His Sad Story--Her Happy Heart

There’s open and revealing and then there’s this: vomiting your life in my lap. I can’t say I wasn’t warned. Long ago, I was cautioned that boys who quickly relinquish stories about their lives were not the optimal recipients to, with the same haste, relinquish my heart. I didn’t buy into the anti-thesis of what seemed to be the obvious: if he trusted me with his sad stories then I could surely trust him with my happy heart.

Back then I refused to believe what I now know to be true. I was being used as a trashcan for someone else’s emotional garbage and the person’s purging had nothing to do with me. It was most assuredly not an indication of substantiated feelings and emotions. At best, it was a fairly perceptive person desiring to hone in and optimize my innate nurturing tendencies for his own devices. At worst, it was an opportunistic mechanism used to push a hidden agenda. There is no room for deviating from that comparative structure. It was an “either or” “one or the other” spectrum—no more, no less. Best case or worst case, pick one.

I am seemingly audacious to make assertions that demean the very moments that I, over the years, replay in my head incessantly. One could argue that I have degraded someone else’s legitimate and sincere motives to bolster my own insecurities. Arguably, I have taken beautifully candid and unpretentious instances and turned them into something sadistic. Rest assured, I didn’t reach this premise swiftly—but I had to come to grips that these moments were less an indicator of the intensity of my relationship and more a preface of how intensely I would tie myself to him. More than anything, it was an indication of how quickly I would charge myself the position of saving him.

And this is why I write this post—because it is a cautionary tale. It’s a self-actualizing warning. A warning that I want every single woman to heed, keep secretly tucked in her breast, retrieving it to use as ammunition to protect her happy heart. I write this because while it’s flattering to believe that men spilling their lives in our laps is something that we have single-handedly resonated —it is also to our detriment to believe so. I now understand that for as long as I tenaciously cleaved to the notion that I am different and that I somehow facilitated a space leaving men incapable of keeping their traumatic and sad stories in their mouths—I trade in the truth for self-sustaining lies. The truth is, regardless of his motives, when said man vomited in my lap, his life—he was left cleansed and I took on his waste as my own. I vowed to protect him and keep his sadness as my treasure. What we, as women, fail to realize is that the woman before us—who spun vomit into pearls and adorned them carefully around her neck was unable to do—we probably won’t either. She couldn’t save him—and neither can you.

When you look at it practically, a person that shares such intimate aspects of his life within weeks, can’t measure those details the way that you think he does. What have you done to prove your trustworthiness? Yet, here he is seemingly trusting you with such profound information. And you take the pseudo trust that he has created to sustain your desire to be his truest confidante. You are no confidante though; he would tell what he is telling you to a stranger in the street. Really, for all intentions and purposes you are a stranger in the street. Still, we listen intently believing that this is the first sign of many on how intimate he is willing to be, how deep he wants to go. He certainly could never have revealed these dramatic and heart wrenching stories to anyone else. We happily transform anecdotes into commitments; all the while he is using us as a second-rate therapist. And when he feels he has gotten whatever he wanted from the relationship he gets off the couch, brushes the invisible wrinkles from his pants leg, nods and exits. And we sit aimlessly trying to figure out how to save him—not knowing that he is probably long gone already using his sad stories on the next one, not knowing instead of saving him we should have been trying to save ourselves!

Interestingly enough, a friend of mine has too recently discovered that there are no positive relationship benefits from choosing men who evidentially need saving—or at minimum some good psychological evaluation. We both laughed when I told her what my new plan of action is for these men. The next time a man starts in with these morbid stories of his life and childhood ---I am going to sit, listen quietly, and once he finishes instead of looking at him tears welling in my eyes, sad for everything that he has endured, I will ask—“and how have you grown from this?” And I will wait for his response. And I will wait for him to match this incredibly unequivocally uninspiring story with something uplifting and rousing. And if he isn’t able to conjure up anything but a blank face, what I will leave that conversation with is an understanding that the man in question is nowhere near ready for me in his life. For, if he cannot take some of the most profound incidences of his own life and spin that into something positive then I know there is no way he is ready to contribute anything beneficial in my life. If he is not growing—then he is not learning—and he is just a boy in a man’s body. The kind of man that I want, that I need would not use stories of trouble as opening liners but would instead use it later to show how he has become the phenomenal man that I see before me. No longer, do I have either the inclination or the space in my happy heart to allow another stranger to come in and debilitate me with his sadness.

I, too, do not want any other woman to mistake men with stunted growth patterns as men offering intimacy. So, I advise women (and men if this actually happens to you as well), to not allow strangers to leech onto your heart and suck it dry. I’ve already got a plan of action for how I will deal with these type of men. But for someone that has never had the opportunity to see firsthand the circus show that is men flipping trouble as an attractant of good women—let me briefly paint the picture.

His face—it will go completely blank and he will communicate emotive stories about himself as if they don’t touch him. He will go on for a while—he isn’t looking for you to integrate any commentary though—this isn’t about you—you are suppose to just listen. And while I have enough experience and too many heartaches to listen and not give two flips about what he is talking about the inexperienced woman who may not be able listen without growing emotionally invested--should silently start humming to herself. Make no mistake, it will be difficult—it’s that time when you’re getting to know someone and everything is new and exciting and everything they say is of the utmost importance. However, you have to tune them out. So, just hum. And you will feel bad—but I promise if you listen and you use those stories to justify anything about how he feels for you—then you will end up feeling a whole lot worst in the end. Let him tell his sad stories—but please please don’t let it touch your happy heart.

I'm a Hypocrite--but Need Dual Stimulation

It was hours before I was scheduled to take a Constitutional Law midterm. Instead of studying I sent the following black berry message (bbm): “Pookie! How do we feel about dating men that don’t have college degrees. In theory I think it’s no big deal…in practice??? What are your thoughts.” The recipient of this seemingly trivial bbm had a midterm of her own, and as she is quite the grinder I couldn’t believe she entertained such antics so close to test taking time. She responded. We had a short exchange. Once discovering that this too was an unresolved issue within herself, said: “That should be your next post!” Funny, because that would imply I could resolve how I feel about the issue. I haven’t.

This bbm was not unprompted. Every night up until then I woke up from horrible dreams with a motif theme. What prompted both the dreams and the bbm, was an encounter with a young man. He was cute, gave me butterflies. I rarely get them. Like, never. He seemed upfront, said he wanted to know “everything”. Eluded things about himself that seemed revealing for a first encounter. He wrapped things up by asking when was a good time to call. So, here I was with this guy that from the offset seemed open, not into playing games, yet, still elicited nightmares.

These dreams, they came from a place of fear. While this man seemed nothing but genuine, I was fearful of his pedigree. In my world where all my dates and relationships have stemmed from academia or spaces where supposedly forward moving progressive men migrate, the manner in which I met him gave no indication to his background. So here I was, having bad dreams about a seemingly nice guy solely because I was fearful that he did not hold a degree, fearful of the depth of his intelligence.

How could I, the same person that wrote here that I was more intrigued and moved by men in jail than the ones in my intellectually confined world, be so quick to qualify a man by his educational transcript. Here was my time to put some actions behind those words of equality, yet, I was like a sheltered catholic girl afraid to fraternize with the ungodly people. I felt like a hypocrite. I was a hypocrite. My mind continued to go back to the words I wrote in that post. I continued to remember the men that inspired it, the men that made me smile even during client interviews at the local jail. But still, my nights were filled with dreams.

And the dreams were awful. In one, my date and I in the car, having a conversation about President Obama. My date, ignorantly believing that President Obama the President of the entire world, not understanding other nations have other leaders. I had to try to make him understand. I had to teach him. And there were other dreams---the encounters were each different but there was one consistent quality—the men. They were all faceless.

And so, for days, I struggled. Not only was I inwardly feeling like a hypocrite and terrorized by the men of my dreams, I was also flashing back to a conversation that I had a week prior. I remembered saying, “People generally don’t interest me. I need someone with something besides a college degree.” (read: as lightly as possible. It did not come from a place of righteousness). The guy who was on the other side of that statement laughed in disbelief, then asked what I needed: “A man with a rap sheet!?!” I was irked by his thoughtlessness—the lack of depth. I don’t remember exactly how I responded but probably vaguely (“No, just something more.”) What I meant was that I wanted someone that stimulated from a place of abundance. I wanted a man, unlike him, that understood instantly what I meant by this kind of request. Still, if my only request was, “something more” then why didn’t I give the man I met a week later the chance to have it. Every morning as I woke up from another dreamful night I wondered what my problem was.

The problem, I recognized over some weeks, was that a girl who formerly said she could date any boy regardless of his educational background, graduated college and became a woman who realized it wasn’t just the education that was so impactful, but the experiences that came along with it. My college experience facilitated the woman I am today. I need a man in my life that has a similar experience. Not to say, men without degrees don’t have equally impactful and positive experiences. Simply, we have different impactful experiences. What I fear, though, is the lack of commonality we would share regarding the most defining parts of our lives. College, education as a whole, is an integral part of my story. A man lacking that experience would not be able to share in the conversation the way I would want him to. We would speak entirely different languages regarding it.

A year ago, three women and a man—all college educated, all striving to obtain a juris doctorate had a conversation on this very issue. Although the man of the discussion was outnumbered in gender and ideology, he held his own. He was strong enough in his opinion to seemingly paint us as silly superficial women. I was at an advantage—I understood exactly what he was getting at, for I had argued the same position of impartiality several years prior. I wasn’t about to back down and agree with him though. I couldn’t accept his premise, that a man working at McDonald's* had the same probability of being as compatible with me as someone with higher education. While his position speaks to his down-to-earth nature, it misses the mark on what many progressive women look for in men. Women are an evolving, ever-changing species. Women tapped into that quality and wanting to reach their full potential understand that the man they choose to stand beside often dictate the potential of their own evolve.

I confidently said then, and I say now that while I could be crazily physical attracted to a man that works at the McDonald's down the street, I do not believe we would ever have enough of the good stuff to make it work. I am not discriminating because I fear societal ostracize. I do not care about the amount of his paycheck. None of that is the true basis that allows me, without fear of coming off as an elitist witch, vow against men working at any kind of local fast-food establishment. I am able to confidently make this assertion because I know we would be unequally yoked. In his decision to choose a career at McDonald's would live the fundamental contradiction in how I choose to live my life. The decision to choose a higher education is indicative of one’s mentality about themselves and the world they live in. Understandably, this is a pretty simplistic generalization, not taking into consideration the various challenges in actually choosing higher education, still, generally speaking one’s will to go speaks to their mentality.

Not to mention, I am frequently underwhelmed. I smile—am friendly, but at the core there is something there that won’t easily stimulate. My mother says, “Erica, you have to give people a chance.” I agree. I am striving to be a little more open and patient. I want that whole package though. While this post seems a complete contradiction of “I Wish He Wore an Orange Jumpsuit” and that I am at the other end of the spectrum, blowing up men that hold degrees, I am not. I like the progressiveness of men that choose to better themselves through education. However, I cringe at the generic conversations that I seem to have with them. Similarly, I like the colorfulness of men who do not hold degrees. However, I wish we had the ability to go deeper with our conversations. I’m not putting one above the other. I don’t want either. Really, I don’t . You can have them both. What I want neither can offer. I have nightmares about one not fulfilling me intellectually, while I have daymares that the others will never emotionally move me.

Maybe, it has nothing to do with a college degree or the lack thereof. Maybe, it simply has to do with the caliber of the man. In my dream the faceless men were neither interesting nor intelligent. Under my premise then, they didn’t fit into either category—college going or not. Instead, I think these men, prompted by the mystery man, represented my fear of never being dually fulfilled. I did not have the information to determine which category he likely fell within, therefore, I had dreams that not only spoke to the anonymity of this man but the anonymity of the man that I ultimately want. The man in my dream, faceless, devoid of intellect or intrigue had nothing to do with higher learning—it was a manifestation of my real life terror that a man with both—doesn’t even exist. College going, or not.

* The McDonald's example was an extreme exaggeration. Most men that do not go to college do not necessarily have minimum wage jobs. Actually, many do very well. Also, I understand that there are alternative respectable careers that do not necessitate a degree. In fact, I would love to date an artist (good with his hands!) To make the point I used extremes.

Thoughts?

"I want you to fight for me"

“What do you want Erica?” he asked. I wish I hadn’t been so drunk so that I could have beautifully articulated my response. It was the first and last time he seemed genuinely open to discussing what I wanted. Prior to this horribly drunken night of shamefully peeing in alleys and crying in the street he was evasive. After it, he had secretly made up his mind that it wasn’t going to work. That night I didn’t, couldn’t, speak artfully. I wasn’t too drunk. I was too emotional. So, I spoke from my heart. “I want you to fight for me”, I threw at him. He laughed. I wasn’t laughing, instead my face was still streaked with tears from earlier. He probably thought the alcohol had gotten the best of me, that I was incomprehensible. I knew what I was saying. I was very clear. If he was a fighter he would have understood too. But he wasn’t so he didn’t. And if he asked what I wanted again today I would say the same exact thing. “I want you to fight for me.”

I have this bad habit of fighting. I will fight tooth and nail. I will run myself in the ground fighting for him and if I see any headway, however small, I keep throwing punches. I play tug of war with him, with myself and I don’t exhaust. Not even a little. Even after he has grown tired I am still there trying to hold everything together, I’m not exhausted. I’m rejuvenated envisioning the end result, us happy. I will have earned my happiness because I fought for it. I’ve grown up and come to find I’m not fighting the good fight. Instead, it’s a bloody war. When I finally look up from beating this man in the stomach with my head buried in his chest I realize he’s just standing there. I realize he isn’t embracing me, not fighting back. He’s just standing there, just waiting for me to stop fighting. And then when I do, finally, all’s quiet. It’s calm. The fight is over because he was never fighting in the first place. I stand there bloody, sweat mixed with tears, eyes red. I realize that I have exhausted myself, once again with someone who stands on the other side unscathed.

The Notebook, a widely popular Nicholas Sparks book turned film, has become a movie on many women’s “favorites” list. The first time I watched it, sitting next to a high school boyfriend, it quickly became one of my favorites. I knew I was watching the ultimate love story--one that me and him would one day reenact. His departure date to college was fast approaching. I understood that while we might lose each other to the distance we would ultimately be led back to one another--it was fate. He went to Hampton University a month later and I soon came to realize we weren’t characters from a movie. We will never reenact that movie, or any other for that matter.

Every time I watch The Notebook the optimist in me, the Carrie Bradshaw of me gets giddy at the ideal of innocent uncomplicated love being undestroyed by distance, time, and reality. Every time I watch, the realist, the Samantha Jones in me, however, out-talks Carrie. Samantha tells me that these kinds of love stories are only meant for cinematic experiences. Carrie’s voice drowns out and I willingly lay in the cynicism of Samantha’s.

I am Noah Calhoun of The Notebook. Seventeen year old Noah selflessly and maturely frees Allie, the girl he loves, from his grip to enable her personal growth. He fights for her. Years later Noah builds Allie the dream house she spoke of as a seventeen year old girl. He builds a replica of her description. Noah believes that if he fights to make her dream a reality maybe their dream can be one as well. He fights. He fights for the entire duration of their relationship. He fights from the day he meets her until the very last. He initially fights, tirelessly, to convince her that he is worth having. He fights, tirelessly, to convince her that he is worth keeping. The movie concludes with an elderly Allie suffering from dementia. Noah fights to make her remember their love story. When she remembers he fights for her not to forget it. I am Noah Calhoun of The Notebook. Always fighting.

Anyone who has a certain distaste for the movie I’ve noticed has one main complaint: it’s unrealistic. I agree. The story, the journey of the character’s love is unrealistic. The love, Noah’s fighting is not. There is nothing more real than that kind of tragic love. The moment the story spirals from reality to fantasy is identifiable. The moment? Noah and Allie reuniting and magically deciding to fight together. If it was a documentary Noah would still be sitting in that perfect white house, waiting. Alone. He would have gone crazy waiting for the one person he loves to throw him just one punch. In real life there’s only one person ready for war, the other has long thrown up a white flag. The other person never returns the fight. The other person takes a more convenient road. The other person has learned that if it’s not convenient to be with the one you love then you conveniently love the one you’re with. Hopefully the fighter learns to take off their boxing gloves and do the same.

He took me for drunk, when I said “I want you to fight for me” not because my words were slurred but because what I was saying was out of the scope of his comprehension. It was not his reality to fight for a woman. If it wasn’t easy then it was over. If it seemed impossible then it was. I’m a natural fighter. I make no apologies for that. I don’t chase, I’m not delusional—I ‘m a fighter, that’s a difference the majority will sadly never understand. After I’ve wiped the sweat and tears from my face and exited the ring I look back at him still lifelessly standing there. As I look back, I don’t regret the fight in me. I regret the lack of it in him.

Car Sessions

And We are Both Naked

I call them sessions because that’s what they feel like. They feel like therapy sessions. Both of us revealing way too much, falling too deep way too fast. Sitting in that car on that spring /summer night trumps all. I mean, it is so good. Orgasmic good. It is better, in the sense of falling into the pits of intimacy hell, than any date in the best low lit perfect ambiance restaurant that Atlanta, DC, NY, Cali can offer.

I have engaged in these multiple times. I am a car session junkie. The cars change. The men change from bad to worst but the feeling remains the same. Typically it begins right as the real date ends. I guess I should have run like hell in the house, in the apartment, wherever but run as fast as I could just to avoid these sessions of nudity. All I know is that when I lay my head on my pillow in the wee hours of that morning all I can remember is the car session. I remember nothing else about that night. I smile and drift off to sleep and am full of hope. I mean, hell, that session is probably the most intimacy I’ve had in months at that point. Windows rolled down whispering in the smell of a warm night, me comfortable in the passenger’s seat, talking and him listening, him talking and me listening. And as soon as I get out of the car the spell is broken and I think “gosh I revealed way too much” and the truth is I probably did, but it’s the nature of car sessions.

Never and I do mean never have I ever gotten honesty from men to match the honesty that I get during car sessions. For every man that I have ever felt any real connection with I can point to when it happened what prompted this completely over the top in sync feeling. Every time a car was involved, stars overhead. If I were asked to surmise the reason why, I would say the answer lives in the nocturnal.

At night, defenses are lowered, maybe even non-existent. As fetuses we took comfort in the dark wombs of our mothers. As adults we curl up in that same fetal position turn out the lights and are able to coax ourselves into a deep sleep. All in the dark. We feel safe. As children we play peek-a-boo. Someone covers our eyes and we think we can’t be seen, that we’ve disappeared. Maybe that’s what takes place in our romantic lives during adulthood. Are we playing grown up peek-a-boo? It’s dark and therefore safe to be honest, safe to share our innermost thoughts, aspirations and fears. For we can’t be seen. It's dark and the street is still (the kind of still that only the night brings) and it feels like the two of us are the only ones in the world. For the duration of that car session we both forget that we are batting for different teams. The presupposed expectations of male/female disappear. He does not have to make sure he is saying everything right in the hopes of, at the least, sex by the end of the week and I don’t have to be skeptical of his every word. We are just two people, both with emotions, insecurities and fears. It’s dark and gothic and we sit in our respective booths and “Bless me Father, for I have sinned…” isn’t what we say but we confess. And here, in that moment, is the only time I truly begin to see the potential of who we could be together. Who me and this man could be, having more moments just like this in and out of said car.

And at the end of the relationship between him and I--(which if there was a car session is probably messy, emotional and unnecessarily painful) I might think that he is the biggest liar, mass manipulator, miserable excuse of a human being but that car session is untouched. I either will not allow myself to believe or that moment much too real for even me to tamper with in anger and disgust but I cannot question what took place during our car sessions. There is something that happens in those minutes sometimes hours that regardless of all the dysfunction we later create, in the midst of lies and broken promises it still doesn’t disrupt what we created in those sessions. I guess it’s just the magic of car sessions. At the end of a very interesting affair, I looked at a young man and then at his car and I couldn’t say I loved him because I wasn’t sure but what I did know I said. “Gosh, I loved that car,” I whispered. He didn’t understand. That’s where the magic happened.

Have any of you experienced the magic of car sessions? Is there a place where this kind of magic happens for you?