Until I Get Married

Yep, that’s me you see below in the pages of the brand new Essence Magazine, skinny tie and all.

I, along with five other relationship bloggers, are featured in an article entitled, “The Relationship Rules.” Since I want everyone to pick up a copy for themselves (it’s the one with Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union on the cover), I won’t get into what was discussed. Instead, some context about the discussion itself.

In the issue is a condensed version of what I remember being a two-hour discussion on relationships. Let me be the first to say, two hours is a long time to discuss anything. Presidential debates don’t even last two hours, and they’re actually talking about something important. If it wasn’t for the refreshments they had in steady rotation, I probably would have fallen asleep, not from boredom, but from exhaustion.

Few conversation topics are more mentally and emotionally demanding than ones about relationships, or as I like to say, matters of the heart. At the end of our discussion, my comrades and I did not want to say a word to anyone our vocal chords were so stretched. But I remember walking away, feeling like the conversation we just had, the one not everyone was going to see or hear, was indeed, important.

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In my dating history, there was only one woman who loved the Pittsburgh Steelers as much as I do. How great is her love for the team? She knows the names of offensive linemen.

Most other women I dated fall into one of two categories:

A) They love the NFL, but root passionately for another team.
B) They don’t care about the NFL at all.

Those wondering why there is no C category listed for women who love football, but hate the Steelers, please note I said women I dated. I would never date a woman who hated the Steelers, at least not while we were actually dating.

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A couple of weeks ago, a good friend of mine took to his Twitter to point out the lack of songs about men done wrong in a relationship. He said, in most breakup songs, the man is at fault.

I’m with him. Male and female artists always sing melodies about fouls committed by men, men apologizing for their mistakes, or regretting the loss of a woman once had but now only dreamt about. It’s gotten to the point where whenever I hear a song from the opposite point of view, my ears perk up. I even have a playlist called, “You Damn Right You’re Sorry, Now Say It Again.”

Even though my friend wasn’t necessarily asking for some song suggestions, I threw some of the songs I have on this playlist in his direction. There’s Trey Songz’s “Cheat On You,” Mark Morrison’s classic, “Return of the Mack,” and of course, “Next Girl” by the Black Keys. Not to be left off this playlist is Janet Jackson’s “Where Are You Now”. I love how she sounds apologetic and accountable for mistakes she made. For those who forgot exactly what that sounds like, here it is.

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If you were a young, fine woman living in the DC-MD-VA area back in 2001, interested in purchasing some new music, there was a good chance you went to Sam Goody Music, located on the ground floor of Pentagon City mall. If you went on the right day, there was a good chance you left with more than just the album you were looking for, you left with a date with one of the store clerks as well. Of course, that store clerk was me.

Who would’ve thought, right? Certainly not the few lovely ladies I met during my time at Sam Goody. Probably nor did the women who walked into the Tower Records by the George Washington University campus when I worked there in 2003. Back in those days, I always saw my job as a perfect opportunity for me to talk to women I perhaps wouldn’t speak to in other settings. To say I took advantage would be an understatement. I capitalized and did well.

I say this not to brag. The other night I went to a stand-up performance headlined by Aziz Ansari. He had an extended rant on the difficulty of meeting perfectly normal people to date. His two biggest gripes were with bars/clubs and dating websites, both of which he said were horrible places to meet people.

Now, I don’t agree with him on either front. Clubs and bars have always worked well for me. I met the girl I’m dating now at a club, and I met my last serious girlfriend at another club. As for online dating, it’s become so commonplace I don’t think it’s bad, I just don’t think it’s as effective as it used to be.

But there are a lot of people who agree with Ansari and find both bars/clubs and online dating websites lost causes, which begs the question, where’s a good place to meet our next date? Well, my suggestion is the store. What kind of store? Glad you asked. Here are five stores, along with which gender would benefit from going into them the most. You’re welcome.

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Before I begin, apologies for the hundreds of thousands of people who were refreshing my website every two minutes last night because I promised you the second part of Tuesday’s post was going to go up on Wednesday. I’m a guy, which means I can only promise a promise will be broken.

Now that you all forgive me, let’s move on and get to the good stuff. Part 2 of Jozen’s Incredibly Fun and Exciting Dating Strategy.

WAIT! One more thing…

It’s very important you all have followed the advice I mandated in the previous post. I really need you all to understand that nothing I tell you in this post will be effective if you just ignore step 1 and skip to step 2. When I first started getting into shape, I couldn’t build muscle from the fat I stored up, I had to lose the weight first and then build up. This is kind of like the same idea. You can’t prosper and live a wonderful 2012 full of fun until you’re willing to do what it takes to get there. So here’s the post one more time for those who may think they need a refresher. Remember, get your mind right first. For as long as this takes, do it, then you can get into what I’m laying out below

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With only a couple more weeks in 2011, everyone breathing is about to make some major life adjustments for what is supposedly Earth’s final year of existence (I believe none of that, by the way). Some guys are going to start hitting the gym to get in shape, others are going to purchase shirts in a smaller size so they can look like they’re going to the gym. Some women are going to start wearing nothing but matching bras and panties, while some women are not going to wear any bras or panties. Whatever the changes we make, they’re all going to be for what we hope is a better year than last year, even if it was the greatest year ever.

I would like to add my own helpful advice for how to make 2012 the best alleged last year of your life. But before I change your life with this strategy, I have to make sure you all are mentally ready to accept it, and open to executing it. This is not for skeptics or non-believers. I only want Charlies to follow this advice, word to Willy Wonka. You kids with your tons of questions and talk back can stop reading right now. Thank you for your click, have a nice day.

Now for those still reading, sit down.

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Folks, it’s that time of year again.

People in new relationships and some in old relationships are gearing up to visit at least one set of parents for Thanksgiving. Out of all the holidays, Thanksgiving is arguably the most communal, providing the perfect opportunity for many new couples to break bread (literately and figuratively) with the new person in our lives. Some of us will be making this more than just a day trip, spending nights at the parents home for a couple of days.

The sleeping arrangements behind this situation are either a judgement call or an established rule. Some of our parents establish a strict two bed, separate room policy if we’re not married. That’s the rule in my household.

Over the years, I have brought home several women to meet my mom. Since she lives in California and all these relationships began on the East Coast, all the visits involved a few nights stay at Casa De Ms. Rita’s. Under her roof, it is her rules. When it came to sharing a bed, hell, when it came to being in a room with the door closed, Ms. Rita has zero tolerance. I was 27-years-old the last time I brought a woman to my mom’s home, the rule was still in effect.

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On Sunday, The New York Times had a great article about how more and more online dating sites are extracting information from the profiles of members to study “attraction, trust, deception — even the role of race and politics in romance.”

For years, scientists have relied on U.S. Census Data to gauge how and why people come together, and fall in love, but in the study the Times cites, over 1 million dating profiles were researched, and overall, major dating sites like Match.com and OkCupid.com received more than 593 million visits in the United States last month. What this means is now more than ever online dating profiles are probably the best way to learn why and how we fall for one another. ““As more and more of life happens online, it’s less and less the case that online is a vacuum,” Andrew T. Fiore, a professor at Facebook told the Times. “It is life.”

So it is, Andrew. The rest of the article had some very interesting facts, which I couldn’t help but reassess here. Keep in mind, what all this data means is essentially in some form or another, the way we behave online is a lot similar to the way we engage each other in real life. Here are some of those numbers and my thoughts.

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Today I caught a clip of Condoleeza Rice on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show where she was promoting her memoir “No Higher Honor.” Stewart asked Rice about Muammar Qaddafi, who, when he was alive, had what Stewart called a “fixation” on the former Secretary of State, but the word fixation is putting it lightly.

The Civil Rights era folk would call it a “jones”, the hip-hop generation would call it “sprung”, and kids in any high school these days would say Qaddafi was “thirsty”, but no matter which way you spin it, Qaddafi was all about Condi Rice. As she revealed in her interview last night, dude wrote a song for her called “Black Flower In The White House.”

In her book, Rice explains why she was hesitant to make her first trip to Libya.

There were two reasons for this: one traditional and the other, well, a little disconcerting. Obviously, the first visit by a U.S. secretary of state since 1953 would be a major milestone on the country’s path to inter- national acceptability. But Qaddafi also had a slightly eerie fascination with me personally, asking visitors why his “African princess” wouldn’t visit him.

I decided to ignore the latter and dwell on the former to prepare for the trip. The arrangements were not easy, with all manner of Libyan demands, including that I meet the leader in his tent. Needless to say, I declined the invitation and met him in his formal residence.

Later in the book, Rice talks about the visit with the evil dictator himself and the song.

At the end of dinner, Qaddafi told me that he’d made a videotape for me. Uh oh, I thought, what is this going to be? It was a quite innocent collection of photos of me with world leaders—President Bush, Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao, and so on—set to the music of a song called “Black Flower in the White House,” written for me by a Libyan composer. It was weird, but at least it wasn’t raunchy.

In an interview with ABC News, Rice said when Qaddafi introduced the song he said, “‘I have Libya’s best composer, most famous composer write this song for you,’.”

There is not one part of the story that I DON’T find funny. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Qaddafi was a horrible man, but how can you read any of this and not get a good chuckle? The guy put a full on clinic on how NOT to get a woman. I actually wish Qaddafi would have reached out to me before Condi came to visit and asked me for some advice on how to get her to like him back. Had he done this, I would have told him the following.

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I only wanted to share this theory with close friends because most of you have already denounced it from the minute you’ve read the title. But I’ve decided to go to the place most people tell me not to go, which is “there”. By taking it there, I am opening up myself to all types of critical backlash from women who want to tell me they’re single because they want to be and they’re happy being single and as a man, I wouldn’t know the first thing about why they’re single. All good points except for the last one because, well, frankly, I’m a man who can actually do something about your single status but don’t want to largely because you have issues you’re unwilling to resolve. But that’s neither here nor there. Your status is none of my concern, I know, and therefore this theory of mine should be none of yours.

As for the rest of you lovely ladies who do at least welcome the voice of someone who doesn’t sound like your group of girlfriends who harmonize by talking through their nasal passages, I am presenting this theory for you. Most of you all are beautiful. I know this because I meet you in person and you ask me, “Jozen why am I single?” Time and time again I wax poetic on my theories and thoughts after asking some questions about yourself. But from now on I will only respond by saying, “Go to my blog untiligetmarried.com and search “buffet theory”. Your answer is there.” You will respond either one of two ways:

1) You’re a genius, I had no idea this was my problem. Thank you, Jozen.
2) You’re a genius, but I already knew this, because I’m a genius too, which means we should get together.

To the first response, you’re welcome. To the second, you’re tripping.

So here we go with a not necessarily original theory but a twist on presenting it so that maybe some of you single women out there can understand why you’re single. I’ve decided to do this in pictures so that maybe we can all understand things a little better. Some of you have a hard time reading at length, others treat my posts like scripture and end up over-dialoguing on it. Well, goodbye to all that. Here it is, the buffet theory.

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