First things first, we here at Jackson G. Tickle Enterprises would like to send our sincerest holiday greetings to you and yours. So from the CEO, Panama D. Jackson, on down to our mailroom clerk, Jocephacus Absalom al-Amin, we’d like to wish everybody a…
Merry Christmahanukwanzaaka!
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Relationships are a funny thing. I’m of the school of thought that the way you get together is a clear indicator of how the relationship will evolve or dissolve. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Like say, you get together because the dude left his girl for you. Well, this bodes badly for the future. To borrow a sense from the Common Sense Handbook for Dummies, if he would leave his girl for you, he might leave you for another girl. Now there is of course the twist in there…like say you don’t know he had a girl. Well, in that case, fuck it…you’re relationship will last forever. You know why??? A relationship built on one faithful believer and one who provides you with what you want to hear is called…
…religion, and that’s lasted eons.
However, that has nothing to do with shit I plan on talking about. In my last post, I mentioned how a young woman, beckoned me to a mall in Atlanta to profess her love for me (that sounded so poetic didn’t it?) and my reaction which was “thanks” and an exit, stage left. For this I was told that I was cold-blooded, by more than a few people. And to that I say….
…y’all muhfuckas are full of shit (in a funny kind of way, cuz I thought it was funny myself).
Let’s break this down so that it can and shall forever be broke. Shall we? Yes, let’s. Under NO circumstance should you EVER call some dude you DON’T know to a place to tell him you love him, and expect him to be okay with this. Well, with a dude it might not be so bad. Normally, men are up for adventures so if she’s fine enough we might just say to hell with it and see what happens. Though, that’s how some people end up duct-taped in rooms with one light and a butch Slovakian chick named Helga asking questions about what makes Ron Artest (he had to make it in here somehow, he just had to!) a TruWarier and when did America decide that Warrior should be spelled differently?? Are we a new breed??? Are we??
(*looking around at confused stares*)
Ahem.
But let’s look at this from a female standpoint. Ladies?!
(*screaming “yeah”*)
If some man you barely knew, and had only talked to MAYBE twice in your life, decided to call you of the blue, a year after the last time you had talked, and asked you to meet him somewhere? What would you do?? Yes, you with the bad Lil Kim costume on in front. Oh shit, my bad, Lil Kim…how’s your breathing by the way??? Anyway, what would you do Lil’ Kim???
“I’d be like ewwwwwwww, I don’t eeen know you like that so hell to the naw.”
Right. Nobody would go. Now snap back to reality, what did I do?? I decided to go. Why?? No idea. I just assume I like adventure. Now I’d be lying if I had NO clue as to what was gonna go down. I’m not naive like that. I figured she had something she needed to get off of her chest and I almost think it would be kind of messed up to not let her have that opportunity. My thinking is that she needed to do one of two things:
- At least take her shot and see what happens. I’ll admit, I have to admire her for that. I had a chick thru 3 years of undergrad that I had the biggest crush on but never got up the nerve to even speak to her. Ironically, I met her later but thats neither here nor there.
- Get closure. Folks need closure in their life for some reason. Get it off of her chest, if he says no, then at least she tried, and she doesn’t have to go thru life thinking about what could have been.
Both very admirable chances she’s taking. You could learn a lot from a dummy. She put her ass on the line. The problem with putting your ass on the line with a dude you NEVER speak to is that you have NO idea what to expect. Also, the story didn’t exactly end so abruptly as was stated for length purposes, so let me finish of the story as close to accurately as possible.
Said woman approaches the table I’m sitting at and says, can we take a walk. I oblige. She says, Panama (well actually she said my real name…but you get the point…you’re smart right?? Right?? Why do I ask questions twice? Why do I ask questions twice?? Not sure.), I called you here to tell you that I’ve been in love with you since the first time I saw you yada yada yada…I needed to get it off my chest yada yada yada.
Stop. Let me tell you what’s going on in my mind at this moment.
Panama Pontificating: Wow, she really did this, she’s got some big cajones. Hmm, dammit, though I knew this I have no idea what to say about all of this. I mean how do you be nice about this when you aren’t interested, at all??? I don’t know if I should go and eat with her or something to be nice, or is that patronizing?? I mean I have no intention of trying to talk to this woman…dammit, did I get those signatures so I can graduate?? Is that one of the chicks from Destiny’s Child that got kicked out walking this way??? Damn, she’s shorter than I thought…cute though…why am I here again?? Oh right, this girl in front of me…shit, looks like she’s wrapping up the speech…
At this point, she’s nearly done. After running through what I should do in my mind, and I was nervous, I told her “Thanks.” See the thing is, even after all of that thinking, I was still unsure what to do, this is something I needed to process because I couldn’t understand how somebody who doesn’t KNOW me is in love with me. I could be the biggest jackass she’s ever met, right??? But, two things were working against me ever trying to understand.
- I was head over heels in love with somebody else at this point. Was the chick my girlfriend?? No. But she had me OPEN. That ended badly. D’oh well.
- I was graduating and moving to DC in a few weeks. Why chance getting to know somebody (and this might seem like dumb logic to people, but kiss my ass) that might turn out to be wonderful, ONLY to have to leave right away and try to maintain some long distance communication, etc.
I opted to just leave it alone. She said she wasn’t expecting anything, and maybe she wasn’t, but just needed closure. She went her way, I went mine. The end.
Now…for the analysis and why I wasn’t coldblooded and hence, why folks that think I am are full of shit. This is the ultimate in awkward. NOBODY is going to do the best possible thing in that situation? What’s that mind you??? Jackslap the person, run, and hope they hate you. That way they aren’t in love anymore, and you can leave with a free conscience!! (Made NO sense at all did it?? Did it??)
I really thought this shit out as to what I was gonna do and ended up STILL not being prepared to tell somebody who clearly put their heart, soul, and being, on the line that I was flattered but not interested. To me that would have been even worse. I think for saying…naw, not interested, I would have been coldblooded. For going out with her just to do it, knowing full well that a) I was only doing it to hopefully make her happy and basically be patronizing her, and b) I would have been thinking about somebody else the whole time, would have been cold-blooded.
Basically, I would have been nice to her (which is easy) to hopefully make her smile so she doesn’t feel bad or embarassed for basically putting her heart out there to be kicked around and stepped on. Thing is, a lot of women (GENERALIZATION ALERT! GENERALIZAITON ALERT!) see a man’s niceness and assume that he might actually be interested. And with the Male Market being shitty as its been lately, I can understand the need to jump on a good man if you see one. However, why risk it from my end?? I know that I wasn’t going to give her anything else…in my mind at the time, I was taken.
Quick aside here. Panama fell hard as hell for a woman who basically played him for something like 9 months…only to find out she was talking to somebody else, yet allowing me to feel like I was “that dude.” Only, to finally come around and decide that I was worthy of her time. See what I mean about starting badly??? I didn’t see it at the time, i was just so happy to have her…but that shit went downhill…badly. And it ended in a manner that can be deemed cold-blooded. Karma, is a bitch.
To me, it’s more cold-blooded to not catch somebody when you see them falling for you, to let them just fall in love with you, or to basically make them believe they have a shot when they don’t. And she was already gone in some sense…so for me, the best option I could pull out in 30 seconds was to just say thanks and I appreciate it…and let us both go about our way…
Cold-blooded, naw. I was cold-blooded for telling a chick that was feeling me in 8th Grade that her breath stank and offering her a roll of Certs in front of everybody at a party. THAT was fucked up.
But here…I had a heart…or at least tried too. I mean I still think about that situation sometimes, and its still funny to me for the simple fact that I went along with it and that it really is just ONE of the situations that have happened to me. Hell, I’ve been proposed to twice. In REAL life. Shit like this, upon looking back, is funny as hell. But that one time, I tried to do what I thought was right, and maybe I didn’t do it as well as I could have, but I had a good minute of reaction time to come up with something, and I did my best…
…and tried NOT to be cold-blooded.
****This has been an exclusive and personal look into the mind of Panama Jackson and matters of the heart. Shit won’t happen often.***