Until I Get Married

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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Anybody know if there is an award given to the person who makes the worst movie date choices ever? If so, I’d like to nominate myself for contention.

Considering it was the first date, I really had no business asking the young woman over to my place to watch a movie in the first place. Talk about unoriginal.

But what can I say? I was only 20, making intern money and it was Detroit where I just moved to live for the summer. I knew like three people and knew nowhere to go so a movie at my place was really the best I could offer.

Luckily, she understood all these things so she said yes. I told her all she had to do was show up, I’d handle the rest. I was going to make a great dinner and pick a classic film that I just knew she would love.

Dinner went as planned.

As for the movie? Well, let’s just say, short of something from the Bang Bros series, this was probably the worst movie someone could ever choose on a first date. To this day, I smack myself on the forehead when I think of my selection. Not just because of the movie I selected but because I actually thought the movie I selected was the right movie; like whatever a movie is supposed to do to enhance a date, this was going to do it. She’s gonna love this one I thought.

Well, as it turns out, she…Well, here, the movie poster, a clip, and then below, her reaction to the worst first date movie ever.

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Last night, I had the opportunity to attend the Beyoncé concert at Roseland Ballroom. A write-up of the show is soon to come and when it does I will post a link to it so all can read here’s the write-up, so I won’t get into too many details of the show.

In the early part of the performance, Beyoncé ran through some of her Destiny’s Child hits, most of which I take issue with because I feel like they fried the brains of a generation of women, but that’s neither here nor there. They’re still good songs, that much I can admit. The only song I was bracing myself for her to perform was “Soldier”. If she had, I would have walked out immediately.

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This is a post I’ve been trying to write for a while, but whenever I tried, it just wouldn’t come out right. So here we go again, my attempt at expressing a dissenting opinion of a popular myth.

The common belief is funny women don’t win when it comes to relationships. I can’t link to any studies to support this theory, but I’m pretty sure most of us have heard it from other people or seen it played out one way or another.

They say a woman with a joke is something like a woman with a tool belt, sure it may be useful, but it’s unnecessary. Funny duties are a man’s responsibility, partly because when we’re out in the streets trying to seduce a woman, humor can be our best weapon. Very few of us are fortunate enough to just stand around, we have to crack a joke to take down a woman’s defenses. Women on the other hand, just have to have a nice smile and a laugh that doesn’t sound like a call to the wild.

I agree with none of this, and I bemoan anybody who does, especially other funny women.

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I remember when that movie “500 Days of Summer” came out, and a bunch of media outlets were saying that it was one of the first romantic-comedies to be made with the guy in mind. I took the bait and checked it out. As it turns out, those media outlets were full of crap and the critics who said it was the first romantic-comedy for guys are obviously some sucker-for-love men who are still tripping about that one girl in high school who wouldn’t give them any type of play.

In the months and days leading up to the release of “Crazy, Stupid, Love” (which comes out in theaters today), I heard no such thing. Nobody was saying this was a romantic-comedy made with the man in mind, so imagine my surprise when I left an advanced screening of the film on Wednesday evening.

I’ve included the trailer at the end of the post so I don’t have to go through the trouble of writing out the movie’s synopsis. Instead, I want to talk about why if you’re a guy in need of a date movie, “Crazy, Stupid, Love” is kind of perfect, not for her, but for you.

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She sidled up to my left and said “Hey” but it was drawn out with an infliction of affection. More like, “Haaaay.” I smiled and put my arm around her, thinking we were all good. She ducked, said “!*&%&(@*!!” then poured the drink all over me in front of hundreds of people.

This happened Saturday night, at a party. I didn’t overreact, but I did grab her and took her out a side door, down some stairs, so she could finish telling me off in front of a security guard who was there to make sure she didn’t smack me. I listened to her and didn’t give much of a response.

When she was done we went our separate ways, her upstairs, I to the bathroom to assess how wet I looked. As I looked in the mirror I thought, ‘Not too bad, at least this didn’t have cranberry juice like the last drink I had thrown at me.” Then I too went back to the party, hoping no one would stop me to say they saw what happened.

Once back on the dance floor, the party went on as usual, the woman who threw the drink at me was nowhere in sight, and I did my best to get back to having a good time, but alas, I couldn’t. Twenty minutes later I left the party. No one saw what happened (at least no one stopped me to tell me they did) but I was too embarrassed to party on.

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I’m not talking about the way I dress, I’m talking about my style of being a man to a woman.

Not too many years ago, a woman I dated told me, “You are this dramatic character I couldn’t of made up in the wildest corners of my imagination.” I took it as a compliment when I first heard it, and then I grew up.

More recently, a woman told me, “Your problem is you think you’re easier to date than you really are.” This statement wasn’t meant to be a compliment, but seeing as it is the polar opposite of what used to be said about me, it was easy to interpret it as such.

When it comes to loving a woman, being with a woman, every man has to have his own style. As I get older, I’m trying to evolve mine. You know how things can get too ripe? That’s where I’m at with my style. I’m trying to find a happy medium between being the dramatic character I once was and the blasé guy I am now, the one whose favorite phrase is “Que sera, sera.”

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A little more than a year ago, I wrote a post about age differences, explaining why at my age, I preferred to date women over 25 versus women under 25. Now let me explain why all of that was a bunch of crap.

If there’s one thing I’m learning as I get older it’s that women don’t get any younger. I have always been into dating women who were my age or older, but that’s when I was younger myself. Now that I’m going on 30, those same older women I used to dig are my age, but what’s more interesting is my changing attitude towards the women who were once my age at 25, 24, and even as young as 23.

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A few weeks ago, I was meeting up with some friends at a bar uptown. It was a mixed crowd, women and men, just a little get together a lady friend of mine planned at the last minute. When I arrived at this place, I noticed an unusual amount of women crowding the bar area. I thought, Well, that’s unusual, but I didn’t press anyone for details.

I took my seat at our table and struck up a conversation with another lady friend of mine. A waitress came by our table and my friend asked if the ladies night specials were still in effect. Now before she asked our server this question, I already had it in mind to buy a drink for my friend and I. I didn’t really want to drink, but most women hate to drink alone and whenever a guy says “Give her an apple martini, make it strong, and for me, a water” well, he just looks like a predator. But it was too late to order our drinks since my friend already asked about the ladies night deals. The waitress said they were still going on, so my friend ordered some top shelf drink. But being the nice guy that I am, and seeing that I was in a good mood, I still intended to buy her the drink, but I had to ask the waitress a very important question before doing so:

“Let me ask you something,” I said to her. “This whole ladies night deal, what is it?”

“It’s $4 for anything top shelf, 2-for-1 well drinks, and $3 beers,” she said.

My next question: “Okay, well if I order a drink for my friend here, and she’s a lady, do I get charged the ladies night price, or the regular price?”

The waitress said, “We would charge you the regular price. The deal only applies to women who order their own drinks.”

I looked at my friend who was cracking up by this time, and then I looked at the waitress and said, “I’ll just take a water.”

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