Until I Get Married ®

I have a friend who used to go up to every woman he was attracted to with the same hook, line, and sinker. He chatted her up with friendly conversation, maybe offered her a drink or danced with her for a couple of songs and then if things were going well, he hit her with the question, “So do you have a man?”

His success rate with this approach was a Major League Baseball average at best (for all you non sports fans, a great season for any player is when they hit over 30%). As well intended as his ask may have been, it failed to hit the mark more than it didn’t and I had to tell him why. He never listened because he was stubborn, but maybe one of you guys out there who is reading this will hear me out as to why it’s almost never a good idea to ask a woman if she is single.

As I think I have said before on this site (I don’t feel like looking it up to verify this), asking a woman if she is seeing someone gives her an easy out. If she isn’t single, she doesn’t want to be reminded of that at all. Even if she’s happily single, when has a woman ever said out loud, to a man, “No, I don’t have a boyfriend, thank God!”

Never.

I always assume a woman has a boyfriend, but I don’t let that stop me. If I want to confirm, I’ll ask one of her friends for the inside scoop, but I don’t ask myself for the reasons stated above and because, well, I just think it’s good to have a filter. Assuming she has a man is what enables me to approach in an assertive but non aggressive way, that way if some barrel-chested guy with a shirt that’s too small comes out of the bathroom, he won’t try to slam my head into the bar. I don’t want my head slammed into the bar.

But the other reason this question is a waste of your time (and hers) is because even if she isn’t single it doesn’t mean she’s available.

Every woman has a team of guys from whom she is getting attention. I know this because I have been on multiple teams, assigned to multiple positions. Never think you’re playing tennis with a woman unless she says love out loud. Until then, understand you’re playing a team sport, and you are one man against five. If you want to be the MVP in her life, you have to, in the words of Waka Flocka, go hard in the paint and cross up every one of these following five jokers before she ever lets you score.

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The Until I Get Married Podcast is back. If you have a question to ask send it to ask.fm/jozenc or feedback@untiligetmarried.com.
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We were sitting across from one another having brunch. The waitress came with our first order, a large salad we decided to share. With no hesitation, I dove my fork and spoon into the large bowl of arugula, gave it a couple of light tosses, and then pushed together a nice-sized portion. “Give me your plate,” I said. She picked it up and I laid down the serving and then another. “Is that good?” I asked. “Yeah,” she said. As I began to serve myself, she said, “I love you.”

That was the last time I remember hearing those words and feeling them.

It wasn’t the first time she said it. The two of us had been together for a while and said it to each other pretty regularly. But for whatever reason, at that moment, those words, the way she said them, were crystal.

I recalled that moment recently, after I watched this video of a guy who proposed to his girlfriend and planned her wedding using her Pinterest board as a guide. It was one of those viral videos I first ignored on Facebook, and only watched after enough of my friends asked me if I checked it out. The entire thing is pretty touching, assuming you have a heart, but the one part that stuck out for me is when Ryan, the guy who proposes, said that up until the moment he asked Amanda, his girlfriend, to marry him, he never told her he loved her.

As one of my boys said, Ryan must be a magician because to go five years without ever saying “I love you” is pure magic. I laughed because it’s true.

After I saw the video, I thought for a long while about Ryan’s reasoning behind never telling Amanda “I love you.” In the video he says, “I didn’t want to use that phrase until I felt like I could back it up with every fiber of my being.”

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This is not the 2013 version of the Tragic Mulatto.

I am not the archetype for such a story. I have experienced devastating loss and heartbreak, but tragic wouldn’t be an accurate word to describe even the most difficult times in my life. Furthermore, I wish my story was as easy as being black and white, but it isn’t. It never has been and never will be. I’m mixed, and I’ve been mixed for 32 years, but I’ve only gotten used to how that sounds for like the last three or so years.

But let’s not start there. I want to go further back and discuss what it means to be a mixed race boy who liked girls and wanted girls to like him.

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The first date was a car show, because in the city of Detroit, that’s a good date. I learned this quickly, when I moved to the D in the Summer of ’02 to do an internship at the Detroit Free Press. She was a hairstylist, because in the city of Detroit, a good woman does some hair (even if it’s on the side of whatever other career she has) but she just so happened to do it full time.

We met through a coworker of mine who was a friend of hers. I just wrapped up writing a whole package on the car show, which made my date activity choice even more impressive. On our way there, I told her about all the things they had going on at the show. “You did your research on this car show, didn’t you?” she asked. “Well, I wrote about it actually, it’s in today’s Free Press,” I said.

Points, baby. Count those.

In Detroit, everyone is either very into cars or into cars. No one is not into them, at least no one I met, and this girl was no different. She knew her stuff and as much as I wrote about that car show beforehand, as we were walking around, she became the brains of our operation. She could spot 18s, 20s, and 22s without a ruler. I was impressed and for whatever reason, falling for her.

While we sat down to eat some typical festival fare, two gunshots rang out. We got up and ran to the nearest exist, equally fast, and when we got there, slowed down to a speed walk holding each other’s hand. In spite of that brief brush with gunfire, the two of us had a great time. We said our goodbyes, I got a kiss on the cheek, and I went home high on this new girl.

I was 20-years-old at the time, still preoccupied with silly things like not trying too hard, and appearing as though I’m just chilling. This meant I didn’t call her for the rest of the weekend, even though I wanted to talk to her the next morning. Instead, I waited until Monday, after work, to ask her out on date number two.

No sooner did the clock on my computer hit 6:00 did I gave her a call. “Heeeey,” she said. She was happy to hear from me, I could already tell. I, of course, acted only mildly enthusiastic. “What’s up?” I said. After catching up on each other’s weekend, I was ready to deliver the request for a second date, but she stopped me. “So listen,” she said. “I don’t know if you’re free this coming week, but there’s a cookout, and I’d like you to come with me if you can.”

For the second date, she was asking me out. I was shocked. This was unprecedented, and because it was coming from a girl I was actually digging, I think I said “Yes” at the same time she said “can.”

Since I know you’re curious, that date went well. A couple of other dates followed and those went well too. It wasn’t a full Summer romance, more like a June one, and it was fun while it lasted.

The only reason why I’m telling this story is because it was with her I discovered a distinguishing mark of a mature woman: The fearless approach to asking a man out on the second date if the first date went so well.

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On Tuesday, I had the privilege of appearing on Huff Post Live to discuss one of the most popular dating topics: Who should pay on the first date?

I know there are as many people tired of talking about this as there are people like myself who are always up for discussing it, but the rules keep changing so the conversation continues. What prompted yesterday’s discussion was a recent study done by Chapman University, which found the following:

Consistent with conventional norms, most men (84 percent) and women (58 percent) reported that men pay for most expenses, even after dating for a while. Over half (57 percent) of women claim they offer to help pay, but many women (39 percent) confessed they hope men would reject their offers to pay, and 44 percent of women were bothered when men expected women to help pay. Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of men believed that women should contribute to dating expenses, and many feel strongly about that: Nearly half of men (44 percent) said they would stop dating a woman who never pays. A large majority of men (76 percent), however, reported feeling guilty accepting women’s money.

I have included the segment at the end of this post, so you can see me along with my fellow panelists and host Caityln Becker discuss the topic in full. But I want to expand on a particular point I touched on in the show about the first date and why I take issue with women who go for the reach to pay half.

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In honor of turning 32, I’ve decided to share 32 things I’ve learned. If you want to do something for my birthday, read it, please. Thank you!

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After I finished cutting my hair yesterday, I spent a longer time than usual staring at myself in my bathroom mirror.

This wasn’t vanity at work here. I still had specks of my old hair splattered against my forehead, which was shiny because I just finished running warm clippers over my head on a day where the temperature was around 200 degrees fahrenheit.

I was focused on trying to detach myself from the person I saw in the mirror because I wanted to see what other people may see when they see me walking down a street or on a platform waiting on the subway. I wanted to see the face my mom said others would see if I wore my hat cocked a certain way or played a certain type of music at a certain volume.

I wanted to see the face of fear.

And I couldn’t.

A straight face isn’t my default face. I like to smile and I do it more than I don’t. When I look at pictures of Trayvon Martin, I see a boy who smiled when the camera was on him. If I had to write a story about Trayvon using those pictures alone, I would describe him as a happy child who didn’t need to be feared by anyone.

Then I would hand that story to people like George Zimmerman.

A lot of what I have read about George Zimmerman and the tragic not guilty verdict those six jurors came to on Saturday has been about hate. Zimmerman was driven by hate, those six women must hate black people, and certainly the criminal justice system hates black people too. Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate hate…

I’m not writing this to disagree with any of it. Our interpretations about this American tragedy are ours to have, but mine is slightly different.

George Zimmerman was afraid of Trayvon Martin because Trayvon Martin was black. George Zimmerman feared Trayvon Martin because black people adorned in something as simple as a hoodie and khakis and sneakers with a bag of candy in their hand look dangerous to people who are either not black themselves or isolate themselves from black people to the point where the only exposure they have to them is via the media and entertainment.

George Zimmerman feared Trayvon Martin because he never saw one of the numerous pictures of the young black boy smiling.

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Ooh its hell
Knowing that for now
We shouldn’t kiss and tell
When it’s so good

– Gary Clark Jr. from “Things Are Changin’”

She was your girlfriend for the last 8 weeks you two were together, and she ain’t even know it. You never told her that, and you never would, but if she was paying attention, if she trusted you, she would have noticed. Short of putting a ring on her finger, you were as committed to her as any man could be committed to someone.

But you never told her she was your girl, and somehow, you never made her feel like she was the only one. For most of the six months you two were together, she had her suspicions. There was one, or two, maybe even three people you called on nights you didn’t call her. You knew this, and yet, you did nothing to dispel those thoughts. As a matter of fact, you purposely never acted, all because she wasn’t your girlfriend. You knew a simple phone call before you turned in for the night would be a thoughtful gesture she would appreciate. But you denied her that because it felt too much like you were checking in, and if she was up late with the What Ifs, wondering what you were doing or who you were doing, that was her problem, not yours.

Foolishly you went to bed on those nights thinking she was thinking about you, when the truth is, the only reason she was awake was because she had company. Her phone was on silent while she was busy entertaining some guy she never told you about, a guy who came around after you two started doing whatever it is you were doing. When they met, she resisted for the most part, but he was cute and came correct, so she gave him her number. Two days later he asked her if she wanted to do lunch, and he ain’t even know how perfect his timing was because an hour prior, you asked her if you two could postpone the lunch plans you made. She went to lunch, and they hit it off, so she agreed to see him again because she didn’t know she was your girlfriend.

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Nothing happened, but I was still wrong.

I am at that age when I know better fluently. I have perfect command over doing the right thing, so when I do the wrong thing, the choice is made to find a deeper truth. I guess you can say it’s like the use of foul language. There’s always a more appropriate word than “fuck” but sometimes that word says it all.

I fucked up and I knew it from the moment I said yes to her request. She was going to be in New York City for an overnight business trip and wanted to stay with me. This was absolutely unnecessary.

For one, I know for a fact if it was business for which she was in town, the company was more than willing to pay for a hotel. She is an attorney at one of those big law firms where money is spent like water. A hotel room for business-related trips is standard.

But the other reason she should have never asked to stay with me, and I should have never said yes to her request, is because she was engaged to be married. and had the rock on her finger to prove it.

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