Until I Get Married

At a very young age, I learned the difference between PDA (Public Displays of Affection) and PDI (Public Displays of Inappropriate).

In the 7th grade, me and this girl who I liked and who liked me back, for some reason, decided it would be a great idea to go make out in a park underneath some sort of tree in the middle of the afternoon. Now this wasn’t during school hours or at a time when we were doing something else. We were in 7th grade (well, actually, she was in 8th, and I was in 7th), no one really has plans in 7th grade, not when their hormones are running on 10, but I digress…

So this girl lays down on her back, underneath the tree, and I lay on top of her, and we’re just going at it. And when I say going at it, I mean, we’re just really kissing a lot. I really didn’t have any clue what I was doing and nor did she, I don’t think. We just kissed and kissed and kissed and kissed and kissed until…”JOZEN!”

Yep, there was only one woman who can say my name so loudly while pronouncing it correctly. My mom.

Both the girl and I jumped up off the grass, shook out our jeans which were covered in blades of grass, and tried to act like we didn’t just get caught doing something we shouldn’t have been doing. My mom grounds me, right in front of the girl, then looks at the girl and says we should both be ashamed of ourselves.

In retrospect, my mom was definitely right. We should have been ashamed of ourselves, making out in a public park underneath a tree, for the whole world to see. Like it was a free concert or something. That isn’t PDA. That is PDI.

As I got older, I saw less people making out in parks. As a matter of fact, I really haven’t seen it at all, which tells me just how indecent I was, but sadly, I have also seen less PDA in general.

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Most men (and some women!) have had to clean up their place after having over some company they know damn well they shouldn’t have had over. Or, in some cases, the company of the opposite sex is perfectly appropriate, but still, to avoid an awkward situation, one in which the present casual friend notices something left behind by the previous casual friend, we have to make sure our area is spotless.

Now I can’t speak for the women, but I know as a man, cleaning up after a woman has come over is not like cleaning up on a regular day. If I was smart enough, I’d invent a female detector. It would be sort of like a metal detector, except it detects all female stuff. But unfortunately, I’m not smart enough, and apparently no one else is either because I have yet to see a female detector on the market.

So until then, men like myself must rely on our eyes to spot out any damning evidence, which takes years of training. Most men are programmed to look out for the big stuff like panties, and even strands of hair that’s not hers. But as some would say, where the devil truly lies, is in the details. Thus, we have to develop an eye for the smaller, less obvious things that may call attention to our “lifestyle.” Here’s five of those things.

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Hi or Hello. Which one’s better?

Honestly, neither. I have to think of something better to say to this woman standing at the bar. I want to meet her.  Maybe if I stare, or no, that word is too stalkerish, how about gaze? Can I gaze? Is gazing acceptable?

Okay, let me just look. Look at me, girl. Look. I need to know. Come on. Raise the head, the eyes, let them drift over here. Yep, that’s it. Over, one more person. No, you missed me girl. Too far over. A little to the left, there, hold it, hold it, hold…Damn. She looked away.

I’m still going to talk to her anyway. Let me see, what can I say?

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They say an idle mind is the devil’s playground. Well, I say an idle mind is where genius happens because the other day, as I was taking a shower, I came up with an idea that I not only find brilliant, but worthy of application.

When a man asks a woman’s hand in marriage, she gets a ring and he gets a what? A “yes” one would hope, but after that, what else does he get? What kind of symbolism does he get to show he is engaged? Traditionally, none. While a woman gets to go around and flaunt a ring, an engaged man does not receive anything to show he is engaged.

Will someone tell me how this is fair? Then will someone tell me why women for so long have allowed their fiancés to go walking around looking no different than the man who isn’t engaged at all?

These questions are rhetorical. Instead of attempting to answer them, I aim to implement an alternative tradition, one that I hope other men put into practice and women will be accepting of.

As reciprocity for asking my woman’s hand in marriage, I too would like a symbol of our engagement. Something specifically for me. Here it is:

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You know, women break hearts too.

I’ve had my heart broken. Not a lot of times, but once or twice  and I wonder if those women were aware of it now or then. I wouldn’t know though. I don’t talk to them, because you know, they broke my heart.

But I digress, back to women breaking hearts.

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Jozen on Tiger for TheRoot.com.

Enjoy that and comment there if you do (or don’t).

This post is not about that whole Tiger Woods dust up we saw a couple of hours ago, it’s only inspired by it. For anyone interested in hearing my thoughts on it at length, look out for the post I wrote on The Root about it, in a couple of hours. It should be there.

(Although let me say this: Tiger Woods sucks at apologizing. He may be a pro on the golf course, but man, when it comes to apologizing to a woman, Tiger Woods can’t see me. I’m way better than him!.  I should be his caddy for apologies.)

Apologizing, especially for doing something as frowned upon as cheating, is an art, and while I may not be a Picasso at it, I might qualify as a Thomas Kinkade. I mean, if anyone is paying attention to this blog, it’s obvious I have a way with words, so wouldn’t it only make sense I was good at apologizing? Of course it would.

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What’s up, readers. Instead of waiting all day for my brain to conjure up the next great American post, I decided instead to roll with this real quick topic we can wax poetic on in the c-section. Here it is:

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Last night I had the privilege of sitting and speaking on a panel about relationships for the New York chapter of the National Urban League, alongside Jamilah of The Beautiful Struggler, Adam, and my good friend Demetria of A Belle In Brooklyn.

Don’t ask me why I was on there, clearly the people at the NYULP are geniuses, so there’s your answer. But I digress…

At one point the question was posed to both Adam and I about our thoughts on women who have a check list of sorts for the men they date. Most people know what I’m talking about. The check list is something a lot of men and women have in mind before they actually start dating someone. It varies from person to person, but on any given list such must-haves in a mate can include good credit, a height of at least 6’0 or better, a good job, a degree, great in bed, etc.

Of all the questions we were given, this was the one I was most anxious to answer,  because I basically don’t believe it. I said as much yesterday, but for today’s post, I wanted to get into the nitty gritty of why this mythical check list is just that, a myth.

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The title of this post is named after my father’s favorite drink.

He, Harry Joe, died one year ago today. I didn’t know much about him, having grown up from the age of three to the age of 18 in California, and him living all those years in between New York and D.C. I saw him once when I was six, got a telephone call from him when I was 10, and then once more when I was 16. When I enrolled at Howard, he was living in D.C. at the time, so of course I initially thought it was an opportunity for us to rekindle our relationship with one another.

I was wrong.

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