Social Studies

So I wonder as I wander what personal interactions will look like on the street in the next 5 years, given that we now live our lives through Facebook, Twitter and texting.

I was at my cousin’s graduation party and all the children were hanging out in the basement. Me being younger than the old folks, decided to start off hanging out in the land of the yougins. Music was playing and there was occasional laughter- but overall it was pretty quiet. Everyone had their cell phone in hand texting away! Actual interaction among the attendees mainly consisted of demands to pose for a picture with someone’s camera phone. I guess just to show via Facebook that they were there in attendance. My younger cousin even went so far as to get the laptop to show me and her best friend who lives up the street pictures she posted on the Book because we could see them better than on her phone. Seriously? Realizing that I am older than the young folks, I went upstairs with the grown folks. They were laughing and talking to each other about the 70’s, their kids who still live at home and the “joys” of getting older. But they were doing it without responding to the latest chime on their iPhone. Their conversations were face to face, totally free of hand held distraction. And there I was in the middle of it all, able to relate to both worlds but not feeling completely comfortable. It was weird.

As an early 80’s baby I feel like I am the last of the breed who can hold a conversation over a plate of food and leave my cell phone in my purse. I even like to send thank you notes and get well cards through the (gasp) mail! But by the same token I enjoy sending emails and text messages over having telephone conversations. Ugh! Just picking up the phone to call someone requires that I have subject matter at the ready. Gone are the days when people could just spend hours on the phone talking about…well nothing at all. In this instantaneous society I feel like I need to have a purpose in my call, there is no room for phone call randomness. It’s much better to randomly send an “I found the perfect toilet paper!” text, than having a phone conversation about how I’ll never use the CVS brand again. Because really who has time for that?

Even at work when my phone rings I wish in my soul, as allow the call to go to voicemail, that they would just send me an email. Email allows me to answer you when I feel like it. And I like that! If you ask me a question on the phone that I don’t know the answer to I have to pretend that 1. I care 2. that I am listening 3. I will actively spend the rest of my day trying to find the answer for you. When in fact I will do 4. Surf the internet and address your concern at my convenience (usually 30 minutes prior to me leaving for the day).

But maybe this is just me. I’m not on the Book, I’ve never Tweeted, back in the day I was one of the first to let my Black Planet page lapse. So I can safely say that me and technology aren’t particularly fond of each other. But texting and email do suit me just fine! And by stating that, I know that something has changed, because I use to be a phone call every day-or a least a couple times a week kind of teenager. And my teen years aren’t that far behind me. And something keeps changing among us human folks as a whole. When we have folks passing each other on the street and can’t even say hello in person, but they are Facebook friends! What’s up with that? It makes me feel like being so connected all the time is making us all a little more socially awkward when we meet face to face.

See You In Seven

Leaving An Impression

I don’t know about ya’ll, but when I get to heaven I have a few questions that Imma need to ask. Aside from the meaning of life, why is the sky blue and who shot JFK…I just really need to know why God made men and women so undeniably different! I know a billion books have been written on this subject, but I must know how the sexes are supposed to communicate with each other when we view and process this world so differently. If the question is what is a healthy side dish-I’m saying a tossed spinach salad with the dressing on the side and he’s saying doubled fried French fries. His qualifier-that vegetables are healthy and a potato is a vegetable. Is he wrong? No. But is he right? Still no. I wondered about this communication disconnect before, but since hanging out with a male on a regular basis I feel like there must be some inside joke that no one on this side of life has been privy to the punch line. Lord, you got to let me in on the joke, because I’m not understanding!

Picture this: Fight Party 2010. The couple hosting the party invited an assortment of friends. Folks from church, work and around the way all convening with the ghetto and the fabulous! The great equalizer food, drinks and half naked men hitting each other. For any single lady this was one of those golden opportunities to meet and greet a summer boo. So these chicks come in with their low cut shirts, thigh high dresses. They have on 3” heels and oodles of makeup. Just looking too fly…in someone’s townhouse!

So after the party I’m talking to my friend about the sights and sounds of the party. I’m giving him all sorts of back story about this woman named Nigeria who I feel doesn’t really like me for whatever reason and I finally had the chance to point her out to him. So I go Nigeria is the girl who had on the blue dress.

Him: Who’s Nigeria?
Me: The girl who had on the blue dress.
Him: I don’t know who you are talking about. When did she get there?
Me: Really? Cause she was there the whole time. You know that one who was dancing by herself to the music?
Him: *puzzled face*
Me: Nigeria! Blue dress!
Him: Oh the one with the big hips?
Me: Um, yes! Nigeria.
Him: Oh. I thought you were talking about the retarded looking girl.
Me: *internal dialog with self: was the retarded looking girl wearing a blue dress?! Heck no!*

I mean at that point I could have stabbed him with a plastic spoon! I understand that men are some times color blind…but a blue dress is a blue dress. And up until this conversation I thought men being visual included all things visual, but maybe it’s just the body parts that leave a mark on the minds of men folk. And in his defense Nigeria’s hips are usually one the first things people notice because they are enormous! But because folks are raised right and learn to speak through filters, I know not to comment on such things.

At any rate my friend went on to explain that men don’t really notice clothing. They notice how you carry yourself, if you are clean, etc and what you are working with. But who or what you got on-they careth not. So the light bulb came on and I was like basically women are just dressing for each other? And he was like, exactly. And maybe this is true across the board for men folk except for the Kanye’s and Fonzworth Bentleys of the world… Or maybe this is just for my friend. But I know now that if I want to point a chick out to him I better describe her face, butt or breast…otherwise he just didn’t notice, or at least has no idea what I am talking about. Ba-dump-ching.


See You In Seven

A Rite of Passage

This weekend I realized that my little 15 year old cousin has become a woman. Not in the had a period, can get pregnant from sex kind of way; but in exhibiting Typical Grown Woman Craziness Behavior because of the foolishness of a male type of way.

We were at our grandma’s house this weekend and I heard her on the phone asking her friend “Did you read it yet? What did you think?” Of course my curiosity was piqued, and so I asked her what was going on in her world. She explained that once again she and her boyfriend had broken up but this time she decided to write him a letter.

Oh lawd! Why oh why women do we get to scribing our feelings on paper? Especially in an age of textassness, email, and the KISS method. But from Aalyiah’s 4 page letter to the 18 page letter Rachel wrote to Ross (front and back), it seems that us women folk have a lot to say…and maybe its because we don’t feel our male counterparts hear us when we talk and so we hope against all hope that if we say it in writing they’ll get it.

Well, when sharing my letter writing philosophy with a male friend he essentially crapped all of my theory and told me that even in writing he gleans everything he needs from what is said in the first paragraph, so why bother reading the rest? Say what now? The first paragraph?! In my letters I haven’t even made my point yet in the first paragraph. Shooooot, I’m still talking about feelings and I haven’t let my inner lawyer come to the forefront to state my case. In the first paragraph I haven’t yet explained why I feel this way or that, or how I wish I knew your feelings, want you to share your feelings, stop talking to your momma so much, tell your boys you’ll get at them the next time, tell me I’m beautiful every morning, and…well ya’ll get the drift.

So I realized that my cousin had become grown when, in telling me about her letter she told me that she didn’t get all crazy with him. Had her best friend read it first to give her stamp of approval. But most importantly she had evidence to back up everything she was saying. That’s right EVIDENCE! When we women folk get pen to hand (or sit in front of computer), suddenly we remember Every.Single.Detail. of every single thing that’s happened since 1999. It’s something about letter writing in which we become determined to make the males in our lives Get It. Get why we are hurt, or disappointed, or angry. And get it to the point that they start caring enough to feel bad, or if they already feel bad to tell us.

But really, that’s a crazy expectation. Because what sane person really wants to have a conversation with a person who has thrown everything they’ve ever done wrong in life back in their face. Yet that’s what most women folk want. We want to talk it out, have a conversation and maybe an admission of something…like guilt. But it’s easier to just live with guilt, ignore and avoid…in hopes that thing will blow over eventually, than to deal with stuff head on.

So when I asked little cuz the other day if ole boy responded to her, she said no. And she doesn’t even care anymore. And well, I can't say I was surprised by any of it. All I could think was that my cousin was now aware of something that she wasn't before.

Welcome to womanhood!

See You In Seven

No Textassness!

Amaretto touched on this a little while ago – the downside of text messaging. Now before I get on my soap box and file my complaint with the masses, I have to confess that I love to text message! I will have a whole conversation via text. I will send a text about the most random thing in the world to some of my bestest friends. But that’s just it, they’re my friends. So what’s my problem? My issue? My beef with text messaging as it were? My problem is the textassness that happens when you have man + woman + budding relationship/friendship/fuck option/potential whatever...

Let me give you an example. Girl’s male co-worker says, “I think you’d be a ‘good’ match for my friend. Can I pass your number along?” Girl who’s always down to make new friends says sure. Girl hears nothing from boy for a lonng time. Finally one night, girl’s phone goes off. She opens the phone and finds a new message by an unknown number. This is odd, girl thinks. She reads the message and finds this: Hi girl. This is boy, co-worker’s friend. How are you? WTF, girl almost screams aloud, but then realizes that she’s right next to her mother. Girl figures she has three options 1. Respond 2. Cuss boy out 3. Ignore. Well like a fool I responded. What can I say he caught me on a good day. But then this man tried to have a conversation via text. Again, WTF? Oh but it gets better. This fool asked me out twice via text. I had never had nary a conversation with him, but for some reason he thought it was cool that I just meet him out in the world. Yeah, I stopped responding to his texts.

Admittedly most of this was my fault. I could and should have told him from jump that I deserved a conversation. Shouts out to Mint Julep. But I couldn’t help but wonder what made him think this was OK? What made him think this was acceptable behavior? Had he tried this technique on other women girls and found that it worked? Was he scared to have a real conversation with me? The pretend psychologist in me thinks this is some passive aggressive bullshit behavior. The single girl in me thinks that men are just being lazy and courtship is a lost art. And the realist in me thinks that these men must believe I'm not worth the time and effort.

And as I curse aloud every time my phone chimes, the textassness continues to spiral out of control. I am finding the following pattern: I give my number to a guy, we have one or two convos, and then he wants to take it to text messaging. I understand the cute, how are you today texts. But what I don’t like is the how are you, what are you doing, I’m doing this right now, lol, what are you doing now, what do you want to do with your life, don’t you want to come out, let's have a serious discussion about x, lol, never ending texts! Seriously pick up the phone and tell me what the fuck you want. And if it involves me meeting you somewhere, just say it, don’t go all around the mulberry bush.

But the other day a male friend of mine told me I need to get with the times. According to him text messaging is not impersonal. And unlike me who thinks that you should have a decent foundation before you take it to the text messages, he thinks it allows you to multitask and he saw nothing wrong with ol’ boy asking me out via text message. Well transport me back to 1942 then. Or to the days of the one house phone and the busy signal. I mean I know the world is moving fast, and we’re all busy and pursuing our hopes and dreams and whatnot…But isn’t getting to know someone all about making that connection? Remember getting giddy when that person called, hearing their sexy ass voice on the phone, talking for hours on end, falling asleep on the phone together, playing the you hang up first game? I know there are perks to getting older. But there are some things that shouldn’t have to change.

That’s my time y’all! Happy Rum Punch Friday!