Taking a break from all the serious stuff to laugh a lil bit.
Laughter is a cure all - Do a lot of it.
Sex Changes For Kids
You know what.... If you dont see a problem with THIS... you have a problem. Why on God's green earth would you allow a 8 year old to get a sex change?!? This just upsets me. A lot of a kid's identity, ideals, and mentalities are formed by their surroundings. It's a parent's job to build that kid and try to prepare them for this crazy world until they are mature enough to make major decisions on their own, not to let the kid dictate to the parents what they want before they can even talk good. Kids walk around and claim to be dogs, cats, kangaroos, and dinasours, but everybody knows you don't give them pet food; you make them eat their vegetables until they get old enough to cook for themselves. They might growl and walk around on all fours - even bite things - but you still make them walk up right and correct them when its time to go out of the house.
Why is it ok that an 18 month old girl can say "I a boy" and her parents immediately take it and run with it? Where I come from, that kid would have gotten told that they were a girl, based on their anatomy; not given hormones before they could even form a good sentence. What they decide to do with their anatomy once they have formulated an identity of their own as a mature adult is on them.
Im just sitting here thinking... Most GROWN people aint even figured out exactly who or what they want to be... and Im talking about the 25+ crowd! Children are like sponges when they are young; they soak up what they see and emulate it. To perform a permanently life altering procedure on a kid is absolutely ridiculous. I promise this "anything goes" mentality that these parents have won't end well. What if the kid changes their mind later? Why are doctors even allowed to do this to a minor? What the hell are MY future kids gonna do when trying to find a mate if they cant tell if the person they like was born with a dick or not, even if they grew up with them? I have no more words for this.
Why is it ok that an 18 month old girl can say "I a boy" and her parents immediately take it and run with it? Where I come from, that kid would have gotten told that they were a girl, based on their anatomy; not given hormones before they could even form a good sentence. What they decide to do with their anatomy once they have formulated an identity of their own as a mature adult is on them.
Im just sitting here thinking... Most GROWN people aint even figured out exactly who or what they want to be... and Im talking about the 25+ crowd! Children are like sponges when they are young; they soak up what they see and emulate it. To perform a permanently life altering procedure on a kid is absolutely ridiculous. I promise this "anything goes" mentality that these parents have won't end well. What if the kid changes their mind later? Why are doctors even allowed to do this to a minor? What the hell are MY future kids gonna do when trying to find a mate if they cant tell if the person they like was born with a dick or not, even if they grew up with them? I have no more words for this.
One man's trash
I saw Killer Elite the other day and during the film, Robert Deniro said something.... He said somethin to the effect of "You show me a beautiful woman and I'll show a man that's sick of dealing with her sh*t." That quote reminded me of this post that I started writing last July but never finished because... Well.... Life happened. So I'm sitting here thinking to myself about the different people I've run into over the past few years and, as I did, I recall a few people who, upon first meeting them, I asked myself "How is it possible that this person is single?"
And then I got to know them...
Hold on...
Let me put this disclaimer on here first before I really get started: I am by no means perfect. I have a few "different" mentalities that many may not agree with. I have a tendency to laugh at bad situations that aren't funny at all. I might crack a few too many jokes or "play too much" and act foolishly at the wrong time. I have a few superficialities even though I know I still need some work. In other words, like I said, I ain't perfect. In addition to this fact, know that all of these crazy characteristics characterized below could be applied to men as well; we are not exempt from being crazy. This applies to ALL people. That being said...
I found myself dealing with a lot of cute "head cases" over the past few years (and a lil into this year) - some that I attempted to date; others that I quickly placed into the friend zone - and I learned a few things that I wanna share with you all.
1. Unstable people are more dangerous than you think and they will ruin your brain cells if you let them - The crazy thing about unstable people is that they actually believe what they are doing at that moment makes the most sense. They'll also be able to justify making a completely different decision moments later as they change with the wind. They are what you get when you mix narcissistic character traits with indecisiveness - they don't know what they want but they know that whatever they decide to do in the end, it needs to benefit them the most. You will be collateral damage. No good.
2. Beware of the "victim" - I got introduced to the concept of borderline personality disorder a lil while ago. These people start out playing this "everybody I meet hurts me" role. You put on your cape to come to their rescue and its downhill from there. They go into this "You're the only one who understands me" clingy phase next. This further facilitates the "you can't leave me because I need you to live" feeling. This moment may feel like the blissful love they show on movies; full of passion as they cling on for dear life (if you haven't bounced by now, you're in trouble). Unfortunately this bliss is just another step towards their ultimate level of manipulation. You see... As soon as you get use to the bliss, its all snatched away. They'll find any and everything to complain about... And its all your fault. Your heavenly relationship will become hell. Here's where you begin doing everything in your power to make the relationship "right" again. You will be manipulated until you get fed up and, once you get to that breaking point and get ready to leave, "bliss" comes back... Because "they need you and you're the only one who understands them". Right... Lol
3. The "I deserve the best" person - Let me explain. This is not a situation where someone just has high standards. This is the "I don't like myself so I will manipulate/demean you to the point where you don't like yourself and become my puppy." You try and try and try but not even perfect is good enough. That's not a healthy situation. Please note that this mentality doesn't always come with looks, but it always comes with delusion. Wake up and bounce before your self esteem drops.
And last but not least...
4. The "Are we exclusive?" person - You know that lil hampster wheel that the little rodents run in place on? That's you. Running fast; going nowhere. You've been going out with this person for 2 and a half months, talking on the phone all the time, and texting constantly... But you're still one of their "friends". You're number 2 of 5. They don't want a relationship with you because, if they did, you all would have some kind of clue of their intentions and thoughts towards you by now. After the age of 25, you don't really have the "Will you be my girlfriend? Circle one: Yes or No" notes anymore. You have a conversation where you both let each other know what you're looking for and, if you're both on the same page and make it through several dates with no major hiccups, just call it a day... If you aren't on the same page, leave them alone. But the "are we exclusive" person can't do that. They're trying their best to maintain all of their options for as long as possible. They don't want you to leave, but they don't want to make a decision either. In the end, there's about 2 possible outcomes: you could get selected as "the one" a year from now or... you could get introduced to their new significant other as their best "friend". I wouldn't roll the dice.
If you have any of these traits, I may have just explained to you why you're single. But hey, there's hope... One man's trash may be another man's treasure. Somebody out there may be able to deal with that behavior and claim you off the waivers list (even when you aren't claiming them).
And then I got to know them...
Hold on...
Let me put this disclaimer on here first before I really get started: I am by no means perfect. I have a few "different" mentalities that many may not agree with. I have a tendency to laugh at bad situations that aren't funny at all. I might crack a few too many jokes or "play too much" and act foolishly at the wrong time. I have a few superficialities even though I know I still need some work. In other words, like I said, I ain't perfect. In addition to this fact, know that all of these crazy characteristics characterized below could be applied to men as well; we are not exempt from being crazy. This applies to ALL people. That being said...
I found myself dealing with a lot of cute "head cases" over the past few years (and a lil into this year) - some that I attempted to date; others that I quickly placed into the friend zone - and I learned a few things that I wanna share with you all.
1. Unstable people are more dangerous than you think and they will ruin your brain cells if you let them - The crazy thing about unstable people is that they actually believe what they are doing at that moment makes the most sense. They'll also be able to justify making a completely different decision moments later as they change with the wind. They are what you get when you mix narcissistic character traits with indecisiveness - they don't know what they want but they know that whatever they decide to do in the end, it needs to benefit them the most. You will be collateral damage. No good.
2. Beware of the "victim" - I got introduced to the concept of borderline personality disorder a lil while ago. These people start out playing this "everybody I meet hurts me" role. You put on your cape to come to their rescue and its downhill from there. They go into this "You're the only one who understands me" clingy phase next. This further facilitates the "you can't leave me because I need you to live" feeling. This moment may feel like the blissful love they show on movies; full of passion as they cling on for dear life (if you haven't bounced by now, you're in trouble). Unfortunately this bliss is just another step towards their ultimate level of manipulation. You see... As soon as you get use to the bliss, its all snatched away. They'll find any and everything to complain about... And its all your fault. Your heavenly relationship will become hell. Here's where you begin doing everything in your power to make the relationship "right" again. You will be manipulated until you get fed up and, once you get to that breaking point and get ready to leave, "bliss" comes back... Because "they need you and you're the only one who understands them". Right... Lol
3. The "I deserve the best" person - Let me explain. This is not a situation where someone just has high standards. This is the "I don't like myself so I will manipulate/demean you to the point where you don't like yourself and become my puppy." You try and try and try but not even perfect is good enough. That's not a healthy situation. Please note that this mentality doesn't always come with looks, but it always comes with delusion. Wake up and bounce before your self esteem drops.
And last but not least...
4. The "Are we exclusive?" person - You know that lil hampster wheel that the little rodents run in place on? That's you. Running fast; going nowhere. You've been going out with this person for 2 and a half months, talking on the phone all the time, and texting constantly... But you're still one of their "friends". You're number 2 of 5. They don't want a relationship with you because, if they did, you all would have some kind of clue of their intentions and thoughts towards you by now. After the age of 25, you don't really have the "Will you be my girlfriend? Circle one: Yes or No" notes anymore. You have a conversation where you both let each other know what you're looking for and, if you're both on the same page and make it through several dates with no major hiccups, just call it a day... If you aren't on the same page, leave them alone. But the "are we exclusive" person can't do that. They're trying their best to maintain all of their options for as long as possible. They don't want you to leave, but they don't want to make a decision either. In the end, there's about 2 possible outcomes: you could get selected as "the one" a year from now or... you could get introduced to their new significant other as their best "friend". I wouldn't roll the dice.
If you have any of these traits, I may have just explained to you why you're single. But hey, there's hope... One man's trash may be another man's treasure. Somebody out there may be able to deal with that behavior and claim you off the waivers list (even when you aren't claiming them).
Sh*t Rappers Say
There are officially too many of these videos now... But seeing how everybody in Atlanta between the ages of 4 and 40, both male and female, wants to be a rapper, this is very relevant. If you have watched any interviews or been around any studios, you've heard (and probably said) this stuff. Enjoy.
SideNote: Slim Thug's interview looks like it was real. If he was joking, he did a good job acting.
SideNote: Slim Thug's interview looks like it was real. If he was joking, he did a good job acting.
Homeless
Last summer I decided to venture out into the town and enjoy Atlanta's Sweet Auburn Fest with this young lady I was trying to be friends with at the time. I had a pretty decent time, but that's not what Im here to write about. I wanna talk about something that woke me up in the middle of the night after my outing.
On the walk back to the car, I hear a voice calling out "Sir! Sir!" Now, being use to this environment, I have grown accustomed to tuning out every noise that doesn't sound like the people Im with or danger. But this guy CONTINUES to yell. (Did I mention that this person is across the street?) After realizing that I was the "Sir" that the person was referring to, I look over and the person asked "Can you help me get something to eat?" I gave my automatic "Im sorry" response and kept walking. I had been trained not to give homeless people money a long time ago - not by my parents, but by working downtown and being taken advantage of by people who weren't as homeless as they pretended to be. I knew a former homeless person and he told me to NEVER give a homeless person money. "You give them money and the first thing they do is take it and get pissy drunk" he said. But this guy ain't ask me for money; he asked me to help him get somethin to eat and I didn't do it. I was selfish... but even worse, I had been conditioned to be automatically selfish without giving it a thought. So here I was feeling crazy on the inside at 3 am because I wouldn't stop to give this man $1... or even 50 cents. I didn't share at all. I didn't even think about sharing... and I lost sleep over it that night. I know many may be thinking "Dude, its not that serious." But it is. Imagine the shoe on the other foot.
I'm remembering this after going to the park with some friends of mine to help feed homeless people in the park downtown. When you don't deal with them, you tend to forget that most of these people are really on the street. They are real people, with real feelings, that - whether its their fault or not - fell on hard times. NOBODY wants to live on the street or in shelters. Im pretty sure most of them would go home to a warm bed and good meals if they could... but they couldn't. They're out here on the street freezing half to death (and boy was it cold that day). To let you know how bad off some of them were... I didn't even touch anybody that day; I was few feet back with the camera but the smell stayed on my clothes for what seemed like hours. I almost felt bad for pulling out my camera, but I was asked to do it as a favor for the homeboy who is trying to start a movement. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have even pulled the camera out. Looking through the lens of a camera kinda removes you from reality for a moment but the truth of the matter still sunk in: these weren't all derelicts who were on drugs and full of alcohol as some tried to paint them (some where a lil crazy tho); they still had a lot of pride and probably just happened to miss those three paychecks that would make most "check to check" people homeless. Some of them were asking for me not to get their faces on camera in an effort to try to save face from mass humiliation and, I imagine, with the hopes of returning to what they use to know as "normal" without having "homeless" on their resume.
I kept my video shooting brief, got back into my car, and later praised God after experiencing yet another reminder of how good we actually have it. We complain that our heated leather seats take too long to warm up... meanwhile, they don't even have a coat.
Stop.
Think about it.
Chasing Statistics
I fought myself about writing this for years... I refused.
I refused to talk about how I have bumped into so many people, both male and female, that have standards that they place on the opposite sex that are just absolutely ridiculous. They spend all day complaining about how they can't find a person who is good enough; always finding something wrong. Moving desperately from "as long as they're cute" and "as long as they have a job" to bitterly saying "I deserve a '10' who has at LEAST 3 stamps on their passport, makes at LEAST 6 figures, no kids, no previous marriages, volunteers on weekends, hits the gym 4 times a week, has a character that is on par with Jesus and a car that is less than 3 years old and runs on premium gas." Meanwhile, you just turned 30 for the 5th year in a row, are emotionally damaged (possibly beyond repair), work a dead end job in a call center, can't cook, don't wanna clean, and your best days (physically) left you around the time you dropped out of college.
But the longer I live, the more I see the need to talk about it.
I was talking to this girl for a lil while on the phone about the last guy who attempted talk to her. This was another "deal breaker moment" where she basically described a great guy but kept him in the friend zone over something to which I replied "Is that it?!" She replied "Yep"... I shook my head in disbelief. I know, in reference to the deal breaker listed in the other post, sex is a big deal for many but the thing is, her complaint wasn't even sexual. It wasn't kids. It wasn't money. It wasn't looks. It wasn't other women. It was something 98% of us would have deemed a non-factor. It was something (I felt) she could have dealt with... or at LEAST talked to the guy about it to see if this ONE (kinda small) thing could be fixed.
At this point I said to myself: "Self?"
Myself said: "Hm?"
I said: "Are you prepared to devote a lot of time and attention to this young lady, while walking on eggshells, knowing that at any point in time you could be placed into that abyss known as the friend zone in her mind for barely any reason at all (without her telling you)? Would you be ok with continuing to spend all this time (and possibly money) in an attempt to date a person - who's personality you don't even know because they have 'walls up' from being 'hurt before' - with the risk that, once you DO find out their personality (6 months down the line), you might not even like them?!"
I couldn't say yes... And that's when it clicked. I had been chasing after statistics and so was she. Had I been in love with her personality, things may have been different... But I wasn't... Even after talking on the phone for a couple months and going out a few times, it dawned on me that I still didn't have any idea of what her personality was. I'd been chasing her based on her representative; the resume she advertised and not who she really was. The situation looks good on paper - she has all her teeth and she could read. The problem is, as in basketball, just cause two players with awesome individual stats join the the same team doesn't automatically get them a ring. You gotta learn to play together. You gotta have chemistry.
From what I observe, most people are visual... at least initially. We see something we like; we go after it. Its just that simple. Now, the problem is, this physical/materialistic attraction often fails to hold our attention for longer than a few weeks. Let's be honest; no man or woman (lames aside) sits and stares at the person they are attempting to date while continuously and endlessly showering them with complements and telling them how beautiful they are. If it happens at all, it only happens for a short period of time until either a) the predator feels like the prey has given in or b) the predator gets bored. Shortly after this moment you realize that all that unnecessary, over-the-top, superficiality ain't all that important once you start actually dealing with the person. I guess what I'm trying to say is, that moment of "awestruckeness" dies very shortly after we meet and hang out a couple times, at which point your non-physical attributes need to kick in and take over... And if they don't kick in, you'll probably be left alone.
This is where many of us fail. We spend so much time trying to look appetizing (or chasing what looks appetizing) that we forget that the most important thing is our flavor. Its good to have standards, but be careful of people who appear to have it all together. A person's "statistics" and looks may grab a potential mate's attention - but personality and character KEEPS a potential mate's attention. There MUST be substance and character behind that flawless exterior.
I remember seeing long ago how fast food restaurants spray paint their food, hold them together adhesives and toothpicks and use all types of preservatives to make sure their combo looks perfect on their television commercial advertisements. They show you this perfectly stacked all beef patty accented with a slightly melted yellow american cheese square on a sesame seed bun with the freshest of lettuce and a perfectly sliced tomato on it; served with a soft drink that looks like it was specially created by Willy Wonka himself to never lose its fizz. If you ate what you saw on that commercial, there is a chance that you might die. It IS true that, on the flip side, its understandable that the company doesn't want to show you what they really deliver when you order.... you get this wimpy piece of brown lettuce, a small under-ripened tomato and a processed piece of heat lamp warmed mystery meat on a stale bun and a soda that has a little bit too much carbonated water in it - that doesn't sell.
To relate that to relationships, we DO have to sell ourselves (note: most people don't want an ignorant, ugly faced mate who can't dress) BUT we can not spend ages developing our "resume" so that, to the untrained eye, we look perfect, while completely forgetting to be a human being that other people can relate to. Sadly, many fall for the "commercial" and set the "commercial" as the goal and standard... but the commercial isn't real. And so, while chasing this dream, I've seen many end up in an endless cycle of dating the most flawed "flawless" people ever and being hurt to the point where they say "I want the sex but not the relationship" and begin to accept the notion of being single forever.
My advice? Find a cute faced person with morals and ideals close to your own and, as long as they aren't extremely lazy and selfish, give it a shot.
Sidenote: Don't hold others to a standard that you can't measure up to yourself... It'll make dating a lil easier for you.
Meet Ben Breedlove
Ben Breedlove died on Christmas from a heart condition at the age of 18, but before he did, he posted these two videos about the 3 times he "cheated death" and what he experienced in those dying moments. Very moving. Check them out.
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