Treatmebetta

I’m in NC visiting a great friend who I haven’t seen in two years. She was in a doctoral program, I was getting a master’s, we wisely chose to forgo our yearly gathering in the name of higher education. So, anyway, she’s Dr. now — NYU, thank you very much — and we just watched the movie The Tinder Swindler.

What a shit show. I mean an outright, online dating, are you fucking for real, dumpster fire. It was ridiculous!

I literally spent half the movie flopping around on the couch in complete disbelief at the victim’s idiocy. I mean, it was shocking that a grown woman — more than one! — with a job and a family and a life and a home, who was reasonably cute and dressed well was this frickin’ naive. Not because I don’t understand that these women were just looking for love and got caught up in some mess, or because I think they deserved to be victimized because they were idiots. No one actually deserves to be mistreated.

But in the immortal words of Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn’t help but wonder: Why was it so easy for me to see all of the red flags? Why was it so easy for me to see when these women needed to stop before they ended up with their asses in a financial sling?

In this Day and Age, Why Are Women Still Fooled By Men Bearing Shiny Objects?

And perhaps most important, I wondered why nothing these women were impressed by was appealing to me? Why was I so 100% immune to what that dude was selling? 

It’s not like I’m so smart that I can’t be tricked. I too have been fooled by a man in the past. More than one! But this, what I saw on that screen, that was something else entirely.

Let me tell you a little story to illustrate why I think I’ve become teflon to love nonsense. 

There was a guy, this is almost 10 years ago now, who invited me over to his place. That right there could be considered a red flag, but we’ll continue.  

He kept saying, “We should order some food.” Well, lemme tell you a little something about me. Fat kid loves to eat. When somebody tells me that it’s like, say less! I’m ready to go, I’m pulling up to the table, putting my metaphoric bib on with chopsticks in hand. 

Long story short, we ordered the food and I drove us to pick it up. We get up to the counter and he pays. But his card declines — yeah, okay, weird — and then he has no wallet — isn’t that convenient? By that time, the lightbulb had gone all the way off. But I didn’t fuss.

He got me for $30 and change and a ride back to his house, ‘cuz as soon as my belly was full — you better believe I ate more than my share; I paid for it — I was right back in my car, and I didn’t even look back at that negro as I drove away. I was in the wind! And I didn’t take his call for many, many years after that.

One year, out of the blue he invited me to his birthday party. He was having it at a lounge, so I figured if nothing else I could meet some new people. I was on some old, forgive and forget, I’m healing, I can be the bigger person type shit, so I went. What the fuck did I do that for. Huge mistake.

The shit that came out of his mouth. He was so disrespectful, I left, and I can say with absolute confidence, I will never talk to that creature voluntarily again in this life. To do so would be to discredit my own healing and womanhood — and what we not gon’ do, is that!

Love Is No Excuse for Ill Treatment

Now please. Even after sharing that sorry, pitiful tale of youthful fuckery, don’t think that I am anti-love. Far from it. For all that is holy and good under the bright warm light of day, and luscious and sweet in the cool nighttime hours, know that I believe love is a wonderful thing. For real! I believe that it’s a necessary thing. I truly believe that with all of my sarcastic little heart.

I love love. I’ve been loved, and cared for, and treated kindly. And I thank God for them because those were wonderful experiences that I will have in my heart and spirit forever. Because of those experiences I have a frame of reference, of familiarity, that enables me to appreciate so much more of the world. I can sincerely enjoy love-themed media, music, movies, books, art, I’ve written and published a dozen romance novels for God’s sweet sake. 

And I’ve never been that hating ass friend who would encourage you to leave your boyfriend when he’s acting up. More times than not I just listen ‘cuz I’m not ‘bout to get in that mess only for y’all to make up 12 hours later and be Kool and the Gang. Then I’m the friend who reacted to the fight, and whatever advice I gave is now hanging silently over our friendship like the sword of Damocles.

But love takes many forms. And I just can’t be naive in love. I know too much. I see and have seen way too many Black women being stupid in love. Losing themselves in love. Getting fat and unhealthy for love. Going in debt or BROKE for love! *shudders* 

And sis, this is a lifestyle blog, so I gotta tell you. The old me would have clowned you for telling a story about baby mama drama, and Pookie didn’t bring the money home, and lil man needs diapers ‘cuz of this, that, and the third. Or, that you are now tens of thousands of dollars in debt because of a guy you met on Tinder.

Now, the new me I just blog about it, and pray for your healing. I pray that you realize you too are a prize, and that you quietly and irrevocably insist that a man treatmebetta.