My first learning experience ...Mark Part 2 "The Other Girl"

            So all that happened from the jump off, again the normal person would be long gone by now, but not me, good old gullible Nadia. We have now been dating, and I use this term loosely, ‘exclusively’ for just three months when once again unbeknownst to me, but apparently known to just about everyone else, Summer, a good old freshman or as the men on campus would say ‘Fresh Meat,’ enters the picture.  Ain’t it a trip that once you find you’re your man is cheating everybody and they momma come up to you talking about, I knew it all along girl.  Then why the heck you didn’t tell me, I know now so you saying that is not the least bit helpful, keep that ‘ish’ to yourself. 

Anyway ladies it is at this point that it becomes clear that it is not our gender that lacks sanity, it is MEN.  I did not ask for or hint at wanting to start dating exclusively in the first place.  I was doing my own thing and he was doing his and we would catch up and go out every now and then, I was fine with that.  He came up with all this be my girlfriend stuff on his own and my stupid butt just agreed, and for the most part I stuck to it. Well low and behold during Christmas break, when he has already been cheating on me with Summer for two months (I was not aware of this at the time), he calls me and tells me he is now in love with me…..

(So lets pause reality for a second if you can call it that.  Men what exactly is the definition of love to you, if you are able to express it unsolicited while currently cheating on your said love?  It’s like Tiger Woods getting married when he know he is dipping his putter into anything white and moving, what’s the logic? No one will say a word if you just remain single, except being called a male whore every now and then but at least no one can take half your money at the end of the day!  So why tell me you love me and you cheating me with someone else?  When he uttered those words, I was all in… because heck me being sane thought he was too) Ok, my bad, back to my story, so I’m thinking, cool this dude is really feeling me so I will get emotionally invested for real now, because I in no way, shape, or form pressured him into expressing those feelings, so they must be genuine.  He has poured his heart out, driving five hours to meet my parents and spend time with my family, inviting me to be with his family on their vacation.  What else am I supposed to take from that except that he is in it to win it.  WRONG!  Not so much five more months go by and its summer again and I am getting ready to attend a chapter meeting for my sorority, but I decide to check my email first.  Wow, RED FLAG number two is sitting and waiting in my inbox and it has ‘other girl’ written all over it.  

Ok so calling the "other girl" a red flag is probably an understatement, this should more aptly be called a red Acme mallet falling from the cliff making that screeching noise the whole way down, and it reads:

 

Dear Nadia,

            You do not know me, but my name is Summer and I have been screwing your boyfriend for the last seven months, yes your boyfriend Mark Lee Rhodes

(yeah… old girl used the full government name)

I can tell you where your boots are in the closet and where you keep your change of clothes in the second drawer

(dang, what she do scope the entire floor plan)

We met while at band practice, I am a flag girl

(I be dag gon, he cheated on me with a band geek, can this get worse)

He initially said he didn’t have a girlfriend and everything started from there.

(‘initially’ meaning once she figured out he did, she just didn’t give a damn).  Sorry I had to tell you this way, but I had to get off my chest, so you can stop walking around like you Mrs. Rhodes.

(I know she didn’t say it, I know she didn’t, this baton twirling geek got nerve…and apparently my man too, smh)

 

--Summer

Ps. My number is 555.1162 if you want to talk

 

If I want to freaking talk, seriously?  What do I want with you, I’m going to the source. Ladies never and I repeat never waste your time on the female. All you are going to end up looking like is a clueless fool if you go after her. Go straight for the person that just made a fool out of yo ass. Like Cliff Huxtable in the episode when Vanessa stayed out late with Roger…”Bring me the Boy”…

I hate to date myself but this is just before everybody and their momma had cell phones so I had to run to the campus phone.  Believe it or not, they used to have phones all around campus where people phoned one another, and in order to see caller id you had to buy a separate box to hook up to your landline, you know when you didn’t have a phone in your pocketbook, and whomever you called was forced to answer because you didn’t know who it could be on  the other end.  When I called I told him to come pick me up immediately because “we need to talk” –yes I used the age old code for, be afraid fool be very afraid.  He pulls up and the look on his face is priceless, because he knows he is caught, but he does not know for what offense yet. 

Ladies, don’t ever fool yourself, there is more than one offense, and guys are not as dumb as they sometimes want us to believe and/or seem.  If you don’t pull out a picture and show them their birthmark they will deny it to the grave, and still sometimes they will continue to deny with irrefutable evidence, prime example…R. Kelly.  So I step into the car and get right to the point.  “Who the hell is Summer” still unsure of all the details that I have, he responds “who?”  You know darn well who…Summer from band”, so now with is memory jogged he goes “oh yeah, Summer, she is a flag girl, so what about her?”  “You better tell me before I tell you…”she cool people, I don’t know her that well though”…I have pretty much had enough at this point and if I had a bat right now, this negro would be shaking his head to the Jazmine Sullivan song ‘I bust the windows out your car’ (had it been out that long ago that is) but let me get back to the point…so I simply respond “is that right” while throwing the email into his lap.  It is at this point where I go, what some of you might quantify as a little crazy, but nothing that was not warranted under the circumstances.  I come up with some language that I didn’t know I had in my vocabulary to express my feelings of the moment.  However, after my priceless performance, an even better performance ensues on his part.  Yes, looking back old boy could have beat out Denzel in Training Day, Cuba Gooding Jr, in Jerry Mcguire, and even Jamie Foxx in Ray with his performance.  This dude starts crying, jumping around talking about how sorry he is and how he was not thinking, he doesn’t know why he did it, and how he couldn’t go on in this world if I left him.  Ya’ll by the end of this performance my dumb tail is holding him and consoling him.  Ain’t that a trip?  I remember sitting there thinking how in the heck did this happen, he cheated on me for seven months when we had only been dating for ten, but here I sit with his head in my lap consoling HIM.  I was now questioning my own freaking sanity, you have GOT to be kidding me.  I needed one of those outer body experiences with Lawrence Fishburn screaming ‘WAKE UP’ like at the end of School Daze.  All that big talk, all that crazy acting on my part and I took him back.  Einstein said the very definition of being insane is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome, man I was definitely insane.  And you thought Red Flag #1 was bad.  People don’t judge me, save that for the end of my story, remember I have a lot of “experiences.”  This is just the beginning of my story, it gets worse.

My first learning experience ...Mark Part 1 "The Ex"

Now let’s see, where do I begin, how about July 1999.  Although, not the beginning of my vast “experiences” it is definitely a good starting point.  It’s the summer before my Junior year of college and the beginning of my first serious relationship, or should I say the beginning of a long exercise in bad judgment.

            Mark and I were at the local $1.00 movie and we’d had a few drinks and we’re watching “SouthPark,” when Mark leans over and says “so you wanna be my girl.”  Every girls dream right, tipsy, if not drunk on a date that cost a total of $2, why not?  Now in my head that means, I am now girlfriend, the only girlfriend, not “main girl”, not “trophy girl’, and not “when it is convenient” girl.  I am the one and only girlfriend, and I would think that would be the case for any sane human being viewing the situation at hand.  But ladies, lesson number one, when you are dealing with a boy, emphasis on boy, do not expect sane behavior, thinking, or actions.  There is an episode of Seinfeld when Jerry’s brain or “northern head” is battling his “southern head.”  The brain being logical knows he is not really interested in anything but the physical with the girl and should therefore stop the relationship immediately; however the ‘southern head’ is perfectly fine with leading the girl on for just physical purposes.  In the episode the brain wins and he ends up breaking it off with the girl, however, in reality the brain doesn’t really start winning until the “southern head” just stops rising to the occasion, and in the age of “the little blue pill” ladies, we are talking seventies.  You may be thinking now, man I’m screwed, guess what, you would be right, however… I digress.

            After the ‘be my girl’ event, Mark and I are spending all of our free time together, I’m sorry, slip of the tongue, all of my free time together.  I’m at his apartment more than I am at my dorm room, I’m accompanying him to all of his fraternity events, we are doing our thang. When out of no where.  Then Red Flag number one comes along (Alright let me break this down for you, red flags are those things when the relationship is over that you look back and want to slap yourself because all along the way the Lord was saying in the voice of Red Foxx “look dummy get out NOW”, ok maybe not in those words and not that voice but you get my point).  Back to RED FLAG number one, that flag had "Ex-girlfriend" written all over it.

The Ex-girlfriend flag is important.  How he treated the ‘Ex’ is a good indication of how he will treat the ‘Next’.  This is not a fail-safe, but it is a good indicator and rule.  Exceptions occur but are rare, so ladies don’t be fooled, if the ex is crazy, he had fifty percent to do with it, no matter what he says, look out, you might be next!  Let me explain, according to Mark, she is just a psycho ex-girlfriend, who just cannot let go because he is just such a good catch and decided not to be with her any longer and he has no clue why she is acting so crazy. Surrrreee, I later learn she is just a scorned female who had not yet realized that losing him was the best thing that ever happened to her, damn hindsight, it gets you every time. 

Now here I am with my happy go lucky tail, completely oblivious to the entire situation. Reality is that he has started dating me without telling her, he is no longer dating her, but I don't know this.  All I see the constant phone calls, the notes on the cars, the unannounced visits to the apartment, the screaming matches and all the while he is telling me she is just psycho and he hasn’t done a darn thing wrong. When in reality he just messed with the wrong chick that had just enough crazy in her to get him locked up for assault.  She provokes him to the point that he throws a phone at her and it hits her in the arm and she calls the police, and of course I get a phone call at 3 a.m. in the morning to come bail him out of jail.  You know what they say about Karma! 

So I know some of you are reading this thinking dang girl that was one heck of a red flag, but you gotta look at the perspective AND remember bad judgment people, I am not immune, believe me because that was just RED FLAG number ONE, it just keeps going downhill from here.

The "S"s

Being Successful, Sexy AND Sane ...it should be the trifecta in the dating world.  Then you add on the fact that I am also Saved, Sophisticated and Sweet.  I've got "S"s for days. Unfortunately along with all those "S"s is the fact that I am also painfully SINGLE.


The dating world is harder to figure out than a Rubik's cube! You figure out how to make everything match up on one side and then you turn around and everything is completely messed up on the other side. 


From deciding if I should do a dating profile online to trying for figure out if this guy smiling at me in the grocery store is trying to flirt with me or if he just really likes my shoes and wants to be my new best friend.


Dating in the 21st century is complicated to put it simply.  When guys talk about a girl with their friends it's more common to hear "She is my main chick" quickly implying there are plenty of sides, rather than just hearing "she is my girlfriend." And finding out many girls are ok with accepting the role of "side chick" in hopes of one day becoming the "main."  Not the "One and Only," but the "main."


They want us to blame characters like "Olivia Pope" and "Mary Jane Paul" for setting a bad example.  However, I can quickly name 10 women without thinking hard in real life that have done or are doing the same things.  Those characters are based on real life, real life is not based on those characters. I'll admit to watching Being Mary Jane and wondering who got their hands on my diary and let them use my secrets?


My posts are about real life.  The real life of a professional dater.  The term professional being derived from my vast experiences in dating rather than my mastery of the art of dating.  Because were I to have mastered dating, I would no longer BE dating.


These vast experiences have ranged from comical to devastating.  Times when I felt the sky was the limit and other times when I felt lower than dirt.  However, every experience taught me something new about myself, about life, and the fact that I can not do this by myself.  See if you recall one of those "S"s was Saved.  You might question that while reading some of these posts because I will be the first to admit my faults.  I've had some "Ho" tendencies at some points through these experiences, made some bad judgments calls and some horrible ones too.  But being Saved isn't about being perfect, but it is about striving for perfection and learning that lesson...WE CAN NOT DO THIS ALONE.


But that didn't stop me from trying....then trying again....then trying again.....