What you say & what you do: They don't match

he said that he didn't want a relationship, but he wanted to do relationship things. he said the relationship stuff was what he missed most, but he didn't want a girlfriend. OKAY. so what are we doing? that is the question that was never answered. and i knew it would never be answered. he didn't know what he wanted, but he wanted it to be a non-relationship relationship. that made no damn sense to me, but that was his story and he stuck to it for two years.

he told me that he eventually was bullied into a relationship (that is a whole 'nother blog), but that only lasted four months. i knew it wouldn't last when it started, because he was not living his life congruently. when i say that word, i mean that his actions and words were not aligned. let me give you an example of the mixed messages he was passing out to all of the women he encountered.

i played the part of sounding board in his world. so when a lady that he was hardcore smashing decided that she wanted a relationship, he would contact me fuming about the caught feelings.
him: i told her in the beginning that i didn't want a girlfriend
me: okay
him: why can't she understand that?
me: so what have y'all been doing?
him: we go to dinner & she spent the night the other night. i got up and made her breakfast the next day
me: wayment what?
him: is that wrong?
me: sir, you are doing this all wrong. especially if you don't want any feelings involved.
him: but i like to give women the boyfriend experience.
me: but you DON'T want to be their boyfriend!

he was doing it all wrong and we had that conversation on several occasions. not that my advice mattered because he wanted what he wanted. he kept up his search until he found a woman to comply to his strange non-relationship relationship. i happened to be that woman. you see i had been a professional cut buddy for two years, so i knew how to play my role.

in my previous situation, we had sex and that was it. there was no holding of hands, no dinner dates or anything that resembled a relationship. so i was sure i could fulfill the request being made of me. i followed all of the instructions and stayed in my lane. i allowed him to guide me in the direction that he wanted, but a funny thing happened in the journey to the non-relationship relationship. what i did was still not what he really wanted.

then i realized he sent out all of these mixed messages to women because he was figuring everything out as he went along. he had no clue what he wanted and until he figured that out he was just going to have his fun. meanwhile he left a trail of hurt and pissed women along the way. he pushed me off the ride and instead of getting angry, i murdered him in my mind (coping mechanism).

i have decided the only clear way to decipher mixed messages or cease them altogether is to ask a simple question: what do you want? if he cannot answer that, i suggest you back away slowly or just run like hell in any direction away from that dude.

I likes ya and I wants ya

i am the queen of the non verbals. i wrote a four part series on flirting. for heavens sake, i taught people how to use their feet to flirt with men. so i will say that i am pretty good at the flirting thing. i am even better at picking up the signals of others. i have been watching people since i was a kid. early in life it was strictly nosiness, but as an adult i was making an effort to learn the behaviors of the opposite sex.

i did a two year internship with eight of my closest male friends and learned more than i should have about men. the takeaways from that in depth research project: tell guys what you want from them and everybody doesn't get those little hints that we swear are telltale signs of sexual gift offerings. those hint dropping tactics seemed like good ideas, but nobody bites the bait. so where do we go from here? let me tell you a story.

girl meets boy. girl likes boy. girl hangs out with boy and behaves coy, attempts to drop hints about her feelings. girl continues to drop hints, repeatedly. boy doesn't respond to hints. girl gets angry with boy and treats him differently. boy doesn't understand and focuses on the other girl who TOLD him she liked him. boy and second girl get married, have babies and live happily ever after.

that seems exaggerated, but that is pretty much what happened. it was my fear of rejection that prevented me from speaking up. you see, if he had picked up on my hints and initiated something romantic with me; i would have gone along with it and i would have what i wanted at that time. but when he didn't respond, i behaved like a young child who couldn't have my toy. i didn't think i was playing games, but i was attempting to manipulate his actions. am i reaching? no not really.

a lot of times instead of stating the obvious, the inferences are used to prevent us from getting our feelings hurt. but we are really just wasting time. all of the implications, coy smiles and hint filled banter online could end and be replaced with real kisses and hugs, dates and sexual activity. take it from Fleece Johnson, "I likes ya and I wants ya" works just fine. and sometimes you just have to take a chance.

so instead of playing cat and mouse, just be honest and speak out about how you feel. you might honestly be surprised by the response.

Say NO to Reindeer Games

please read the following quotes carefully:

"Most women are highly competitive by nature, and it seems that men have an innate ability to bring out their most competitive streak, without even meaning to."

"If a woman truly believes that a certain man is "the one" and they are meant to be together, she may very well stop at nothing to ensure that they end up together."

"She may try to seek out the other woman's flaws, insecurities and weaknesses, and exploit these to her advantage by bringing them to the man's attention, thinking that making her look bad will make herself look good by default."

these are a few lines from an article on Askmen.com by Victoria Holmes titled "Why do women compete for men?" i was hoping to gain some insight on what makes me tick as a woman, but this article was of no assistance. i will place this piece on my Peen Point Patty reading list. i get the notion that it was written to cater to men, i mean it wasn't on a website that is particularly geared toward the ladies. but that is neither here nor there, it's the statements that i want people to view carefully.

can someone point out the positivity in these sentences? i'll wait.

*plays Jeopardy theme song*

you didn't find any either, huh? i see THIS as a problem. often times enough i see women tear each other apart for the attention of some man. let me start by saying, i don't do competition. my mother told me not to play those games with men because a man knows who he wants. i get that people date multiple folks, but some men get off on watching the "competition" go down. so those are reindeer activities that I do not participate in.

a few days ago, a guy was praising the fact that women out number men on the planet. yaaaaay for him, not so yaaaay for me. again i don't do competition, but i have recently discovered that people are competing with me. for what, i am unsure. what the competitors are failing to realize is that you need participants for it to be a competition. if i am not actively involved that means you are competing alone. so all of the extra work you are doing for that attention is unnecessary. see if that man wants to give you his attention he will, despite me. now think about that.

the picture above is how i am moving forward with my female counterparts. if we cannot uplift one another and i see you competing like a teenage girl, you ma'am are out of my circle. why waste the energy competing, when you can focus that on being fabulous. because when you are fabulous, all that male attention those other chicks are fighting for will always come your way. as women we have to do better and this is me holding myself accountable.

so the next time your high school self tells you that it's competition time, tell her to have several seats, put on your big girl panties and work on you.

Your life is your own

I had a conversation with a friend and he asked the question, "At what point does your life become your own?" I had to sit back and really think about the answer to that question. I am a grown woman with bills and issues of my own, but until recently I was doing what everybody thought I should do. I have spent more than half of my life trying to be the perfect child for my parents. And I was the most miserable bitch ever known to man. The past few years, I have done what I wanted to do and I have been in a better place, happier than before. I laugh harder and smile more than before. But now it seems that people have a problem with my happiness or should I say my choices. I was shocked to say the least, but now I understand that everybody isn't always happy for you. Despite my disappointment, I plan on making myself happy and doing what I want to do. Its my life and I have to live it. I cannot live it for others nor do I plan to anymore.

Let's do this right this time

I started this blog a long time ago with no idea of what it would become or what I would do with it. I had no real intentions, I just wanted to write about my relationships with men. I was hoping that someone would learn from my mistakes and I would learn from interactions with others who had similar stories. I never expected to have the response to this blog like I did. But when I literally stopped dating, my inspiration dwindled and eventually I didn't want to write about the topic anymore. Until today, I have been chilling and trying to decide if I should move on and create something else. But a good friend told me I had a diamond in the rough and I just needed to reinvent my blog. So that is what I am going to do. I worked too hard to let this just fall to the wayside. Expect more posts about a variety of topics concerning relationships and news worthy topics. Thanks for sticking around during my hiatus.

Feels good to be here again.