ANECDOTE TUESDAY: BIRTHDAY BASHMENT

My friend and Melanie and shared the same birthday. One year, she was gung-ho about a dual dinner; I wasn’t. A few days passed, and as we talked about it more, I slowly warmed up to the idea and started looking forward to a festive night with friends until she called with the worst idea ever. She had recently experienced another dating disaster and was subsequently ready to swear off men. Frustrated, she said that she didn’t want men to be a part of her life then added that our birthday evening would be better spent with only our respective nearest and dearest girlfriends.

Immediately, I was incensed, mentally hurling every epithet I could think of at her. What were we doing every other time we went to dinner, brunch, hosted holiday parties or slumber parties to console another girlfriend after a breakup? I thought. Wasn’t that enough girlfriend time? She was bugging! We had gone from a potentially pleasant dinner with the usual male and female friends to an estrogen-atrocity. As she rambled on about restaurants and more reasons to despise men, my mind wandered to the dependency some women felt on each other, whining about their lack of dates, hypothesizing on what men were doing or thinking, and simply wasting good ‘flirt-with-man’ time on conversations with each other. Charlie Brown syndrome took over as she continued and mentally, I compiled snippets of previous discussions which wound up sounding something like this:

“How long has it been since he called?”

“Over a week. Things were going well between us and he just seemed to disappear.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what’s going on. He’s seeing someone else. Probably some broad that he just met that’s willing to give up the booty just because the brother has a nice house, a good job, a few dollars, and a Range Rover. See, women like that? Uh, don’t get me started. They make things so easy…opening and closing their legs like a refrigerator! Then, when someone good comes along like me, dude is so jaded and jacked up in his thoughts he don’t even recognize a real self-respecting, saved and sanctified woman like myself. I mean, I’ll engage in a little petting on the side you know, but a man can’t just run up in me after three dates. Brotha, please. I don’t even know your middle name.”

“I know you’re trying to be helpful but this conversation is taking a different direction. I don’t want to male-bash and you’re starting to relive some stuff with your ex so…”

Interrupting and undeterred my friend would continue, not acknowledging my statements.

“Yup, that’s exactly it! Should have known! He has someone else. Probably some project biddie with a slew of kids waiting to be rescued and there he is–accepting a sub-par woman because he’s too afraid to step to an educated, intelligent, career-minded, independent, fine sister. So what does he do? Call that ghetto bunny his girlfriend because he can buy her some Similac, sneakers, and a used Subaru and she’ll do anything he wants. You know what I call those men? Suckas! Suckas, I say! What’s the name of the guy you went out with again? Oh it doesn’t matter. In the happenstance that he’s not seeing the ghetto girl, he definitely chasing one of those high faultin’ glamour girls who’s looking for a man to impregnate her so she can sit her Louis Vuitton ass at home, practically tethering him to her because she has his baby. You know what, you don’t even need a man! You should just be grateful that you have good girlfriends like me to school you.”