Am I Grown Up Yet?

I am growing extremely tired of dating.  It’s just a bore.  Why work this hard for mediocrity? But what I am most tired of are these guys who send illiterate messages filled with backhanded vitriol about Black women.  

They do this strange thing when they more or less shame you into going out with them.  They tell you, either you’ll go out with me or you’ll be like “all those other Black women” and thus doomed to be alone and bitter.

I posted this on my facebook and a few friends told me I should respond.  So here is my response:  

Dear Boy Mike,

Thank you so much for your interest in me.  I know it must have taken you much time and effort to come up with such a creative message to send me, but I think I will have to decline your invitation to make history.  See, there are a few aspects of your message I find troubling. 

I am confused on how we will be changing history.  What history are we changing anyway?  The history of me being single? The history of Black women being single? Do you have a delorean to pick me up in?  Get up to 88mph and leave a trail of fire behind?  If that’s the case I’m not really interested in heading back to Jim Crow.  So unless you’re promising to take me to a place where hoverboards finally exist then I don’t even know.  

Furthermore, you asked me to “do the math”? Um okay, 322-290= degrees?  The answer is 32 degrees.  So uh, 32 degrees, huh? Is that the weather? No it’s much colder here in Chicago right now, but thanks for wishing.  Maybe it’s a rap song I don’t know about?  I admit that to be a possibility.  Or maybe what you meant to say was that you and I could create the perfect angle of love?  In which you could either have meant we add up to 360 degrees, because a circle is considered absolute (which means you have no idea how many degrees are in a circle so maybe we should reconsider who should be doing the math) or you meant us to add up to the ever so beautiful 90 degrees, which means you actually meant for me to subtract 270 from 360.  All this to say, I find your numbers quite arbitrary…

And speaking of arbitrary!

Let’s end with your 70% Black women statistic.  You see, Boy Mike, you are not the first man to message me about the trouble with Black women.  I often am the target of these types of messages, men frustrated with their inability to find love, and for that I am truly sorry because don’t we all deserve love?  Boy Mike, let me let you in on a horrible truth.  I had the unfortunate experience of being told repeatedly by my father that I am a princess.  As a result, I have a hard time dealing with people who marginalize me.  As much as I’d like to jump out the “bitter, black, and single” category, I’ve realized—through much heartbreak and maltreatment—that I must hold myself in some regard.  Society has done well, teaching girls like me that nobody wants us.  We’re too fat, we’re too dark, and our hair, our glorious hair, will never be anything more than the fur off a monkey’s ass.  But as I said before, my mother and father have lied to me well and I now have the audacity to consider myself a prize.  Never fear!  My parents taught me some humility by letting me watch Disney all the time.  So I now I believe that the man who comes must 100% absolutely sweep me off my feet, a gift from God.  You sir, do not seem the type of man to slash through a thorny tundra and take on Maleficent the dragon to save me from my eternal sleep.  You seem more the type to stand at the edge and shout, “See what I mean about you Black women? Too lazy to even get out of bed!”  So I implore you, Boy Mike, to move onto the next castle and let this Briar Rose be.  

Good luck and much love,

In the 70% and Happy.

P.S. It’s “Dolce” not “Dolche” but okay.