Dear Love, You’re Making Me Uncomfortable

Now the challenge of dating as a single mother is not that you are a parent, it is that you have that hat to wear plus many more and your life somehow requires romance too. Sure you are already loved to pieces by your little lovebug baby, but guess what, you are gonna want some good old fashion grown up love from time to time, and maybe even permanently. I love love. I love seeing it on film and in the videos and on magazines. In real life I am TERRIFIED of it.

Love isn’t an unidentified object. Or is it? Because when I fall in love, I don’t feel love as an emotion. I feel confused. I want to press the “like” button for the guy I am dating, but what happens when the “like” button isn’t enough? I feel uncomfortably obsessed with how to express my interest without freaking out the both of us. I feel like instead of calling to say “I miss you” I refrain from calling at all so I can pretend to be busier than I really am, when all I am doing is thinking of himmm! That’s not the way to approach this mushy stuff but I’m grown! Who does that? Teenagers do. I am 27 full human years old!

Love makes me laugh uncontrollably. Love brings out my nerdy side. It makes me lotion my knees, elbows, and feet, when truly I don’t ever feel like it. Love gets on my nerves because it makes me so nervous. I’m constantly concerned. Overly available. Hopelessly happy! Why not embrace the wave of warmth and fuzzy wuzzy feelings? BECAUSE I AM AN ADULT! This is not a Disney movie. What happens when you have to squeeze every drop out of your schedule to fit love in? What happens when it’s worth all the trouble?
Love is different when you are a full adult. You can’t make blissfully ignorant mistakes the way you did when you were much younger. Love can be a very serious thing when you have more invested than just your bubble gum to share from your Lisa Frank back-pack. Stakes are higher, and love has to have mercy on you and every single soul involved but will it? Am I truly falling, have already fallen, there but not confessing, in it and not professing it…and why? When these questions arrive, assess whether your love interest is on the same two-way street and that they are just as confused about directions as you are. But how? Maybe the “easy” button would come in handy here.

signed
-lex
though this was not in letter form

What Are Men Good For? Apparently Alot!

Men are good for lots of reasons. Although, I am very independent because I have to be as a  single, working mother, I enjoy accomplishing things that society assumes men can naturally do better than woman. However, I would appreciate the support of a male counterpart the way Disney movies taught me, while enjoying his company. This isn’t about sexism. This is about my will to do what any human should, when a man is nowhere to be found. I am talking about assembling a two door, 2 shelf cabinet, FROM SCRATCH, with tools, without reading instructions. If I had a man there with me at that vulnerable moment, he would say, “Don’t you dare lay your pretty little fingers on such a stressful project! Let me handle it.”

This isn’t about the single life! This is about when you have to drive to a mechanic that tells you everything is wrong with your car when it’s really just one thing. Even worse, the mechanics try to flirt with you so you are lead to believe they have settled to give you a hook up (a good deal) because clearly no one put a ring on it. Not only are trips to the mechanics hard, I hate going to the auto- stuff stores, where the clerks make you feel small, and even laugh when you embarrassingly ask, “What’s Antifreeze?” This is when a man is useful to me. I could ask him all these hardcore, manly questions so I don’t have to make a joke of myself when I walk into those establishments. If I had a man, he would say, “Don’t worry about that auto-stuff my honey drop! Let me handle it.”

This is not about my frustrations of the pressure I feel from everyone else to have a man around! This is about extending the invitation to have a man help me with all 127 plastic bags (sorry earth) that are often too small for most items you buy in the grocery store, so the bagger only fills each bag with things that don’t go together like an orange, a jar of pickles, and a box of Frosted Flakes…and 2 yogurts. So, when it’s time to carry all those randomly packed items into my apartment on the third floor, with a toddler who can only carry his favorite flavored sucker, things get really exhausting and suddenly I experience the onset of an asthma attack. I don’t really have asthma, but if I had a man, he would say, “Babe, I have all these Insanity muscles for a reason, ya know! Let me handle it.”

This is not about my longing to have a male companion out of desperation! This is about when I buy a million things that don’t belong on my necessity list. This is about when I need help organizing all those items I love buying, on a monthly basis from my favorite one-stop-chic-shopping store. When I get tired of hoisting those items into their designated places, and decide to take a yogurt break, I day dream about how nice it would be to have my male companion excited about the deal I got on the 50 pack of soft toilet tissue. When I finally reevaluate my $247.00 receipt and begin to notice the fashion scarves, accessories, hair products, and toys that were not on the list, I become overwhelmed and aware of my slight addiction to impulse purchasing. I even get that first tear-water that wells up in your eye that makes your vision blurry. If I had a man, he would say, “Wipe that tear my love, I know your on a budget. No worries. Let me handle it!”

My man would handle all the things a man could possibly ever handle, except during The Half Time Show, and draft season coverage!

-lex

Dating Cobwebs

Decisions, Decisions

Remember when dating was as simple as a note passed between classmates? The only thing you had to do was check ‘Yes’, ‘No’, or ‘Maybe’. Not to mention those were also the times when the boys asked the girls out.

Fast Forward to 2013 and the only thing guys care to ask is ” Whatchu on?” “Do you want to watch a movie at my house?” or “Do you wanna grab a bottle?”  To answer those questions: NOTHIN’, HEWL NAW and YES! I wanna grab abottle to BUST  you upside yo head! Somewhere along the lines of life women have lowered their standards so men have lowered they inhibitions which, inturn makes men feel entitled to treat women of substance with the same disregard and tackiness they treat hoodrats, skip skabs and scally wags.

First of all I’ll admit that I am somewhat rusty by way of, I’ve been with my first love since I was 19 til I was 26, so everything I thought I knew about dating at 19 is on a totally different scale of a 27 year old. So I’m learning as I go but I’m a fast learner. Anyway, I can’t seem to make it to a first date. There are ALWAYS barriers that prevent a sista from gettin a free meal. (YES thats right I said it! I’m tired of always takin myself out, paying admission to the movies; do you know how much popcorn and cherry coke costs at the movies? I’m ready to be treated and spoiled.) I appreciate the speediness of God and his Grace and Mercy he blesses me with not allowing no good nothins and fools to outstay their welcome in my life, so I almost feel I can’t complain but me being me I’m gonna rant and rave anyway in Jesus name:

The Barber- When I saw him he wasn’t  my type; he was ugly & dark as hell, not the “Mmm sexy chocolate of a man” dark but crispy, crunchy scrape the burnt off the toast dark. In my mind all of the dating experts advice rang in my ear, Step out of your comfort zone, the love you seek may not be in the package you perfer, relax, at least have fun. With that said, he asked for my number and I, somewhat hesitantly, obliged. We talked on the phone once and the next time we talked he asked me to stop by his house since, ironically, I was at the store up the street from his house. Immediately I began seeing “red flags”. First, he asked me to park at the corner and not in front of his house. Second, I was about to get out of the car and he said, “naw, sit in the car, I’ll sit in with you.”  Third, his phone kept vibrating simultaniously with the irate woman pacing up and down the street who was angrily pressing redial. Me, knowing that good and bad things come in 3s I rapidly caught her attention and unlocked my doors allowing her to open the passenger side door, pull him out by his collar and proceed to give him a Mississippi style butt whoopin’.

The “Entrepreneur”- I met him in the grocery store. I was in line behind him, he was purchasing two bottles of Riesling. Looking at him I would have pegged him for a Henny(Hennessy) sipper, his selection in spirits intrigued me more than his swagger. By the time he paid and cool guy walked to and out of the door my items were paid for and bagged and I caught up to him as I had hoped- to see if he would ask me for my name, number or at least a “Hi, how you doin’?” As luck would have it he stopped and asked for my digits. A few days later he called and we chatted, he seemed like a regular guy which is rare. The next day we made plans to meet up in the parking lot of a restaurant which seemed like a neutral spot because I surely did not care to let him know where I lived. First, he arrived almost 30 minutes late after texts and calls of “I’m 5 minutes away”. Second, we couldn’t go to an establishment because he was waiting on someone to drop him a “package”. In my mind I’m thinking “Aw hewl naw!” it was dinner time and this fool  got the nerve to not even TRY to get a meal in my belly I knew he was trippin’. Third, while we sat in his car waiting for a “package” that never showed up he reached in the backseat to pull out a bottle of wine followed by a wine opener and two child’s cups from McDonalds that had Ronald flipping to the golden arches. As I sat there in utter disbelief he continued to pressure me into having a sip of the wine that may as well have been in a paper bag like a wine-o. He proceded to talk about himself, all of his accomplishments and fraternity. This fella made it seem like he was a mover and a shaker and if I joined him I’d be moving and shaking as well. An hour and a half worth of all emptiness because the next day the brotha showed up to my job (not knowing that this was my place of employment) needing assistance with paying his light and gas bill. As I whispered to a co-worker “let me see his application” he sat in the lobby awaiting his “package” of utility credits. The name he told me was a lie, the level of education he had accomplished was a lie, his place of residency was a lie and his  ‘bands’ of money was most certainly not a reality.

To sum, dating in my world is a JOKE! I enjoy having stories to share with my girls over a glass of wine from a long stemmed GLASS and not a wax/paper cup. Very recently, I have decided to forgo the dating scene and laugh at these fools from a distance because my time is much too valuable to clown around.

-Ms. J Singling and not mingling!