Friends: A Love Story

by Angela Bassett

  Before What’s Love I’d had a degree of anonymity. I hadn’t realized that I had anonymity because I was trying to become known so I could get more and better work, but I had the benefit of anonymity just the same. I hadn’t thought about how being well known would impact on my life, my relationships or how I met men. Previously I was meeting guys on relatively equal ground: I don’t know you and you don’t know me, or I have a job and you have a job, or I’m relatively successful and you’re relatively successful, too. After starring in a movie that resonated so strongly in popular culture, overnight it became hard to meet somebody where I didn’t know them, they didn’t know me and we were both starting at square one. Dating suddenly became very strange.

  Over the next couple of years I dated a series of men—short-timers, I called them, since none of the relationships lasted more than three to six months—as I tried to find the man who would one day become my husband. Some of it’s kind of humorous now, though it was frustrating, disappointing and sometimes painful at the time. I went out with a couple of guys who thought they were starting at square twenty in our relationship because they’d seen my work or heard such-and-such thing about me. They seemed to think that I had the same characteristics—the same strength or compassion or integrity—that a character I had played in a movie may have exhibited. I felt like, “I know this may sound crazy, but please ignore the pink elephant in the middle of the living room. You may know my work, but you don’t really know me.”

  A couple of guys wanted me to behave like the characters I’d played or had fantasies about me. I couldn’t fulfill them. That wasn’t fun for me. It didn’t give me any satisfaction.

  “Should I pretend to your face that I’m kissing someone other than you?” I asked one suitor who wanted to pretend he was out with a movie character. “How would you like that—when I kiss you, I’m not kissing you, I’m kissing Casanova?”

  When he greeted me, one guy called my by the names of the characters I’d played.

  “I’m not Katherine Jackson or Betty Shabazz or Tina, I’m Angela!” I’d say.

  There was one guy who seemed to be impressed with the celebrity factor, that he was dating “Angela Bassett.” He liked being seen with me in public, to go to every event, the swirl of that “fabulous life.” Well, all of those events may be exciting to someone who isn’t exposed to them on a daily basis, but when you do them all the time, they sometimes get a little tiresome—the hair, the makeup, the look, the dress, the smiling for the camera. I’m very social, but I can be quiet, reflective and shy, too. I just love to sit and have meaningful conversations with people, where we can just let down our guard and share—away from the noise, away from the swirl of activity. I like to feel I’ve walked away from a conversation having learned something about someone else or that I got some insight into an aspect of life I hadn’t thought about before. But he’d badger me to go to these events until I said, “Okay, okay!”

  Once he invited me to accompany him to the wedding of a woman I didn’t know. I declined because I didn’t want my celebrity to upstage the bride on her special day—especially a bride who didn’t even know me. He insisted. I refused. Another day he read out loud a review of my work I’d told him I didn’t want to hear (I thought it would be disparaging). The review was fine, but his behavior was like a slap in the face. It let me know that he didn’t care about my comfort or needs. I was through with him but he kept calling.

  “I was going to ask you to marry me.”

  You were going to get a no! I thought to myself. I was glad he lived out of town.

  Another guy seemed to have gotten a kick out of pursuing me—and, oh, the pursuit was nice; who doesn’t want to be pursued? He was blowing up my phone. We were talking a couple of times a day, staying up late talking. But after I was captured—after we had sex—he suddenly lost interest, the game was over. His interest began to wane. The scale tipped and I was calling him more often than he was calling me. When I stopped calling then, guess what? He started calling again. I knew to move on. But I realized that if I hadn’t slept with him, I wouldn’t have cared or felt insecure by his lack of attention.

  One guy I went out with had children from a prior relationship. At first that was fine. I understood that as you get older, people’s lives are more complex. But I learned that when you deal with men who’ve already had children, you don’t just get the children; you also get the mother of their children. Then you may get children being used as pawns. Or wages being garnisheed. My sister Linda shared how she had reconnected with her high-school sweetheart who by then had two children. She “loved him to life” so they dated for a while, but she knew herself well enough to know that she wanted her own husband and her own children. She didn’t want to start a family with someone who had children living in another household. She didn’t want him getting a call that his kids were sick and having to go but still having children with her. She didn’t want a man who was torn between two homes. After listening to her I realized I couldn’t deal with that, either. Deep in my heart I had never wanted to have a “half” anything in my family. I grew up in a family where it was like, “I have three sisters—no, I have four sisters. Well, I grew up with one sister, but I have two older sisters—we have different mothers. And I do have another sister, Lisa, whom I met at my father’s funeral, but I don’t know where she is now, in the entire world.” Now, I love all my sisters, and families that are made up as mine is are just fine. And if you love someone and that’s the situation, fine. I just didn’t want it for my own family—the family I was going to create. I wanted to be the most important person in someone’s life; I wanted my husband to be there emotionally; I wanted all the family’s resources—emotional, financial, time, whatever—to stay on one plate. I began to think more and more about why it made sense for me to have one husband and sex only within marriage.

  During this time, though I dated a couple of guys pretty consistently over the course of several months, I couldn’t really call any of them a boyfriend. They were not labeling it that, didn’t want me to, either, and were not indicating by word or deed that that was the case. On more than one occasion, I found myself sitting in the movie theater wondering why our arms were so near each other yet he wasn’t holding my hand. Wondering, “What’s going on?” or “Why is he pulling back?” or “Why can’t I just grab his hand?” or “I think there is something strange here.” I’d go through all these gymnastics and machinations in my head. In the meantime I’d miss the movie.

  As I experienced disappointment after disappointment, I realized just how much I wanted to be in a serious relationship. I began to wonder why I wasn’t. I liked men an awful lot. I found them fascinating! I wanted to get married. I believed I would get married. I wanted a to have a family. And on the surface it seemed that I was dating good guys—I would think the world of them. Yet somehow it felt like I kept dating the same person over and over: exciting, passionate and nice enough to start out with, but unavailable emotionally, and, sometimes, I would learn, taken. I wanted out of this limbo lifestyle that made me feel insecure. No matter how I tried to fix the relationship, work it, squeeze into the space, it seemed like the Lord kept putting up roadblocks, saying this person needed to leave my life. “Out! Out! Out!” My love life was going nowhere. I wanted to stop hitting this brick wall.

  So when I was about thirty-seven I decided it was time that I engaged in some serious introspection. I was old enough to know that the only constant in a relationship is you. If you keep dating the same types of people, you will end up experiencing the same results. You attract people who are at your level. If you want to attract a better class of person, you have to be a better class of person. I realized I needed to stay at home and work on me.

  As I reflected, I considered all my previous experiences with men. My mother had told me that “I was the prize,” and I knew I had some of her strength, morality and resiliency. Yet I felt that I was at somewhat of a disadvantage since I hadn’t had the bene
fit of a daddy’s love or the best male role models at home. Yes, I had Papa and some of the wonderful men in my community. But I hadn’t had a good father figure to model for me what was right and how a man should treat me. I felt like there were a lot of relationships I thought I might have passed on if I’d had that. I thought I would have been stronger in my no’s. I realized the love and validation I had been looking for from men—a lot of them couldn’t give it. There had been a time when I was younger that I had been trying not to be inexperienced—when I wanted to gloat with my girlfriends: “How was he? What did you use—whipped cream, honey?”—that kind of stuff. The guys I had been dealing with had their own agendas and experiences, too. They were testing and trying and discovering—finding out who they were as men, finding out who they were sexually, finding out what kind of woman they wanted. Some of them may have been given lessons about needing to rack up notches on their belt, or get experience or about not settling down. But I was older and wiser now. I wanted to settle down and get married. I needed to know, on a day-to-day basis, what exactly did a “good man” look and act like? What did I need to do differently to sort through the fact that everyone’s nice in the beginning, to find a man who was faithful, trustworthy and committed to me? All along I had assumed I knew, but from my results it was clear I was missing something.

  I knew I had never been the kind of person who had to see a certain type of guy—a doctor, a businessman, an Indian chief. However, I had to admit that there had been times when I felt impressed by men with certain occupations, with careers that I believed were more important than mine. “Oh, my gosh, a lawyer! He’s getting people off death row.” Or “A doctor! He’s saving people’s lives.” The little girl from the projects in me had to learn not to evaluate people or think they were better than me because of their occupation—or, for that matter, that I was better than them. Of course, I knew I certainly had a predilection for actors. I think actors are very interesting people, we have a lot in common, and if they’re good at what they do, they’re very attractive. But no matter a man’s profession, I had to like him. I had to be attracted to and able to talk to him. It didn’t matter what material possessions he had or even if he was poor. The truth be told, when it came to money I went for the underdog. Since I had grown up poor, I wasn’t impressed with your designer this or pedigree that. I didn’t think much of people who looked down on you because of the circumstances of your birth, which you have no control over. Perhaps that was so clear to me because I started out with so little and came to live in a world where many people have so much. Of course, we’re human so sometimes we think, “Hey, he has more money, he must have more of everything else.” But there are other things—the intangibles, the things on the inside—that matter more. What mattered to me was that a man was interesting and of high quality. Some men may have had more money or a fancy title, perhaps. But did they have more compassion? Did they have more love in their heart? Did they have more class, more grace, more appreciation, a moral compass, more talent? Did they share my values?

  I wanted to be involved with someone who was nice, kind, gentle—all of those things. I wanted to be seen and appreciated for who I was: the good, the bad, the strengths, the weaknesses. I wanted to be accepted whether it was a good day or bad day, regular me, hair-messed-up me, smart me, dumb me, good-mood me, bad-mood me, courageous me, not-so-courageous me, fabulous me, plain-ol’-colored me. I wanted to just be able to be me, regular me. But I didn’t want to give away too much of myself. I didn’t want to be in a disposable relationship that wasn’t building toward anything. I didn’t want to be in a bad relationship. I didn’t want to be in a purely physical relationship, especially given the risks of AIDS and STDs. I also remembered reading girls’ names on the bathroom wall in high school: “So and so is a ‘ho.’” I didn’t want to have a poor reputation in that way, especially in my community of actors.

  But instead of taking my time and identifying guys who wanted to get married, I realized I had settled for hanging. As I looked back on my choices, I could see that I became enamored and fell in love too quickly. I’d become intimate too soon. I wasn’t giving myself time to get to know the person, their values, their idiosyncrasies. I didn’t take the time to see if they really lived up to my standards. I’d think, “You’re odd. You’re an oddball—but I like oddballs!” Then I’d sleep with him and project his strange behavior back on me—I’d think I was the one with the problem. No, he was just strange! I didn’t need to have any more relationships like that—relationships that didn’t benefit and lift me. Not only were they a waste of my time, they were chipping away at my self-esteem, at the way I saw myself. Truthfully, they were wasting something much deeper than time—something in my spirit.

  I was able to figure out some things I was doing wrong, but I didn’t always know exactly what I needed to change. I did know how to stop doing what I was doing, though. And I knew how to pray. I talked to God a lot.

  “Lord, I can’t figure this out. I’m not meeting the right men. It’s not working out the way I want it to. I need your help.”

  My first answer came in the revelation that I should make a sincere effort to be celibate. A couple of times in the past, I had tried to convince myself to sign a celibacy pact as part of a program at church. I had never followed through. Yet I had grown up in the church, with the Word and with a strict mama. Granted, she wasn’t perfect, but I did know that the Bible says no fornicating, that the marriage bed is sacred, that sex is not a right but a gift to married people. I had learned through my religious education, at church, in Bible study, that sex was good and sacred, to be enjoyed within the confines of marriage. That ideal had been set in front of me. Yet I had spent many, many years of not paying attention, of experimenting, of growing into my sexuality, of working it out and figuring it out. Deep inside I did still believe in the values of my church and my childhood. I noticed that sometimes I’d feel a little guilty about having sex. I didn’t realize that when you have intercourse you are joining spirits, joining souls, with the other person. Physically when the man enters a virgin he breaks her hymen and she bleeds. The blood seals the deal; it represents life, a promise; it is a covenant. In Christianity, the blood of Christ guarantees our salvation. When you break that promise the tie between two souls is ripped apart. That’s why it’s so painful. But if you don’t engage in the covenant of sex, it’s easier to walk away because you haven’t joined spirits through the sexual covenant. When you break that promise it goes to your soul. Once I began to understand this, I abstained from sex for several years. I saw it as a deeper and more disciplined form of loving myself.

  And rather than focusing on what I didn’t have, I began to acknowledge that I had a great family, fabulous friends, a lovely home, a marvelous career that I love, money in the bank and I’d traveled around the world. I had a lot to be thankful and grateful for. So why was I complaining? Maybe a husband was the one thing that I just wouldn’t be able to have. Maybe I just needed to dial it down relationshipwise and be thankful for what I had and adopt some children or something. I knew children were a big responsibility but maybe I’d just have to do it alone. I’d certainly purchased my condo while I was single. You can’t wait for a man to start living your life. I began to consider the possibility that for the rest of my days maybe I’d be single—single and a sensation, an older woman with boyfriends. But I didn’t want to do that in a sexual way, so I’d have to figure out and negotiate a new way to be.

  One evening I stopped trying to figure out everything myself and decided to practice spiritual surrender, where you say, “Let Thy will be done.” I told God, “I guess if I’m gonna meet somebody, he’s just gonna have to knock on my door, Lord. I’m turning this over to you.”

  Instead of going to parties and events, I spent a lot of time at home with friends. We hung out at each other’s houses, we ate together, we watched TV and movies, laughed and enjoyed good times. Wren and I spent so much time together that some people were
certain we were an item. We weren’t. I was just close to him and his family, including his wife, Ann. His mom, Rosalind, had taken me under her wing. That felt very nurturing and safe. I admit that sometimes being without a relationship felt lonely at times, but going out could feel lonely, too.

  During this time I wasn’t having sex or actively pursuing relationships, I didn’t hear my biological clock ticking. I had heard other women talk about it, but it wasn’t something that I thought about—not in the least. In my mind there was an order to things: get my education, establish myself, meet someone, get married, have children. I figured I was still young and biologically healthy, that there was still plenty of time. I didn’t know that sometimes we women talk and pass along erroneous information about how long the childbearing years are and what is possible. So instead of thinking about marriage and babies, I concentrated on procuring and doing good work.

  Toward the end of that “year of not working,” I got offered three movies in a row: Strange Days, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, with Ralph Fiennes; then Vampire in Brooklyn, with Eddie Murphy; and Waiting to Exhale, the movie rendition of Terry McMillan’s bestselling novel of the same name. I ended up filming them back to back to back, with about a week off between each of them. By then, Doug Chapin, the producer of What’s Love, had become my manager, which was wonderful since I had already seen up close how well he worked in intense situations.