Knowing where you stand ...

we spent every day together for five months. on my days off from work, i would go and sit in his living room and watch TV until it was time for him to go to work. then i would return when he came home. i wanted to just be in his presence. he came to family BBQ's, met my parents and my mother even made him a plate (only old school people will get that last part). when his car broke down, i became chauffeur to him and his cousin. so you can imagine my surprise when he told me we were not a couple and that he was not my boyfriend.

i should have known something was up when i caught him out shopping with his "cousin" and he was supposed to be visiting his sick granny in New Jersey. or the time i bought him a Valentine's Day gift and received nothing in return. but my clueless ass thought we were a couple. the reason why, i made an assumption. i never asked the question to know where i stood in his life. of course he liked me. i was driving him around, having sex with him (that wasn't good), and not forcing the "boyfriend" label onto him.

in this clip above, Judah invites Stacie to a BBQ after seeing her several times. she has made the assumption that they are dating. but when it is time for her to be introduced to his friends, Judah referred to her as just Stacie. the scene was awkward for several reasons: 1) Stacie assumed she was more than just "Stacie" 2) Stacie's friend Denise had just been introduced as the girlfriend of Judah's roommate. 3) Stacie & Judah had been seeing each other longer than Denise & Mike (Judah's roommate) have known each other.  after the incident and feeling a tad humiliated, Stacie asks Judah where they stood. he said they were homies, just homies.

watching that hurt me to my heart because i had been there before. so how do you prevent this from happening in the future? you ask the question: where do i stand? what is going on between us? lots of times women don't want to rock the boat because the attention is good, the affection is great. if we start to inquire about a status, then we may lose it all. but what is the point in working hard toward nothing? never put in lots of energy for something that may not be. so please ask about your situation, don't get caught out there with assumptions.  

Incestuous Social Network Circles

my first boyfriend dumped me for my cousin. that really sucked and was murder to my self esteem, but my cousin didn't like him nor did she get with him. he just thought she was the cuter one. he wanted a looker and i was a chubby 13 year old girl with thick eyebrows. of course my feelings were hurt and i went on tell the world about the horrible, terrible, awful be bad Arthur. but i digress. this blog is not about my horrid first relationship experience, it is about proximity. there were several other girls cuter than me in the neighborhood, but he CHOSE my cousin. why you ask? easy access.

you have seen the episodes of Maury and Steve Wilkos where someone is cheating and the person they are sleeping with is a part of their significant others social circle. most times its that favorite cousin, the best friend or heaven forbid a sibling of the significant other. my immediate thought is, "there was no other chick/dude around to have sex with?" to seek out someone new would mean having to put in time to get acquainted  with that person. the person close to your partner, is already well known. he/she hangs out with you and your other half, he/she is sometimes the topic of conversation, there is a level of familiarity. cheating is awful, but cheating with a close friend is even worse. unfortunately it happens more than we would like to believe.

now that everyone is using technology to date and hook up, the likelihood of a close friend hook up has increased. social networking has made every body 1.5 degrees of separation from the next person. my relationship with "community dick" began on a social networking site. and i knew the 25 other chicks he was screwing too. i did not know them well, but i interacted with them on a regular basis. did we know we were sharing a bed with the same dude? not at all, but he had no problem floating from me to the next chick and the next chick. that was my first incident with an incestuous social network circles.

when i meet new people through social networks, i assume there will be some incestuous social networking. and the offense doesn't cut like a best friend or family member. most people in social network circles are associates at best. but if i see a dude communicating with my "real" people, i let him know i don't do incest. again that is my choice and said gentleman is free to holler at whomever he likes. but if i find myself a part of an incestuous circle, i'm out. i have had one too many incidents with interweb girls snapping on me because who they think is there boo is really mine.

the incestuous social network encounter seems inevitable, but it is all about how you handle the situation. the best practice is to just walk it off and tweet through it. the worst way to handle it is the Supahead way. please no blasting on Facebook, no screenshots on Twitter, no stalking on LinkedIn, be an adult and discuss things with the parties involved. when i got snapped on by that "crazy girl", i just unfollowed her. i did not even block her because her "boo" was still in my DM's okay now i'm being messy. don't be like me. LOL.  just handle your handle your business in private. please and thank you.