Personal dating life experiences. Confusion. Lust. Expectations. Disappointments and the general roller coaster of emotions that come with inter-gender relationships.
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"I ain't mad, you did more than what I asked of you. Asfor me, I did less than what I could have. So though we were a hit I had tocancel that show..." – Joe Budden ' A Different Love.
Shy's look of surprise quickly turns into what looked to be a genuine smile. At which point I start thinking "Hhmm why is she smiling at me like that? This woman was about to jump into some random dude's clunker and probably go get violated by his giant penis, right on the day she made plans to hang out with me! She must have me fucked up!" But that thought quickly turned into nothing the moment she spoke. I remembered this wasn't supposed to be that deep. The first step is done, I deleted her numbers from my mobile device, let me do what I came here to do. "Oh hey... what are you doing here?" She finally says. I look around behind me thinking maybe she's talking to someone else. My thoughts start going off, "The fuck!? Is she seriously asking me what I'm doing here? Wait a gawd damned minute, is this a fucking practical joke being played on me?" I look at her, hiding my surprised reaction by her stupid-ass question and then sarcastically say: "Well, I was in the neighborhood and when I saw you, figured I'd say wassup." She says: "That's awesome" as she giggles and plays with her hair nervously "I'm actually on my way to get my hair and nails done." She continues. My thoughts go off once more: "Wait, wait, wait... she isn't even going to acknowledge my sarcastic response? What fucking game is she playing with me right now?" I eventually say: "Not that you need any of that, you already look beautiful as is." (I mean this mind game she's playing must have some greater climax, right? Let's play along). "Oh stop. You can't be making me blush in front of my cab driver." She says. Thoughts go off yet again: "Whoah! Is she actually blushing as she says all this? Damn! This dude's a cab driver for real? And here I was thinking this regular looking ass dude was about to bag this dime. But then again, I'm a regular-ass-looking dude myself and I managed to bag her spitting regular game, so it's a probability." I soon discard the thought and I start thinking that maybe this woman does not owe me a damn thing. She's given me more than what I could have expected and besides, her and I hadn't even officially decided that we had anything more than just a 'fuckship'. I mean, as much as we got along, we had never really spoken about 'kickin it' as an actual couple. I've never brought that up and if she was thinking about it, she had ample opportunities to bring it up herself, but never did either. Besides, I was cool with that, probably because I already knew she had a dude, and I was just her rental. Whatever the case may have been at the time, all I could do was assume and I did not want to do that farther than I already had. So right then and there, with that thought, I decided that maybe it's time I see this situation for what it was without adding any emotional impediments. Her and I had a good run and if need be, I am going to proceed to charge it to the game and keep shit moving. It sounds cold I know, but I was not about to let myself catch mad feelings for this girl, regardless of how attractive and cool she was, or how much we got along. I wasn't about to let mere emotions overcome logic, so I eventually said to her: "Anyway, my babe it was dope seeing you, even though it might have been brief. But let me let you get to where you need to go... I'll talk to you later?" She looks at me with somewhat of a puzzled look. She probably was expecting me to bring up the fact that we were supposed to kick it today and I didn't. "Oh, okay babe... I will talk to you later then." She says. I smile and then say: "Don't forget to send me a pic of your hair and nails after you're done." And then I wink playfully. She responds: "Of course! I will send you the before and after pictures" as she swings the vehicle door open again. She leans over to me and gestures for an awkward hug and then ends it with an equally awkward kiss. She jumps into the vehicle, looks at me and waves goodbye. I wave back using two fingers and a nod, as if to salute her. The vehicle engine fires up, and I walk away across the street without a single glance backward. I get to the homeboy's car and everyone's ready to depart – as I sit in and secure my seatbelt, my dude fires up the engine and asks, "So, what did she say? Is she coming through or..." To which I say: "Nah man, It's just us. She's got some stuff to take care of and sends her apologies." "Oh well, we'll have the fun on her behalf" my dude retorts, as we both laugh out loud and drive off with the present ladies.
Most dudes might have, perhaps, taken that entire encounter with Shy personally and reacted emotionally to it – Hell, even a version of my past-self would have probably reacted emotionally to that type of situation, but I didn't and that isn't because it didn't make me feel some type of way. I had to, at some point in my life, I realized that some reactions would probably do more harm than good. I had to unlearn most of the things that over time, I became fluent. I had to learn to charge certain things and people to the game and move on when I see that it's necessary at a particular time. It's quite fitting to quote Jump-Off when he said:
** It's to the point I gotta ask myself, Why the fuck is it so easy to detach myself? Maybe it ain't you, just something I lack myself, but if these wounds are self-inflicted I can patch myself **.
Whatever the case may be, I can say that it took an encounter with an incredible woman for me to get over my square ways and basically grow the fuck up to become the type of dude I am today. I try not judge, I have no beef with anyone and I get over shit. Which is actually a great 'segue' for me to explain how I became the way I am – or rather, explain the final peace of the domino storm that fell to make me see the world around me differently and basically stop taking people's decisions personally, regardless of whether they affect me directly or indirectly.
My luck! So, a couple of years before I would not even imagine meeting Shy, there was another woman. Let's call her JayRabbit for the sake of the story. One day I walked into an area at work that I frequent but had not been at for over three weeks. This is an area of considerable foot traffic so I would usually just walk past most of the people sitting by the entrance without so much as a glance. However, on this particular day, I caught sight of one woman that stood out of everyone else... there were five women sitting by the designated waiting area, all of them were quite attractive. Even so, there was a certain aura of concealed radiance and confidence hidden behind her nervous sitting posture. I was walking in with two of my colleagues at the time and I decided the moment I noticed her that I had to know who this woman was. I took a glance at her hands and didn't see a ring, I looked up to catch her eyes and smiled. "Those shoes look absolutely stunning on you... you wear them well" I said. Her eyes widened, as if to ask if I was talking to her. I kept direct eye contact to make sure that she knew that I was, in fact, referring to her. She picked that up, smiled nervously and said, "Oh, thank you" and then adjusted her sitting position. I could not even tell anybody who would ask today, how the other four ladies were dressed because I had involuntarily discarded them from my peripheral. I carried on walking and followed behind my two colleagues without acknowledging her any further. We got to our destination and before they could all say anything I said, "I call dibs on the girl with the leopard-print-red-bottoms..." They collectively responded by agreeing that she was definitely the more attractive one amongst the group. "I know, because this is the girl that's going to break my heart." I retorted jokingly. We all laughed about it and to some extent I believed I would probably not even see her again beyond today and that maybe I was kidding myself thinking I stood a chance anyway. I had no idea how much of a significant role this particular woman would play in my life at a later stage, the universe had interesting plans for me. Sure enough when we eventually got back from what we were doing, we walked past the waiting area to find that she had left. I was floored, "Why didn't I do more? Why didn't I at least ask her how long she'd be around?" Those thoughts really bothered me. Hindsight is 20/20 and I was flooded with thoughts of regret. This is one of the most beautiful women I have seen in a while and I could have done more. "Oh, fuck it" I thought, "I guess that's what I get for not having the appropriate amount of confidence and game to step to that kind of woman to leave an impression". I became temporarily self-absorbed. A couple of days went by with her crossing my mind now and again. A couple of days became weeks and just when I was getting over thoughts of her, as I walk into my workplace one morning, minding my business and happy to see some of my dudes – lo and behold! "Yes! It is her! It must be her!". As Karmic Synergy would have it, one of the managers in the area, was walking her around introducing her to the other staff members. I tried to act as cool as possible and contain my sudden surge of adrenal excitement. She was moving closer and closer toward me, giving nervous handshakes to everyone. I stood there with sweaty palms and a pounding "stressed Eric" type of heartbeat. Finally, they get to me. I felt my hand tremble a little as I was raising it to meet hers. "Calm your damn self, son!", I said under my breath and right before the manager could say anything, we were both locked in eye contact, both our hands suspended in the air for what seemed like a generation, waiting to meet for a handshake...
