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)
