Until I Get Married

Let us all agree street harassment is unacceptable. When a woman is walking down the street, minding her business, and men start cat calling with unwelcome and sometimes rude remarks, giving her all this attention she did not intend to get when she stepped out to pick up a gallon of milk from the store, it is wrong.

And yet, according to this chart I dug up at StopStreetHarassment.com, men are still out here doing it like it’s a national pastime with no signs of stopping.

But I didn’t need to see a chart like this to be aware of the frequency of street harassment because as a man who has partaken in more than his fair share of approaching women on the street, I’ve developed a nose for such activity.

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Anytime there’s an article about a specific problem in relationships and women are to blame, the whole world is tuned out as I read and study every single line with the focus of a Rhodes Scholar.

Today, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled “Meet The Marriage Killer: It’s More Common Than Adultery and Potentially As Toxic, So Why Is It So Hard to Stop Nagging?”

The article’s writer, Elizabeth Bernstein, attempts to unpack the nagging problem amongst married couples, quoting both real couples who have gone through a nagging phase as well as psychologists who study these types of human behavior issues. As far as some numbers to support her theory of nagging being to marriage what a meteor was to the prehistoric era, Bernstein cites a study done by Dr. Howard Markman, professor of psychology at the University of Denver and co-director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies.

Research that Dr. Markman published in 2010 in the Journal of Family Psychology indicates that couples who became unhappy five years into their marriage had a roughly 20% increase in negative communication patterns consistent with nagging, and a 12% decrease in positive communication. “Nagging is an enemy of love, if allowed to persist,” Dr. Markman says.

As far as who is at fault for all the nagging in a relationship, no concrete numbers are given, but Bernstein does posit a theory, which I found most interesting.

Men are to blame, too, because they don’t always give a clear answer. Sure, a husband might tune his wife out because he is annoyed; nagging can make him feel like a little boy being scolded by his mother. But many times he doesn’t respond because he doesn’t know the answer yet, or he knows the answer will disappoint her.

In a nutshell: Women be nagging.

As a man, it warms my heart to read things like these. I thought, More women should have a friend like Bernstein advising them to quit pestering me over certain things.

Then, I read the article again (remember, Rhodes Scholar like focus), and I started to notice some holes. (To be fair, it’s just an article to provoke discussion on a particular issue. I have to say this because some people tend to think articles are supposed to solve the very problems being discussed within them.)

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Chances are, nothing in today’s post is uniquely originally. I do not claim to have been the first person to write the contents you will read, and because it’s such a no brainer, I had to write this disclaimer first. Any likeness or similarity to another post you see here is strictly by coincidence. It also probably isn’t better than what you’re about to read. – JC

For years, baseball has been man’s sport of choice to use as metaphor when recapping what happened with a girl. The idea, predicated upon the bases on a baseball diamond, was simple: First base, second, base third, base, home plate all implied some sort of progress.

Over the years, the metaphor has understandably become flimsier, specifically the differences between what constitutes second and third base. People have written about this before; I’ve had many conversations with men and women, and none of us seem to agree what takes place on second base versus what takes place on third base. One person told me second base is oral sex, third base is traditional sex, and home plate is a particular kind of sex so inappropriate, I could not bear repeating it lest I want to throw up a little on my keyboard. And here I thought we unanimously agree home plate counted as traditional intercourse, but what do I know?

But last night, as I was watching more highlight’s from my brother’s favorite team the New York Giants win over the 40-whiners, I thought to myself, Why are we still using baseball as a metaphor for discussing what happened with a woman when football is obviously the better sport.

Gentlemen, presenting the glossary of American football terms as metaphor to describe what happened with the hot girl you went home with last night. Ladies, if any of this offends you, please refer to the sentence before this to remind yourself who exactly I am addressing here.

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Throughout grade school and high school, I wanted girls to like me.

They did.

Throughout college, I wanted girls to sleep with me.

They did.

Throughout my 20s when I realized girls like me and girls would sleep with me, I wanted them not to hate me.

They did both hate and not hate me, equally.

Throughout my relationships, I wanted the women who were my girlfriends to love me.

They did. Some of them, others just liked me, but you get the point.

Over six months ago, I turned 30.

Now I want women to respect me.

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Let’s resign ourselves to the idea all men care about is one thing. We know what that is, but we underestimate the extent to which it dominates a man’s thoughts.

Women get frustrated, not because they don’t think about the same thing. They most certainly do, usually when they are alone and bored. When with a man, especially a man they just met, they tap into a different part of their mind.

Even if she knows she wants to have sex with the guy, a woman controls her desire. She wants to talk about other things. The problem is these are things a man usually has no interest in talking about, like his five year plan or her five year plan.

No man wants to talk about that. Not on the first date. The first date may be too soon to talk about sex, but five year plans? Let us all do better and try harder.

Men and women are both guilty of having one track minds. Where we differ is the destination. Women want us to steer our minds in the direction they are going, but asking for such a thing is pointless because the whole reason we ask a woman out in the first place is because we want to have sex with her at some point.

Men don’t order meals they don’t want to eat, we don’t ask out women with whom we don’t want to have sex.

So this one track mind us men are guilty of having, we keep it under wraps, out of respect for the woman. The problem is waiting for her can feel like a daunting task if she does not do anything to hold our interest.

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“Sh*t [insert choice of girls here] Say” has officially jumped the shark, people. We’re amused enough by it to keep watching the various renditions, but we’re all tired of it at the same time. It’s been fun and has had a good run.

Can we move on?

I don’t want to hear about what any other group of girls has to say; not a black girl, not a white girl, not a Latina girl, not an Asian girl. I don’t want to hear what an Asian girl would say to a Latina girl in front of a group of black girls who usually hang out with white girls.

What I want to see is a spin on the meme, a video about things groups of people would never say. For instance: “Sh*t White People NEVER Say To Black People” Example: Yeah, I am a little racist.. or Our first black president, pretty overrated don’t you think?

I’m fully aware a video like this might exist somewhere in the world, but I haven’t seen it. Since I didn’t feel like calling my talented friend Zach to shoot a video for this, I wrote a blog post instead.

So here it is, because I couldn’t resist, a small list of context free phrases of “Sh*t Guys NEVER Say To Girls,” inspired but completely different from the hottest Internet trend on bandwidth.

Oh, and just remember, it’s fine if you don’t think this is funny, it’s unacceptable to take it seriously. Enjoy!

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When we talk about being careful who we sleep with, we’re not talking about being careful with whom we’re intimate. Last year, I learned just how different those conversations are from a woman I was sleeping with. Every time we slept together, we were careful, cautious, but I was careless to ever get intimate with her.

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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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So no one will ask me at the end of the article what I think about Drake’s new album, Take Care, let me be clear: I like the album and I’ve had trouble playing anything else since I first listened to my leaked copy last week. Not only do I like the album because of its crisp production and Drake’s better-than-good skills as an MC, I like the album for all the reasons most others say they hate it.

Some say, It’s too emotional; I like it because it’s emotional. Some say he sings on it way too much, I don’t like it when he sings all the time either, but that strike against him isn’t enough to change my overall opinion on the album. Some say the combination of Drake’s emotional lyrics and constant singing make for a soft album, I say the art of the quiet, ambient rap album is under-appreciated, but I digress.

What I appreciate most about Take Care is the way it’s revealing how people really feel about men who not only are expressive about their feelings, but also men who know how to feel something, anything for the women who have come in and out of their life. Before Drake, the most emotional rapper I ever listened to was Tupac, and even if he wasn’t singing on half his records (he usually got singers to handle those duties), he talked about his struggle to make it work with another woman often. For years ‘Pac has been my go-to-artist when I was down about a woman, and by no means does Drake replace him, but he certainly adds to that otherwise small group of artists who can actually rap to how I’m feeling.

Now before everyone gets all up in their chest about me including ‘Pac in the same paragraph as Drake, take heed. By no means am I saying Drake is as good as ‘Pac…matter of fact, let’s move on. If you think that’s what I’m saying you’re not as smart as you think.

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