Fatal Pursuit

uno

Friday
00:26
Photo from camera roll

Ibiza was everything they said it would be and more. I'd never seen so many beautiful people in one place. And so many men who were actually into me...
Talking to me, exchanging flirtatious glances, playfully brushing past me, whispering sweet nothings in my ear in passing, sending drinks over to me.
All these little playful things kept me on my toes and made me feel giddy and fluttery. A feeling that only compares to when you have your very first crush.

It was night and day compared to how American boys "flirt". They just stumble over to you smugly like their audacity impedes their motor skills as they shove their cracked iPhones into your hands with the Snapchat search bar already pulled up, the cursor blinking expectantly and with an air of entitlement.

This was a whole new world, no, a whole new universe for me. As a black girl, I usually get overlooked and ignored when I go out with my white friends. While they are extremely gorgeous and I love to see them living their best lives, it's not a good feeling to get treated like I'm not even there every time we step out. They get flattered and adorned with compliments and lustful glances while I stand there like a bumbling third wheel. I'm lucky if they even at least acknowledge my presence.

Even if I try to make the first move. Sure, they'd talk to me but the expression on their faces and their body language always said how they really felt.
That I'm only talking to you to be nice look. It doesn't matter how well I do my hair, how hard I beat my face, how much or how little skin I show, I always find myself being shown up by a 5'2 fake blonde who wears converse to the club.

I became so insecure at one point that I would let the few cretinous middle-aged men that hung out by themselves in the outskirts of the club talk to me. Letting them catcall and chat me up from the shadows, buy me drinks and wrap a sickly claw around my waist with their ring fingers that had discolored imprints from recently removed wedding bands. Their grins exceeding their natural margins as they paraded me around the place as their young, makeshift trophy, a token of their still-functioning libidos and a potential emblem of wealth because why else would a woman my age be seen with a liver spot spangled sack of lechery?
I remember one of them popped Viagra like they were Tic Tacs and had a pathetic accumulation of no more than twenty-five chalk-colored hairs combed over into a pitiful pile mussed atop his head.
Did he at least have money? Girl, not a damn dime. In fact, a woman once passed by me while I was with one of these creatures and whispered make his pockets hurt in my ear. I had to bite down on my lip to fight my laughter. Make his pockets hurt. As if his pockets weren't already scorned, suffering an economic crisis greater than that of the Great Depression. Can't hurt what's already dead.

I used to think that I'd be able to find refuge by strictly going for black men but that couldn't be further from the truth. Their colorist stares of disdain bore into me as I walked by, elbowing their friends and snickering as if I wasn't in hearing range.
The only time a black man has made a pass at me was a crusty hanging out at a corner store. His dehydrated twists desperately needed a resurrection of biblical proportions. He was one of those uber-spiritual hotep types, sporting a washed out dashiki that he hadn't bothered to iron. He was ashy, didn't have a car and reeked of black and mild cigars. That was more than enough for me.

I mean, those are the kind of grimy males that give me attention. I don't know why that specific genre of men is so drawn to me. Maybe they could smell the desperation emanating off of me and went for it, thinking I'd be an "easy lay", I can't say for sure.
For that reason, I used to really think that either something was fundamentally wrong with me or that I must be disturbingly ugly.
But since stepping foot on to Spanish soil I've been ogled at by men more in just this weekend than in my entire life. I mean hard stares. And not like the judgmental who are you stares but those infatuated and enamored who are you stares, even by women. I've never in my life felt "hot" and I still don't really feel that but I feel like how my friends must feel when we go out together. The attention felt so good that I found myself taking an extra hour to get ready to go out to the club tonight.