Eshé Nayo

boy meets girl, boy likes girl, boy asks for girl’s number, and so it begins. that silly little dance of getting to know you where you have to invest time up front tolerating people long enough to find out if you are meeting them or “their representative.” here is why i hate first conversations:

you ask me stupid questions that i don’t feel like answering!

• “sounds like you’re cooking, so you cook huh? you should cook for me.” this really makes me NOT want to cook for you…ever.
• “do you have a picture phone?” why because you’re going to ask me to send you a photo? please. stop. really.
• and my personal all time favorite: “so, i have to ask you this: you are gorgeous, intelligent, sociable…why are you single?” the word ‘single’ is spoken as though it were some communicable disease people try not to catch. did i ask YOU why you were single? no, i didn’t.

this brings me to the real point of this post. why is it that a well adjusted, happy, single woman is called into question? people never seem to get tired of asking. co-workers, well meaning family friends, random guys…and it comes in many forms, but always with some rationalization or analysis about why: “you must party too much,” “you’re not crazy are you?” “oh i know, you’ve got a list.” but if i were a man, would anyone ask me that question? i’m going to go out on a limb and say that the answer is no.

i could give any number of reasons why (i am single), but at the end of the day it boils down to one simple fact: because i want to be; and i should not have to justify that to anyone, least of all you, mr. met-you-in the-club-first-time-caller.

technology is a blessing, technology is a curse. in the dating world…i’m more inclined to go with the latter. before the advent of text messaging, a person used to have to call if they were interested. now, they can just send a mass text message to the numbers they collected in a successful evening and see who responds. something non-descript like “hey cutie, what’s up? great meeting you last night, we should get together sometime,” and see who responds.

some people also use this tactic as a means to clean out their phone of numbers that they don’t recognize. i just delete numbers if i don’t recognize the name, which is not always the best course of action. some of those people were in there so that i remember NOT to respond if i see their number appear, i’m going to just start changing the name to “do not answer.” what spurred this post? there is always a catalyst, i don’t blog for nothing! here is the transcript:

anonymous txter: “hey cutie, how you doin”

me: “who’s number is this?”

anonymous txter: “what’s yo myspace?”

me: “who is this.”

anonymous txter: “benjamin”

me: “we’ve already established that we don’t know each other, so why don’t you delete my number and you can stop trying to figure out who i am.”
(after i saw the name, i realized that this dude has tried this before)

benjamin: “Man if I got you in my fone I must kno you. That’s y I ask wut yo myspace. So I can at least see a pic of you. I jus getting to I got u in my fone and don’t kno”

me: “well i don’t have you in my phone.”

benjamin: “Can I get a pic”

me: “where are you even from?”
(i googled the area code, so i already know this…houston)

benjamin: “houston”

me: “well, i live in arizona, so i don’t even know where we would have met.”

benjamin: “Wuts yo myspace”

me: “we probably met in a club or something and never talked, it obviously wasn’t that deep, so let’s leave it at that.”

benjamin: “That’s not nice but u got it”

me: “No it’s not, but what’s the point.”

benjamin: “I jus want see a pic of u and then I kno wut it is then”

me: “well i don’t know you, so i’m sticking with my original answer.”

benjamin: “I guess dats it den”

me: “yeah guess so. peace.”

obviously i must’ve given this guy my number and don’t remember or it was so long ago that i forgot. either way, after the first time he tried it he, should have given up. i have now saved his number in my phone: “do not respond.” fellas, if you don’t know the number, just delete it; don’t try and get the myspace page, that is so lame.