A Rose By Any Other Name…
I love my friends.
Despite the amazing accomplishments of many of my immediate accomplices and co-D’s, rarely do we discuss the future Nobel Prizes, Pulitzer Prizes, and advances that mankind will make due to the diligence and work ethic of my friends. We are, like most other young, gifted, and black people concerned with the important things in life, such as music, pop-culture, movies, relationships, and America’s Next Top Model.
And you can throw an impromptu discussion about religion and race into that list as well.
By the way, wasn’t the first sentence of the paragraph before the preceding paragraph really pretentious and presumptuous? Do you realize I used five (5) words in the last sentence that started with “p” and none of the words has less than 9 letters in them? Probably not.
Well yesterday, one of my co-D’s, who will be graduating from Georgia Tech in August with a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, and I happened upon a discussion that quickly devolved into a disagreement about behavior in high school. It is possible that some of you reading this will recognize the circumstances for which this question might arise. For others, you will not, which only makes sense because not recognizing is the direct complement of recognizing. It’s either/or bucko. I’m feeling educational today.
So I bring to you the discussion that me and my co-D, The Great, had on yesterday because we need further clarification. This convo also arose with another friend on Monday so you see how important this is to the black community.
Are you ready?
Good.
Mind you, this all involves what you would have done in HIGH SCHOOL. Not yesterday at yo’ mamma ‘nem house. Further, if you let the behavior we will discuss happen after high school, you should not be allowed to procreate as you are singlehandedly bringing down the black community.
The more you know.
*ding*
Let’s start with the main question and work our way into the discussion.
Question. And that’s if only I can ask this question, can I?
Yes you can!!!
When dating somebody, or maintaining interest in somebody for whom you actually have regular contact, and that person has a nickname, how long is it plausible to go without actually KNOWING their real name? And is it even realistic to assume that you will go any significant time (like say, a week) without knowing their real name? Can you date somebody without ever knowing their real name?
Let’s say you are in high school, and you meet a nice young lady (clearly this is from the male’s point of view but it can go either way) at the mall who tells you that her name is Woopty-Woop. Despite her gawdawful nickname, you are interested and she is as well. The two of you exchange information and you wait the pre-requisite day to call. Now, when you do decide to call, you will realize that you are about to ask whoever answers the phone for a Woopty-Woop, but you have a little reassurance knowing that she probably gave you her cell phone number. If she doesn’t have a cell phone, you will still call but you will be nervous from the potential that you just might ask a grown smurfin’ person who answers the phone for a person named Woopty-Woop knowing good and smurf well that no parent in their right mind (though a parent out of their right mind might do so) would name their child no smurfin’ Woopty-Woop.
Say you do get direclty to Woopty-Woop. And you all begin conversatin’ (I assume they’re both black since I doubt white people would have a nickname like Woopty-Woop, so it is entirely possible that they will conversate), in my mind, one of the FIRST questions that will be asked is, “so what’s your real name?” Followed by the most logical second question you ask a fellow high schooler who doesn’t go to school with you, “what school do you go too?”
It is my opinion that it is entirely unfathomable to go more than a week DATING (in high school terms which means talking on the phone and meeting up at the mall for kissy-face which leads to the hopefully safe sex in a car behind the mall), you would at least find out the person’s real name. And further, you’d want to know where they went to school.
My boy, The Great, disagrees. He doesnt think the real name is important and that as long as you have a name to call them, you’re in the game. He also doesn’t think that finding out what school the other person goes to is important either.
We are at an impasse. And we need your help. Is finding out a person’s real name that important or is it just good enough to have something to call them? And is where they go to school irrelevant to high schoolers?
When I was in high school, knowing where people went to school was important. We had a high school in Huntsville, Alabama, Lee High School, where it seemed like all the fine chicks went. If you were dating a chick from Lee, you were in there like swimwear (girls callin’ me hun)
April 13th, 2006 10:38
I didn’t see it coming…you started out…oh never mind, you know what you did!!
You mean to tell me that a HS girl could straight up be someone ELSE, use a nickname INDEFINITELY.. and the dude wouldn’t even question her! You are making me wish I didn’t go to a boarding school! Think of all the macking I could have done! I could have been known as KeKe in Mtn Brook, Shay in Ensley, and Niecey in Bessemer. I am mad. I want a do over. I could have been laced up with some tight gear. Hmph.
I think that when you are in high school, there is a small world that you live in, slightly detached from reality. You think you are invincible, you think you know it all, and you really aren’t all that pressed to find out pertinent information because technically you can handle anything. Now this of course is based on whether your parents allowed you to go around the hood being called by anything but your gubment name. My parents? Not so much. I had no room for that kinda stuff. My dad had to know everything about the people I knew. He also wanted them to know HIM and his 6’2 gangsta lean…that’s just his steelo.
and when are you going to get out of your smurf phase, ya killin me!
April 13th, 2006 10:38
could the vixen you reference in the unnamed Ray J video be the once pop-culture journalistic powerhouse Ananda Lewis? if you ARE talking about Ananda…then, my personal assumption would have to be HELL YEAH she is mad that her career has spiraled from hosting her OWN talk show to an all time low of playing the love interest of Ray J. but, that “what i need” song is tight (i got you panama)….
but to answer the question…in retrospect, calling people solely by their nickname in high school was cool at the time. but, i ran into somebody from my high school last month and was forced to ask her how this guy nicknamed “doo doo” was doing!forced, because i fished around in my head for his real name before i opened my mouth. only, i realized that i honestly never knew his birth name to begin with!!!but, that moment of feeling like an ass via asking another grown woman about “doo doo” could have all been avoided if i handled it right back in high school!!
April 13th, 2006 11:11
I was just recently dating the musician, and never knew his real name…none of his people called him his real name. I went to a bar with him that he frequented, and the bartender said ‘man, I don’t even know your real name” as he took his credit card for the tab.
I almost wanted to ask the bartender his real name. So…some of us still go through these type things…I didn’t even know how to seriously ask him.
April 13th, 2006 12:13
Hmm. Because this is a time of childhood…..I say one could go years without knowin somebody’s real name. I have a cousin we call Junior, or June Bug. When I was a wee lass, I really thought that was his name. Turns out his name was Harold or something like that (clearly, I still don’t know his real name for sure). Who knew?! I also didn’t know many other Black folks (beyond family), so it’s not like I could use cultural attitudes as a point of reference to know that most Black folks have somebody in they family nicknamed Junior and/or June Bug. Therefore, government names….not so important. As long as you got one to use, that’s all that matters.
School? That is important, just cuz I’d wanna know sumthin about you and your peers. Back in the day, we had the bougie white school where NO Black people went (okay, maybe one or two). Then we had my school where ten black people went. Then we had the school were 100 Black people went (in Orange County, that’s doin big things on the diversity scale). So…you know, I’d wanna know what school you went to so I could figure out what kinda neighborhood you lived in.
April 13th, 2006 13:04
Naw. I didn’t let my nickname leave my house. Only a few friends knew it but certainly not some boy I met at the mall. But if my parents answered and a boy asked for anything other than me, there would be much clownage and he probably wouldn’ get to talk to me
April 13th, 2006 19:13
Uh first Cell phones in H.S?!?! Uh nah brah not when I was in H.S from ‘88 to ‘92. Nope. Beepers maybe but a cell phone nah. Ok going back to read.
Uh yes I’d like to know a dude’s real name and where he went to school. In NYC it’s crucial.
April 14th, 2006 11:22
I LOVE the smurf phase… I swear. LOL
Anyhoo… we discussed this at great length and determined that you are indeed correct, there is no way on God’s green earth I’m calling ANYONE by a nickname.
Ask ANYONE who knows me! I just don’t do them. My USUAL FIRST question to someone named “Rocc,” or “Junebug” is, “What did your MOTHER name you?”
Yeah, I’m big on real names… even when they’re 8-letter names that everyone else shortens to 3, or 5. *shrug*
April 14th, 2006 11:35
As for the nickname, I think a week is gratuitous. IMO, 3 days or less, assuming you talk each of those three days…. perhaps 3 conversations or less is the more accurate timeline.
I remember being 15 and meeting this girl at the mall who told me her name was Peaches…. one of the 567,983 teenage girls and grown-azz strippers with that moniker. My next question was, “what’s your real name?” And had I not gotten it that day, it certainly would have come out in the ensuing marathon phone conversations that high-schoolers are prone to have. ‘Cause really… 2 hours is too long to talk to a Peaches, but totally acceptable for a Kesha.
And I am completely with you on the “what school you go to” question. In North Carolina, it was critical info as it usually conveyed the type of chick you were dealing with. That was always question #2… without fail, unless the answer to the first question was a nickname, in which case it would fail and relegate it to question #3.
April 14th, 2006 13:04
if you don’t know this person’s real name, how can you do a “Google” to make sure they are not a criminal or a cousin? in our adult world, how long could i go not knowing where someone worked??? not very long at all, in fact i need to know this from the jump…what’s your gubment name and who signs your pay checks…?
April 20th, 2006 14:46
I’m late to the game, I know, but….
Yeah, I need a real name. I hate that mess. I don’t even like it when rappers do it, LL Cool J and Jay Z. You sound like a damn clown!
I guess I am of that “his momma named him Clay, I’mma call him Clay” school of thought….