And Now for ‘Something New’???

An excerpt of this blog appeared yesterday on Alphanista.com.  View it here: http://tinyurl.com/yg7r7lp

I used to think I was different than everyone else, a true individual with very unique experiences.  Apparently, I’m just a statistic.

According to a Yale University study among women with advanced degrees, Black women are twice as likely never to have been married by age 45 than White women.  Tell me something I don’t know.  Most of my friends are single, educated sisters who can’t get a date…a date with anyone we like, anyway.  On the other hand, well damn!  My singlehood has been documented and confirmed by sociologists, which makes it some kind of fact.  Grrrr!

But wait, there’s more!  More than any other group studied, Black women are we’re less likely than even our men to have college-grad spouses.  Think about that for a minute, and realize that it’s because Black men are more likely to marry White women, while Black women would rather find a Brotha with a GED than cross over into “something new” territory.  Yep, that information is in the study too.  I’m not really liking these options: someone hand me a cocktail or a pint of Haagen-Dazs!

Like every woman in America, I guess I have a fantasy about my potential mate.  He’s tall, dark and handsome…to be clear, he’s taller than me, darker than me, and I find him handsome but that doesn’t mean he has to look like Blair Underwood.  Actually, I did date a guy who looked like Blair Underwood, but that’s a story for another time.  My Fantasy Brotha – and he is a brotha – has a background like mine, which is to say he went to college, was raised by both parents, and is really smart and kinda geeky.  Hey, I dated that guy too.  A few times.  And when it didn’t work out I veered away from my fantasy and towards the reality of dating different kinds of men.

I’ve gone out with guys who aren’t as educated as me, who don’t have professional jobs, and it wasn’t for me.  Look, I have nothing against a high-school graduate; neither of my parents went to college.   And, degree or not, my Dad is one of the smartest men I know.  If I could find someone like him I’d have a browser window open right now for Blue Nile, ready to propose.  But the non-diploma’d men I’ve dated were intimidated by my friends from college and business school.  And they were intimidated by my family, which happens to be full of college people.  But my family is the loving/caring/sharing kind of family, not the snobby kind who one-ups each other at dinner.  I’m gonna need to be with someone that will do the Electric Slide at the family reunion, because fun and bonding doesn’t come with a certificate on the wall.  And its not like my friends walk around saying, “Let us gather and wax sentimental about the alma mater.  Boola Boola!” or start sentences with “When I got my MBA…” But occasionally I’ll want my guy to come to the Yale-Harvard game and get drunk at the parking lot tailgate.  And when he’s standing in the chug line-up next to me, I want him to feel comfortable with the guys tapping the keg.  I really don’t think that’s a lot to ask for.

Similarly, I don’t really want to marry a White man.  When I was in high school, I kind of assumed that I’d marry a White guy because I didn’t really socialize with Black guys.  This wasn’t intentional, but rather a by-product of bussing and gifted programs where I was the only Black student in my class for years.  When there were other Blacks, they were female.  Right now, I won’t go into what I think is wrong with that situation, or the institutionalized racism inherent in the educational system…again, a story for another time.  Suffice it to say that I had crushes on White classmates and had them over to my house, and did some serious hanging with White guys in college, but I never dated any of them.  I never dated anyone at all until I graduated from college and met some Black men that didn’t think I was corny.  I’m sure my dad was thrilled.  And so was I, not only because I actually had dates, but because I dated dudes I really connected with.   Black men feel like home to me and at the end of the day, I want to come home.  Now don’t call me a racist ‘cuz I still have plenty of White friends.  Yet some things about them remain strange to me.  Like, where are the washcloths?  Don’t y’all use them when you take a shower?  When I’m staying at your house, I expect you to give me a towel and washcloth, not a towel and a bar of soap, know what I mean?  My Black husband would get it, and we’d pack some extra terrycloth when we visit.  Then there’s the hair thing.  The mother of a Caucasian friend actually put her hand in my Afro before we were even introduced!  Imagine if that came from my man’s mother? I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say it’s a bad idea to bitch-slap potential family members, even if they do dumb stuff.

So you see, I’ve explored the options and I’m gonna have to stick with my original “tall, dark & educated” plan or suck it up and be single.  Actually, there could be hope with one of the nice Pakistani cab drivers that always tell me I’m beautiful.  Some of them are doctors in their country.  And we’d have nice brown babies.  It’s something to consider, but the jury’s still out.

The Complaint Box is Empty

I have a complaint: people complain too much.

Have you ever noticed that when we complain, its usually something that we can control. Okay, okay, I’m the first person to kvetch, so much so that the New York Times printed one of my rants. But I do it for the sake of humor, not because I’m a curmudgeon.

The aunt that I live with is a frequent complainer, being at set-in-your-ways age when you complain about what’s not to your liking. Last weekend, she decided to wash windows and proceeded to complain about how tired she was after working all week and going to an 8:30AM meeting that day. However, she proceeded to sweep and clean…and complain.

It occurred to me, as I tried to leave the house, that she didn’t have to do the housecleaning at that particular second. She could have sat down for some lunch and a cup of coffee, made a phone call, even taken a nap.  There was no company coming, no plans for the evening, and no concrete reason – other than personal choice – that my aunt had to do the housekeeping right then.  If I hadn’t been rushing to catch the library and the post office before closing time, I’d have stayed to help. Within the hour, I’d have been back home and I suggested that auntie wait for my assistance.  She’d have none of it and as I walked out the door, I heard a now-familiar tirade about “you young people” and our shortcomings.

I love my aunt but I just wanted to say “If you’re tired, sit down and SHUT UP about it!”  In my opinion, you can’t choose to do something and then complain about doing it.  Further, you can’t reject someone’s help and then complain about having to do it alone.  Am I wrong, people?

My aunt is not alone, though, in her tendency to whine.  People with lots of kids complain that they have lots of kids.  I’ve got some news for them:  you made the kids, so you know where they came from and how not to get any more. At 37, I’ve managed to avoid conceiving children because I know how hard it is to care for them; I don’t want to hear you bitch and moan about yours.  Here’s a dollar, by a condom.

Movie stars complain about the paparazzi, the gossip mags, and fans wanting to know about their personal lives.  If nobody cared about you, you wouldn’t be a star, and you wouldn’t be able to afford the mansion you live in, or even the security cameras around it.  If you didn’t want anyone to know your name, you should have been a bus driver.  But the trade off for the admiration and the pretty clothes and a percentage of the box office is people taking pictures of you and speculating about your love life.  Once they stop caring, you stop working, just like what’s-her-name.  Yes I’m talking about you, Julia Roberts!  Make like Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, sell your photos for some cold, hard cash and smile for the cameras.

I’ll bet you a million dollars that the president doesn’t complain.  Not just Obama, but all of them.  Talk about a crappy job!  Every decision you make could affect millions of people, and you’re never really sure where you stand.  Scary-looking guys with sunglasses and earpieces follow you everywhere because one of the other guys with your job got shot. And lawyers and stock brokers make a butt-load more money than you for all the stress you have.  But he’s POTUS, the most powerful person in the world. And he wouldn’t have run for office if he didn’t want the job, so stop complaining about how you hate your job and be thankful that your performance reviews aren’t a topic for the Sunday news shows!

You know who doesn’t complain?  People with cancer .  You never hear a cancer patient say, “Oh my goodness, my hair is falling out, and it makes my face look so fat” or “Don’t mind me I’m just vomiting.  I can’t stand this chemo, what do those doctors think they’re doing?.”  Actually, they suffer and suck it up, because the alternative is more sickness, more pain.  They have no choice but to accept what is and thank God or Allah or their surgeon that they’re living another day.  Then they get back on the bike, or go back to work, or start a charity walk, or go home and kiss their kids goodnight.

And I’m gonna guess there’s no complaining about how many toys are on the floor.

Honesty is good for the soul

And good for other people, too. Like Tyler Perry who talks candidly about the child abuse in his past, I want to talk about the things I’ve been through in the hopes that it will educate others.

Here’s Mr. Perry’s revelation on CNN: http://tinyurl.com/ycwywu4

My revelations are on the “What’s this blog about” page, and there are more every day.  Stay tuned, and stay brave.