incident, it was handled properly. DONE & DONE… But I am no Roland martin or Tom Joyner, so that is just my humble opinion…. *shrug*

 I’m not hating, I’m just stating!

DC is TINY. No place is this more evident than on Facebook. Facebook is NOT the place to reinvent yourself. Facebook is not the new college.

Think about it, if & when you went away to college, you had the opportunity to be a whole other person if you wanted to. You could shake the nerdy image and become a goth, or you could shake the slutty image and become a good girl. Facebook is NOT the place for that.

Why?

Because there are people on Facebook that remember the nerd, the goth, the slut, the good girl. There are people that know you from different times in your life and they know other people from other times in your life; thereby, introducing 2 Degrees of Separation.

Your classmate from English 101 who knows you as the coolest girl on campus, may know the college sweetheart of the guy who sat next to you in 8th grade when you accidentally wet your pants.  Therefore, you have to make sure you don’t get too high and mighty on your Facebook page. Someone may be there to bring you down a peg or two!

One day, you are sitting at your desk meditating and centering your chi and you get a message that someone has “tagged” you in a photo. You click the link & there you are scantily clad and passed out drunk in a dumpster just this past weekend. I certainly hope your new friends in theFacebook Meditation Group don’t think that you are all Chi all the time because that is who you have portrayed yourself to be on the internet. When in actuality you like to party on the weekends AND center your Chi during the week! It’s ok!

No need to hide or be ashamed of who you are just to win new internet friends because your old real life friends likely know at least ONE of your new Facebook friends. Change is good, it is after all the theme of the new administration. Just make sure you really are representing the WHOLE you. I will start: Hi, I like to go out with my friends every now & then and have a glass of wine or 2 at a bar. But I also sing in my church choir and hope to volunteer with underprivileged teens. Does that make me a bad person? Nope. It makes me a HUMAN. Embrace who you are & don’t forget it, because 11 times out of 10 there will be someone on Facebook to REMIND YOU!