Opinion: Why Mr. Right may be all wrong

It’s five o’clock AM on Dr. King’s birthday and my dear friend and I have just returned from yet another BUPPY fete in mid-town Manhattan. Having learned the hard way that a sea breeze on an empty stomach is never a good idea, I am sipping tea and eating a huge bowl of cheerios (without the milk) trying to calm my hunger and equilibrium. My friend is lying next to me in the plush bed of her Harlem apartment, staring anxiously at the screen of her Sprint Touch.

“He wants to know if he can still come over. What do I say?”

The predicament: My fabulous friend has just met her dream man. He holds degrees from Stanford, Yale, and Harvard and a cock sure attitude warranted by his soon-to-be corporate baller status. He has mocha skin, a husky build and a convincing smile. He is everything that each man in that club is pining to be and that every woman would do practically anything to be with…. Almost every woman.

“He had a girlfriend, not too long ago,” I warned her shortly after their first encounter, when she enquired about his background. He happens to be a loose acquaintance. “He could be on the rebound. But by all means, go for it,” I said, knowing that she was brimming with delight. My caution sparked nominal hesitation.

This man wasted no time working his magic. He took her into his VIP section, fetched a glass of champagne, and whispered everything in her ears that he know she’d want to hear, including his intentions of connecting later that evening. At the time of our departure my lovely friend was on cloud nine.

“Wait, look him up on facebook,” she said to me after about the third text he’d sent her. “Make sure he doesn’t still have a girlfriend.”

I obliged and unfortunately became the bearer of bad news. According to invasive website, he was “in a relationship” with a fabulous ivy-league grad student with whom he’d apparently traveled the world. Yikes. And when questioned about it, he responded, dryly“It’s complicated”. Wait… Facebook has a category for that.

“You don’t say anything,” I tell her. “Text him tomorrow morning as if you fell asleep.” I maybe young, but I’ve traveled in the circle long enough to know that men like this are used to having women bend over backwards for them at moment’s notice, even if they've been dating the same women for years. I was hoping my friend wouldn’t follow this sad, sad path. However, judging by the sullen look on her beautiful face, I know she is disappointed in my sage advice. Instead, she'd rather believe that it was earth shattering love at first site and not carnal attraction spiked by the libidinous atmosphere and her long dancer’s legs, but I’d beg the latter.

Unfortunately, this anecdotes reflects the dramatic state of my many of my flyest friend’s love life. I exist in a circle of fierce Black women who, from birth it seems, have been determined to have it all; the prestigious degree, a great job, the fabulous friends, the fit body, the fly wardrobe, and then finally the six-to-seven figure earning Black corporate husband to seal the deal. In my opinion, a great man should complement a fly woman; sort of like a fine Hermes scarf accentuates a tailored Dolce pants suit. My friends see men, no their dream man, as the supplement… the status symbol that consummates their BAP status. He’s not the scarf or the Loubotin shoes, he is the whole entire outfit, bra and panties included.

I have been wondering lately why it seems that the flyest women often times have the most dramatic, turbulent love lives. Shouldn’t it be easiest for us? Shouldn’t there be a line of suitors positioned from our front door to down and around the corner waiting to impress and please? Whatever happened to courtship?! I kid (partially), but I believe that I have stumbled on the source of relationship misery for the fly Black woman looking for her perfect mate.

This is it. There is an ideal state of being in which a person is complacent to a point of not needing to rely solely on material things to bring them comfort. I think this is a rather spiritual and balanced state in which one’s joy comes from within rather than from quick bursts of excitement (a shopping spree in Saks shoe department, an earth shattering orgasm). Accordingly, when we are in this sort of spiritual and emotional ‘harmony’ if you will, or even close to it, our desires are far more sound and beneficial. However, when a person is not completely at peace with themself and creates desires at the superficial level, that person attracts superficiality in return.

When a woman is only seeking credentials, an impressive salary, the right coterie, and decent looks she disregards so many other aspects of a man that do matter; like character, honesty, and intentions. So yes, I really am saying this, when a woman consistently attracts ‘dogs’ into her life and faces dating disaster after disaster it is partially her fault.

Really.

Humans have known of the power of desire for years, and the catastrophic ends of wishing for the wrong things. It is the morale of the King Midas story which we all learned as little girls. The problem is, we paid more attention to Cinderella. I’m a fly girl that wants an educated, up-standing Black man by my side just like the next diva but I have committed to living out my own fly life in pursuit of my own happiness in the mean time. Cheers to no drama in 2008. (some of you need not raise that glass)

-Ike