why did Bubba take his ball and go home???

as I'm laying here trying to get to sleep, for some odd reason i had a sharp memory of growing up run through my head. i grew up in portsmouth, va in a neighborhood like many others. it was a middle class black area, not in the richest and not in the poorest area of town; when middle class was truly middle class, unlike today. there were a group of us that hung out and played together, everything from touch and tackle football, baseball, basketball, video games and even built models. Sports were big and we had various levels of talent; I had middle-of-the-road sports talent as most of us played one sport or another in high school. There was Jo-Jo and Wayne, a couple of cats who were older than me, guys that you played with even though they were older and gave me a hard time being younger than they were and not as good as them.  There was Vonn, a cool, soft-spoken cat who came around every-so-often who was good in baseball and Harrell who had the basketball court in the backyard and was the fun, semi-bully that you couldn't beat. I had 2 other good friends by the name of Michael and Bubba, who looking back on it were probably my best friends (although best really means 1 but anyway...). Michael didn't play sports and as i found out much later in life, was developmentally slow but i never cared because he was always a good friend to me and i hope i was just as good a friend to him.  Last but not least was my man Bubba, who was a good friend because he, like me, was the youngest of the crew and most of the time brought his ball for whatever sport we played. When the crew was together, we mainly had a good time but i remember back in the day when got together and things got tight amongst us, Bubba would frequently take his ball and go home.  Now as i remember, he probably had the least sports talent amongst us but he never really got grief about it.   he'd eventually come back but it was only after he left us and went home, got his self together (i guess), got some encouragement, forgot about it and/or realized that he missed us like I'm sure we missed him. i often wondered why did he have to spoil the fun by getting mad and leaving?  As an adult, i now ask myself questions about all those times...was i a bad friend because i didn't stop him from leaving? why didn't i go around his house to check on him? why did he leave in the first place? why did he get mad enough to take his ball and leave? We all just played and played, with Bubba and myself losing more than the others but i never went home when i lost! Why didn't Bubba stay and keep playing like we all did? Its because he got tired of losing (or just not being able to constantly compete) and decided that "I'm not gonna stay here and take this, I will take my ball and go home", thereby ending our fun and his bad time.  

I've come to realize that we as people whether old or young, are always looking for equity in any type of relationship and when we don't find it, we retreat to our "safe places", whether people are  withholding that equity from us purposefully or not. We tend to assume that we are somehow being violated, or its being done intentionally...to somehow get at us for something and in turn, we penalize others for how we feel, i.e. Bubba took his ball and went home.  At work, if you're not being payed the wage you feel you're worth, you get mad and feel used and under appreciated; never mind that most bosses cant pay us what we feel we are worth for our employment term. So at work now, you start to give them the effort "you think" they are paying for, which generally is less than you were doing before (not that we gave back any of the money). With your friends, if you initiate calls or text messages more than your friends do with you, do you feel "some kind of way about it" and cut back or even stop taking the initiative so you wont be doing all of the work?  If your talk to your friends and you don't get the type of conversation back that you put out, are those conversations diminished?  
Being that we all are different people with many different expectations and agendas, should it really be equal?  Bubba didn't feel equal, even though i cant see how that was any of our doing...should he have been coddled to make him feel included? Should we have let him win so he felt like he was in a better place? Should he have stayed and just took it? 

As i truly believe, the first law of nature is self-preservation and when instincts kick-in, God help who ever is on the other side of that action when we all somehow feel threatened.  Do we ever stop to ask ourselves "is this being aimed at me?"  "Am i being ultra-sensitive?" "Do i ever make people feel like this?"  i cant help but ask myself have i taken my ball and gone home in the eyes of others? i sure as hell hope not but its a great question to ask my therapist when i see her next week.

Why men don't talk...Part 01

In the words of one of my favorite Hip-Hop artist’s Rakim…It’s been a long time since I left you!!!

I come to you as always, with random thoughts that emanate from my life, my eyes and situations I see.  Now I promise that I will make a more concerted effort to provide you my thoughts as I’m even creating a schedule to keep myself on more of a track to voice the issues I’ve got to get off of me.  The newest one is men and why don’t we talk.  To be honest, there are multiple reasons such as having a general inability to talk about things that really matter, the desire to get into a conversation that will probably become deeper than we really want or most frequently the reaction we get from talking.  When we do speak what’s on our minds (without thinking how its going to be taken by the opposite sex), most women either don’t believe us when we do say our reasons for not talking, tell you that your reasons “can’t be true” because it doesn’t make sense to them, or that it’s just a “cop out”…maybe you are right because you know it all and have been given the universal truth to everything but…I digress.  Ask yourself these questions:

1. would I talk if everything that comes out of my mouth is questioned for validity?
2. would I talk if every time I said something, it was followed up by a 5-15 question challenge about my statements?
3. would I talk if every time I’m in the middle of talking, you have to jump in and get your point across right then?…I’m sorry my answering the question you asked interfered with your immediate need to jump in with a thought I never asked for and cut me off...My Bad!!!
4. would I talk if most of the time, any conversation somehow turns into a “Save-the-World-ish” or “Young and the Restlessness-ish” question about what I see or want to happen 10 years into the future, What are my future plans for the next 49 months, and of course the age-old and required question “How do I see you fitting in my plans”?

I’m sure that these previous statements are going to infuriate the opposite sex and somehow this will turn into a discussion on “how a woman feels” but that’s not the topic.  It’s about why men don’t talk…And it’s an unfortunate thing because we need to learn how to better communicate with more frequency and quality but you never want to feel like its being pulled out of you.  Also, since this is coming from a man, you might as well consider the source and attempt to find something out of it that may help you instead of trying to debunk the myths you and your girlfriend’s created.  By the way, how has thinking like a man and not asking one worked for you in the past?  Still confused huh? When was your girlfriend a man? When did you ask a man you weren’t involved with questions and took his answers to be true?

Now, back to why we don’t talk.

   

TRAINING:

Unfortunately, the fact remains that we (men) never learned to talk from our fathers, never learned how to talk to women from our mothers, and have been forced to wade through the battlefield of life attempting to learn the do’s and do not’s on the fly.  Its difficult to hear all your life that you should give in to make someone happy, then you learn from the other side that you really are expected to “want to” do something not just give in to make the other person happy. Confused? What happens when my “not wanting to” isn’t accepted or liked and we are left to face repercussions? We, as men, were never taught to deal with those repercussions, and tend to give in to keep down what we see drama.  For the most part, honestly it's just that most of us are incapable of talking about something that you don't understand and have never put alot of deep thought into.

PRESSURE:

We are expected to have it all together we meet women fresh out of having the most independent (and most fun) time in our life a.k.a. COLLEGE. We are expected to know what we want in our future including career (not just a job), a woman (of course when I meet you within 6-12 months I should know what you’re all about), love (an emotion we have heard about but never really experienced…I guess like Bigfoot), if I want marriage with you (this should also be discovered within the 6-12 month time frame of meeting you). Really!!!  We are even made to feel inferior (I’m sure it’s not purposeful) because we haven’t spent the majority of our lives thinking about what we want in all these situations to come.  I’m sorry but I haven’t been dreaming or planning who I’m going to spend the rest of my life with? Sorry but I haven’t been planning who’s going to provide me security, be my protector or be there when I have a bad day, who will be there to listen to my problems, give me solutions when I can’t figure something out on my own or give me reassurance that everything’s going to be alright.  I’m sorry but I just haven’t progressed that far in my life (I’m sure I'm viewed as some sort of caveman but I can deal with that).

TIME:

No man wants to hear about the concept of time so why start a conversation.  Every woman I know, including my mother (who I love) has an unspoken issue with time.  She asks my dad to do something but never says when she needs it, then gets mad when he doesn’t do it within the time she wanted.  Hell, he never knew how urgent it was!!!  Now the opposite view is “Why didn’t he just stop and do it then, knowing that she wants it done?”  Either men take too long, don’t give you the time table you need or don’t stick to our own stated time. Now, a time table will never be given (that’s the safe way) and you may say “I’m not rushing you” but you really are.  There’s a clock ticking (in addition to the biological clock) that say “You should know by now” or “It shouldn’t take this long” although those time frames were never stated up front.  Whether it relates to sex, when you should commit, propose to a woman, take a woman home to meet your parents or decide to live together, there’s always a time frame we are unaware of.  Now for a gender that preaches from the highest pulpit about needing and wanting honesty, Why aren’t you stating these known time frames upfront?  Its been confessed to me that you don’t want to scare a man off? So I guess you’d rather trick him or slowly tighten the vice grip on him to create a pressure situation? 

Problem is if I gave you a Franklin Planner full of information for the next 36 months of my life, I then have to make sure I live by that or I’ve either lied, shouldn’t have given it to you if I’m not going to stick to it or I should have communicated any change so you would be “in the know”.  Hell, I can manage my life like that as I don’t even know what I’m wearing to work tomorrow?  But that’s the beauty as I don’t have to know what I’m wearing to work tomorrow and I can get up and figure it out.  I don’t need a weekly clothing schedule to function. It will somehow come together.

  

RECIPROCITY:

Just because something works for you or is the way you would do it doesn’t mean we all subscribe to the same theory.  Not to be anti-religious but I think the golden rules are incorrect.  “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” doesn’t work for some people because we all have different needs.  If talking to you every other day works for me but you expect communication multiple times every day, what then?  If I want things to go smooth, I’ve got to talk everyday as we know my way isn’t going to work.  Now, this is just an uncommon example but extend it to other things and regardless of the initial shock, it does make some sense.

BLOW-BACK:

When I do take the chance and express my feelings (vent to you), I have about 15 good minutes to get it out and then get over it or I’m destined to hear one of  the worst phrases a woman can say to a man: “Man Up”.  Once that comes out of your mouth, you shouldn’t expect to hear anything come out of that man’s mouth for a long time.  Why?, because that basically states that his expression is akin to being less than a man and based on that, why should he take a chance again and say something to you again so he can basically be called a female, soft or just not manly based on your statement.

This basically is a call to all men that WE have to do better.  We are desired to be leaders but in a non-traditional way.  We are expected to “want to be responsible” for others feelings and well being, be the decision maker for both people (that definitely does not mean she doesn’t want to be consulted unless its something she has no interest in), the support for a bad day at work or especially during those emotional afflictions that appear without warning.  It may be the weather, hormones, a conversation with a friend, or some type of off-the-wall feeling about something you said and how wrong she took it…doesn’t matter.  We are expected to be there through all of it and I’m just learning how to do some of it (a good therapist and a bottle of Crown Royal never hurt either  but I’m just saying…).  Step back and look at yourself – Have you told her how you feel about things?  Have you told her what your problems are?  Have you asked what bugs her about you (be prepared cuz’ she’s got some "Ish" to tell you)? Unfortunately we have to talk, not only to express our feelings, but give them some deeper insight into us.  If not, you will be telling them to be mind readers and they will be left believing the only thing we all really like is sex, ESPN, and how good women look from any Latin America country.    

What do you have at stake???

What do you have at stake? it's a very good question that i was asked by a friend when we discussed my multiple business ventures and where they currently were. when i thought about it, i discovered that i didn't have as much at stake as i thought. his comment, while waiting on me 2 respond, was "if you cant answer it, then you probably dont have alot at stake...which is probably why you havent moved as fast as you need 2".  and i am not ashamed 2 say that he is exactly right.  when you fall in the water and cant swim, you beat up the water because you have your life at stake. when someone breaks into your home and threatens you and your family, you pray to stay alive because your well being is at stake. when your job is threatened, most work like hell as your livelihood is at stake. when your spouse talks of ending the relationship/marriage, feelings get upset because your relationship/marriage is at stake. when i lost my job due 2 the economic downturn and my mortgage company wouldnt work with me on a plan for 10 months, they were going to auction my home on the courthouse steps eventhough i had just gotten a job. i acted by contacting a lawyer once i saw they were not going 2 work with me and filed chapter 13 bankruptcy...my home and lifestyle were at stake. 2 many times, we act as if we are in an urgent mode to get things accomplished, move 2 the next step or complete a task.  when we drag on, dont complete the item or even say SH*T happens, the only thing we dont do is cross our self-created finish line. it just becomes another long, never ending hallway like you see in those scary movies. ask yourself this question, if you really have something at stake, why arent you doing the things that you need to? and would your reasons be legitimate to others or only to you? (most of us will respond to the second question "i dont care what others think or it makes no difference what somebody else thinks...)

i know that i have asked myself those questions and i need to move faster because i have been guilty most of the time of all of the above...