WE ARE: 5 women navigating our twenties in search of peace, happiness and love (or not). WE WRITE: about everything and nothing. From the insane to the mundane- you will find different paths taken, lessons learned and lives lived. WE THINK: you’ll enjoy it...Warning: Consumption of these views may leave you enlightened while intoxicated.

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The View From Here will conclude on Friday, October 1, our third year anniversary. We would like to spend this month thanking all of our readers, followers, haters, visitors, family, friends, and fans for your continued support, encouragement, and comments over these past few years. Thanks y'all!
-The Five Spot

Thursday, August 21, 2008

cater to you


A friend and I have this running conversation about B&B's, that is bold and brazen (black) women. Ladies who claim him! After observing the aggressive tactics of another woman my friend wondered aloud whether she needed to start being so B&B: picking out a man, claiming him as the one, being ready willing and able to do things for him, generally catering to him cause every day is his day. I countered her query, suggesting that this particular woman's actions (buying opera tickets, saying he's the one for her) to my thinking were more like catering-lite and actively showing and stating interest, a step down from bold and brazen, albeit a tiny step. To me being B&B is self-explanatory: the woman boldy intiates the contact, doing things like asking for his number, calling first and brazenly goes after a man while he goes along passively for the ride until such time as he opens the door and jumps out while the car is still rollin. But with most things in life, there is a fine line between B&B activities and those that are not.

Case in point. During my training last week, one of my male colleagues got sick. While drinking at a local spot, he reached over and partook of some oysters from somebody else's plate. Unfortunately these oysters did not agree with his stomach and the next morning he was down for the count. He'd be throwing up, take a nap, try to eat, and throw up some more. So commenced a vicious cycle for the next 4-5 days.


Some time around day 3, his girlfriend of one month, upon hearing about his distressed state, came to the rescue. Without any prompting, she jumped in her ride and drove over to where the training was being held. Keep in mind that we were training 6 hours away from home and co-worker didn't know she was coming until she called him from the road. Homegirl swept in with groceries and proceeded to cook and clean and nurse her man back to health.


My friend chalked it up to the magnificence that is him. But I wondered.... Had I just witnessed a B&B sighting, wifey auditions if you will, before my very eyes or was this woman simply being considerate? On the one hand, they'd only been dating a month and 6 hours is a hell of a long way to drive to spoon feed some grown ass man crackers and gatorade. On the flip side, you only have one chance to make a first impression, to show yourself to be the concerned homemaker who will drive any distance and clean any surface in order to please her man. This is a quasi-extinct black male with an advanced degree, no kids, and a good head on his shoulders we’re talking about.


Me no know. It could go either way, right? But if you held a gun to my head and made me make a choice about whether this was B&B behavior or not, I'd say it wasn't although the length of the relationship would cause a raised eyebrow. My only concern is whether she did all this out of the goodness of her heart or because she thought it would get her brownie points. Does it really matter her motivation especially if he isn't aware of why she's there, only that she IS there, showing him that she's willing to be down for him. He said he thought it was nice of her and maybe somewhere in the back of his mind she gets a check in the "could be a good wife" column. So who cares what other people (read: women) think about her actions. Maybe some times B&B behavior is called for if you want to survive. I say just don't make it a habit.

What say you?

3 comments:

Maria said...

Hmm... I always say that the only people who truly *know* a relationship are the two people in it.

Off the bat, I don't think I'd do the same. But if I found "the one" and just happened to have been with him only a month? Shoot. I'd be there in a heartbeat.

Unknown said...

well, after a month of talking to my ex before we were "together" he got food poisoning. I forced him out of his dorm and into the infirmary, stayed with him all night and after class the next day, cleaned his room and stocked his fridge. He said that's when he knew I was the one. We were together for 3 years. And I actually did it out of consideration, not because I was tryna be wifey... so idk...

Anonymous said...

I dated a guy who got shot a month after we met. I visited every day, gave him sponge baths, brought him food, accompanied him to therapy, and mainly tried to be a good friend... Looking back I guess I did it because i liked him and thinking it would earn me cool points and he would eventually see me as the one. Well, he got better and that was that, he remained intimmate friends for years. He wasn't the one for me. Would do it again...probably not. It's got to go both ways...or else bad feelings will develop and ruin everything.