And also for the record, it wasn’t as if I had purposely avoided ever having a boyfriend.
In my defense, queer people have to deal with the reality that our straight counterparts have experiences in their teens and twenties that many of us don’t get to have until much later in life. We have to learn how to date; formulate what we think we like; after trial and error, figure out what we really need and then go pursue that.
Some blessed individuals come out and immediately find themselves a boo. And then another one. And then another one. And then a husband. And then they and the husband stick together but become open. Actually, they were probably open before they got married, but have since made addendums to that arrangement to avoid a conclusion that ends with a division of assets. That’s not my business unless they send an invitation, but I digress.
That’s amazing for all of those people who find love in this hopeless place. Really, round of applause (shawty make that ass clap) for them.
But the rest of us don’t necessarily follow a journey that features the same steps. Like, I date men. Men even know how horrible men are. Where is the compassion for my struggle?
When you really break it down, straight people start dating in their teens, whereas I didn’t really date the individuals I was attracted to until my twenties. So my thirties and a straight person’s thirties aren’t totally comparable.
If anything, I shouldn’t be shamed until I’m at least forty-five. Then people can say, Wow, what a weirdo you are. Isn’t that a fair courtesy to consider?
But since accountability is the move, I will acknowledge that it is my fault that I settled for “fake boyfriends” and “situationships” in the past. It is my fault for spending a lot of my time ducking emotional and physical intimacy. It is also my fault that after I made the choice to change my ways, I found new reasons to stifle myself.
No reason was more dominant than my willful decision to assume that my financial situation made me a less desirable partner—to the point where I truly started to believe that.
No one held me to any specific standard. I was judging myself by the standards I had set for myself. And the more I felt like I was behind on meeting them, the further removed I felt from getting close to anyone in a way that would lead to a relationship that would require even more of my energy. I would hate to have to feel like I couldn’t hold my weight because I was sinking under the weight of my debt.
As dumb as this sounds—and I’m fine with that—I took one of those BuzzFeed polls that millions of us take in order to make the most of our procrastination. The quiz in question was designed to measure how dateable you are based on your order at the Cheesecake Factory. Let this quiz tell it: I was only 5 percent dateable based on my choices. That result was quite “nasty,” as that sociopathic racist thot white folks made the 45th President of the United States of America would say.
But the text underneath provided the true cackle: “You’re not too dateable, at least not right now, and that’s totally ok! You’re focused on living your best life right now, which is pretty awesome. All good things come to those who wait, so just go on and wait a while.”
It sounds better if you say you’re trying to live life like that Jill Scott chorus so in the meantime your love life is that great Janet Jackson single from Control on loop. Better as in less obvious. So you don’t admit to yourself that a BuzzFeed quiz read you for filth since somehow wanting to order a dulce de leche cheesecake and some spicy pasta dish was a gateway into your soul and your innermost doubts and fears.
I have tried not to let this form of pity—woo, woo, woo, you ain’t got no boo—make me feel pitiful, but I estimate that I act human at least 70 percent of the time, so it gets to me at times. I didn’t take kind to ole boy’s unsolicited hypotheses about what was “wrong” with me because it arrived at a moment in which I had started getting it from others around me and was due to hear it with greater frequency.
You know, ’cause I was getting older and my relationship status remained stagnant.
You’re thirty-one, and you’ve never had a boyfriend?
You’re thirty-two, and you’ve never had a boyfriend?
You’re thirty-three, and you’ve never had a boyfriend?
Nigga, you’re thirty-four and you’ve never had a boyfriend?
And now you are thirty-five and you’ve never had a boyfriend?
My friend Chris reminded me that it isn’t fair for me to judge myself by a standard that did not have me in mind when formulated.
I have long learned that if you give most functioning adults the opportunity to discuss relationships, they will skedaddle there at lightning speed. It’s why I keep seeing those same debates about ass eating and $200 dates on Twitter and why I can’t escape all 14 billion of those memes from people who despise being single on Instagram. They do both on Facebook several weeks after the other two social media platforms weigh in, obviously. It’s mostly straight people leading the caravan, but with greater queer visibility comes the mirroring of select straight habits—never mind whether or not they’re necessary.
“I think about this often,” Chris said. “These benchmarks that Black gays have to create since we don’t (or shouldn’t) follow hetero milestones.” We were talking about the myriad of ways Black queer people can find themselves alone, and eventually, embattled in loneliness. And he knew just what to say to make me feel better.
“I do think there’s something to be said about making it to thirty-five and having your shit together, somewhat, without a man on your arm.”
Together-ish is more like it, but we love friends who grade on a curve for the sake of our psyches. I thanked him for saying that before adding it could be worse; I could have made anyone a boyfriend for the sake of saying I had one.
I have had many friends who entered relationships because they were tired of not being in one. Some have admitted it outright; others pretend otherwise even if the good times in their respective relationships were about as long as this sentence. Of those, most went right back out to claim another, to similarly disastrous results. A few learned to slow the pace and let the right person find them. They all were, and are, trying. I’ve been trying, too, only with different results.
I decided to stop feeling bad about it upon the realization that there was nothing to feel so down about. I may not have had a boyfriend by name, but to many, that didn’t suggest a failure in me. It was not as if I were walking around totally clueless and chaste.
I know what it’s like to be in love; I know what it’s like to waste time, money, and energy on someone who doesn’t deserve it. I know what it’s like to experience intimacy in all its shapes and sounds. I know that in time, when it’s meant for something like that to happen in my life, it will.
What I know most is, time was not on my side by virtue of conditions beyond my control. How I reacted to them may have arguably prolonged what may or may not have been the inevitable, but ultimately a fixation on my stunted development—as a gay man and a millennial with debt—only extends it. Accepting this didn’t miraculously alter my situation, but it did provide some long overdue acceptance of it. That and the reminder that things can always change.
As fate would have it, Grindr, the place that brought that man who brought those bedbugs into my apartment once, briefly allowed me the opportunity to be an advice columnist. In a column called “Dearly Beloved,” a nod to both Prince and Iyanla Vanzant, I responded to people who wrote from countries all over the world.
An overwhelming number of the emails received were centered on the fear of being alone. Of those, a significant portion came from the perspective that for whatever reason, the writer had waited too long to date and was now convinced that they might never have a chance to post a boyfriend on social media. I deserve a Pulitzer for the number of different ways I came up with ways to articulate “You need to chill, ho.”
Of those, by far the most read of the column was “Dearly Beloved, It’s Never Too Late to Get Boo’
d Up or Thot It Out.” I found out from the editor in chief that it was the most read story on the site that year. I found this out about a week after Grindr abruptly shut the successful new outlet down. See why I worry about a boo before getting TV money?
In any case, here is what this person wrote:
I’m lonely in a way that a friend just can’t help, okay. Main problem though?
I haven’t dated not once in my entire life. I have zero romantic or sexual experience. Absolutely. Zero. I feel like a newborn babe thinking I can play with wolves and I am TERRIFIED.
So what am I to do? I am legit baffled by this whole thing and, considering my age, it’s a little embarrassing and makes me not want to tell anyone my business or even go out there in the first place. Any advice?
He was turning thirty and felt terrified over how he might sound to those more experienced than him.
And I said:
Will some people freak out? Perhaps. The same goes for a person potentially making you feel even more embarrassed about your lack of dating history and sexual experiences. I know that feeling; it can be humiliating. It can make you question why you even bothered. It may compel you to fall back into your cocoon. Please, don’t let anyone do that to you. This also applies to dealing with a person who turns out to be the wrong one for you. Rejection hurts; it is self-sabotaging to cling to it.
Your past trauma and struggles may have shaped you, and in this case, delayed certain aspects of your life. Still, they do not define you. Nor do they have to deter you from your present choice to put yourself out there—which may yield you a more complete future. And once you meet the right person and forge a connection, those bad experiences will matter even less.
Yet, you will never learn any of this if you don’t act and move forward. You may feel like a newborn baby now, but you won’t feel that way for much longer. Some things come naturally for some, but for others, it takes much longer. Regardless, we all move on our time.
What you will have to do in the meantime is remain committed, know that you are worthy, and believe no matter how long it takes, you will find what you are looking for. So, when it comes to the question “What am I to do?” the answer is easy: try.
I don’t know if he ever went back to check for my advice much less acted on it, but I meant every word. So much so that in the moments where the fear has crept back in, I have returned to my own words in order to make sure that I, too, remember that we cannot change what’s happened, only how we choose to move afterward. You cannot allow yourself to be consumed by the standards set by others or any misguided reaction to the knowledge that everyone’s journey is different.
You can have what you want—eventually, somehow. For me, that includes that wedding I wrote about having. I might even have a second one since statistically, I may end up with a conscious uncoupling.
In the meantime, all any of us can do is to keep trying. Some of you could learn to shut up while we do. Or at least make yourselves useful. If so many people were really concerned about me being single, they would have introduced me to Frank Ocean by now.
COGNAC AND CELEXA
After puberty deprived me of the chance to become the next Usher or at least a shorter sequel to Montell Jordan, I wish I had made a backup plan. Something along the lines of coming up with the genius idea to just make noises that sound like singing—preferably over a trap beat. Like Jeremih, a sort-of singer but undoubtedly a prophet and visionary. That should have been me repeating “don’t tell ’em” for a little over four minutes. I don’t have a doubt in my mind that YG and I wouldn’t have ended up besties, blood.
Alas, I was blind for so long, but now I see there can be life outside of songs sung in the correct key. I don’t have to be Trey Songz before he linked with a personal trainer or Usher any period prior to him acting like that uncle in the club you wish would accept his age in life and stop trying to prove he’s still got it. I could be a rapper! Those two along with pretty much an entire generation of R&B artists record, behave, and present like most mainstream rappers anyway.
DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY I COULD MAKE AS A RAPPER?
Well, assuming I didn’t get a 360 deal and secured endorsements and a regular touring schedule. Maybe a docu-series exploring my life as the first lit gay rapper. You know, because the mixtape is just the first step: kind of like a book is often employed to make real money elsewhere. No shade.
I’m surprised I didn’t consider this sooner. It’s not like my background wasn’t surrounded by those who only thought one of the three Bs could get them out of the hood: balls, bricks, or bars. I was told to look away and focus on a bachelor’s degree. I should have been working on my freestyles instead.
Unfortunately, real niggas like me are not always supported when it comes to a new dream born from epiphany—a dream that is not nearly as implausible as it sounds on its surface, thank you very much.
Sadly, when I told my friends that I wanted to be a rapper, the shade started early.
I expect to be trolled by many of my friends, but friends you hold near and dear to your heart should be the first to try and get a feature now before your rate is too expensive. But no. Some people don’t know how to say yes to a less than ideal candidate who true enough may not be your first, second, or even third choice for the role they seek but is a much better alternative to the other options available to you—thus, you might as well go with the one that won’t take as many years off of your life (if not annihilate your entire existence through a cocktail of gross incompetence fueled possibly by dementia though certainly by utter stupidity along with general love for malfeasance).
I write that to say, Hillary Rodham Clinton, I understand, sis, and if it’s anything, I never gave a good goddamn about your emails.
My friend La is the first offender, as she said the meanest thing in response to my big reveal that I wanted to be a rapper and needed to figure out how to get studio time outside of following that strange shirtless man holding a sign promising studio time for the low low price of $20 per hour.
“You’re too smart to be a rapper” is what she had the nerve to say in response. I sat there, in my raggedy office chair that I’ve refused to replace because it remains functional, and looked at my iPhone in disbelief. Thank God she hadn’t written that from an Android. The diss in green text would have been even more insulting.
La is such a remarkable person of nuance, but in that moment, she treated me as if I were the charming, dusty but obviously handsome bus driver that gets scowled at by a mean, high-wage-earning light-skinned Black woman in a Tyler Perry production about a high saddity Negro wench that needs to be humbled by God and blue collar dick.
Too smart to be a rapper?
I beg your pardon, my high yella homie for life.
We have spoken of some rappers with intellect before, so I know she didn’t mean it as if all rappers are dumb.
She was saying that I am too smart a person to be the ignorant rapper she knows I would want to be. Not as bad, but displeasing to hear all the same. It’s a stance lacking in faith. Faith in me and my foolery potential. I don’t remember what the Bible says about not encouraging your friend’s rap dreams, but based on what I recall from catechism and Kirk Franklin’s speaking parts on his songs, all those men claiming to ghostwrite for God would have deemed La very uncool in that moment.
I am an ignorant motherfucker. She knows this. But to her credit, I suppose one could describe me as a bit of an egghead, hardened by my upbringing in a rough environment. I choose to remain offended all the same. I believe it’s important that friends see all sides of their friends, or more pointedly, whatever side benefits their friends at a given moment. More than anything, you can’t tell an ignorant motherfucker like me they have too much sense to be a rapper. It stings.
Sadly, she wasn’t the only friend who told me to hang it up before I set up my SoundCloud account.
I met my friend Sarah the second semester of my freshman year at Howard University.
We became closer friends over time and forged a bond over activities such as twerking to Project Pat in Georgetown without worries or concerns about the white gaze. We have since matured in our thirties. We now do classier activities, such as seeing the stage play version of Set It Off, the the 1996 cult-classic film directed by F. Gary Gray that starred Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett, Vivica A. Fox, and Kimberly Elise. I’ve never seen something so terrible yet delightfully entertaining. I’m sure that we smoked weed and had the highfalutin version of the chicken wings with mumbo sauce we ordered at the Hamilton in Washington, D.C., before the show. (Yes, this constitutes a ringing endorsement.)
Sarah has always been supportive of me and all of my ambitious plans. Even back in college, she consistently told me that I was going to enjoy great success in life. I came to learn that she didn’t mean that in everything.
Sarah: Michael. Please. If any other profession was for you it would be video ho.
Me: I am flattered that you hold me in as high regard as Esther Baxter in the “Freek-A-Leek” video.
Sarah: Yep! You wouldn’t be a random Omarion video girl.
Assuaging my ego by leaning into praise of my aesthetic and limberness is a shrewd way of delivering a harsh truth in sweet-ish tones, but the hurt lingers on. When two people bond over catfish and DJ Paul productions, that bond is sacred. So sacred that I should be believed to have the ability to spit hot fire rather than merely move my ass like it’s inflamed.
I don’t understand why my folks don’t want better for me. It’s not as if I have to be musically talented to be successful in the music industry. Consider that both as a compliment to technology and an indictment of the lack of funding of art programs in public schools. (VH1 tried to warn y’all with Save the Music.) There are so many different routes for me to take with rap.
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