If you believe this; I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn, I would love to sell you.

“Because if you gonna do something egregious, you might as well go balls to the wall. If not, just be the hot ass mess that you are.” That’s one of my favorite quotes.  There are those situations that we find ourselves in that cause us a great deal of anguish and frustration. Have you ever been so knee deep into a mess of a situation that you couldn’t even reach out to your friends because you already knew they would tell you that you had no business in the situation to begin with? What’s worse is that you actually know that you have no business being in this situation, however you should have known long before reaching the point of anguish that you would be in it.

There was this girl in college that had a rough few semesters before she figured it out. She wasn’t like many of the other freshman young ladies, she wasn’t from a big city and she had never had a boyfriend. When she got to college it wasn’t long before it seemed like The Usual Suspects had ran through her. I heard a story and I am never sure if it was true or folklore that she had slept with almost 8-10 guys within the first two weeks of school. When I met this girl she was nice though. I always found girls from big cities to be a bit more aggressive. That’s fine, an inner city can toughen you up. I thought this girl was actually a very personable young lady and she had a lot to offer to a relationship.

Before we get too far into it today, once again, yours truly, Dr. J and also Carver The Great (@carverthegreat), team up for another mix for the post today.  Download here (http://www.mediafire.com/?iob1odvgqco1ddt), or stream with the link below:

I’ve got this thing about myself, I rarely ever ask about a girl’s past. I don’t want to know. I tell all men that it’s not important how many men a woman has actually slept with or what she’s actually done in her past, it only matters what you think. So when I’m dating a girl, I never ask, (OH I’ll find out some ish if it’s worth knowing), but I never ask. I make an inference based on the way she carries herself and come up with a history in my head. Before bringing this up to anyone, I personally make a decision if I’m willing to deal with all this or not. I think that’s where most people get themselves into trouble is by involving everyone in their decision to deal with someone. They will talk to their friends and review general societal norms to develop what they personally feel about something. To me, that’s always been kind of backwards, especially because I find very few men who are publicly willing to date someone just like them or their friends.

I had a buddy who called me up one day and told me that he needed me to look out for a young lady who was moving to DC. He said her name but it never really dawned on exactly who this girl was until me and the girl were hanging out in DC one time and she told me that while she was dating my friend he cheated on her several times. The irony of this situation is that not only did she just confess to me that he cheated on her several times, but as you can see, I really had no recollection of who she was until she told me this. It was at this point that I put the pieces together and realized that the girl he always said he was “talking to” was in fact his girlfriend. From time to time we would have awkward conversations about relationships and our past and it would always be blatantly obvious that she was talking about my friend. One time she even said, “I’ve always wanted to be nothing more than a wife and mother and raise a family, but I spent a lot of time dating a man who didn’t want those things with me.” She was very attractive and we shared many of the same values about life. I always thought that had we met under a different circumstance we could have been great for one another. It was when those thoughts slipped into our minds caused us to weigh heavily the possibility that we could ever be together.

I’ve got a few rules about the women I date. First rule, nobody is allowed at the wedding who has seen my bride naked. Now I’ll agree with most people that the chances of me ever knowing that some guy at my wedding has seen my wife naked are slim to none because she’s not likely to tell me, but I should at least have some policy in place should it need be enforced.

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Second rule, if you never told me that was your girlfriend, then it wasn’t your girlfriend. A man doesn’t leave room for speculation as it comes to the women he’s dating seriously. He makes it known amongst his circle of friends, “This is my woman.” If you don’t do that then you can’t expect your boy to respect that bond. Funny thing about this is that it wasn’t even a personal story that brought me to this conclusion. I had a couple of guy friends who didn’t speak all that much. Well, one got to the other’s girlfriend and in addition to the fact that one didn’t even know the other had a girlfriend, his lady didn’t even know they were close friends.

Third rule, if you’re going to date someone who has been around your network a few times, you have one choice, move to another network. You must be sure that you are willing to put your relationship with this person above the existing friendships and step out on faith that your relationship is stronger than that. You can’t have it both ways.

I met a girl one time at a coffeehouse/bookstore, she was pretty, seemed like the type of girl I’d want to date. This was the first time we met, but I had already asked around about her. Exploratory information only: “Who is she” and “What does she do” or “Who does she hang out with”. Those answers all came back with nothing more except, “To be honest, nobody really knows who she is.” I’ve always been very weary of a person with nothing on their resume. Not that I am searching for dirt, but I had to dig deeper. We had a mutual friend and so I asked, “What’s her deal” and our mutual friend, “I don’t know Jay, she is very liberal with who she sleeps with.” I knew what that meant, but it didn’t stop my interest in pursuing something with her, although it did begin to put a cap on how far I would initially go to court.

Once we offically met in this bookstore we were both sitting around discussing relationships, the conversation got heated and things might have been said that shouldn’t have. The topic of asking about the number of people a person has slept with came up and of course everyone had a lot to say. Most men typically approach this situation the same, they want no parts of the discussion so they say it doesn’t matter. I got the sense that she thought the conversation was a little nonsensical and she even said herself, “I don’t see what the point of asking the question is, what are you going to find out that you will like hearing?” That didn’t really raise a flag to anyone there except me because I had been privy to some information based on my background investigation for her.

Later after this discussion things went to a more social setting, we all settled at a bar and me and her had some one-on-one time. We talked about the conversation in the bookstore and she said I looked disinterested. My response, “Yeah I usually am, I mean I just feel differently about that whole conversation than most people, but it can be misunderstood by a lot of people.” She asked me what I meant and I explained to her this; I’ve always felt like if you refused to disclose your number then you thought you did something bad, if you weren’t afraid to disclose your number then you didn’t think you did anything wrong. I could live with that. She said, “Well, how many people have you slept with?” And I answered, alcohol probably had something to do with that. She then said, “Are you going to ask me?” I said, “Fine, how many?” She replied, “Um.. I think about 30, no maybe closer to 35, but the number is different, are you asking how many of those I was consistently sleeping with?”

Earlier I pointed out that most people make decisions on the people they will date based on the opinions of others. Let me append to that; men truly take into consideration how they look in a situation when choosing a mate. This might surprise you, but if a man meets a girl and he knows that she’s been around, but his boys don’t know, he ain’t going to say nothing, he’ll just let it rock. By the same token, the reason why I always remain quiet when it comes to cheating in relationships is because I truly believe that both sexes are just as likely to cheat, the interesting thing is, a man won’t tell everybody he’s been cheated on. Women will tell everybody they been cheated on and then wonder why their friends judge them for going back to their husband. If you had the privilege to talk to a married couple about infidelity in their relationship, I would be willing to bet that one of the first questions a man will ask is, “Who else knows about this?” That is the quintessential question to a man, (I can’t speak for women), because they know that if this indiscretion in their relationship stays between the two of them, they are willing to work through it.

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I can’t share with you if I decided to actually pursue something with any of these three women. I think the point is although many people think circumstances are cut and dry, most times they aren’t. Many of us will find ourselves in situations that from a distance are “hot ass messes.” I’m not sure that matters. I’m sure that none of us are Saints, but we don’t have to be forever Sinners. My main Cole called it perfectly when he said, “She said, she not a hoe, but she far from a virgin.” I was listening to that and I thought, “Keep it real with you, that’s what men want.” I can’t tell any man anything more than this, “Stop looking for the perfect woman, she doesn’t exist. And if she does, she doesn’t want you.” A man is going to date a woman who’s been cheated on before, you’ll date a woman who’s been around, and you’ll date a woman with some baggage. That baggage that a woman carries may be a few kids, or it may be the fact that because of those kids she can’t afford a divorce, or just maybe her dingbat ex-husband won’t sign the paperwork. All I’m suggesting is that, not every woman is going to come fresh out the package, unused, no baggage, no damage, sometimes you got to reevaluate where you stand and what makes you personally happy, sometimes when you stop listening to other people you find something that may work out for you.

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– Dr. J

Track Listing on Today’s mix: 1. Me & My B*tch by Biggie, 2. You’re All I Need by Method Man & Mary J. Blige, 3. Freak Though by T.I., 4. Do For Love by 2Pac, 5. Fall For Your Type, 6. Prostitute Flange by Lil Wayne, 7. Me & You Against The World by Musiq, 8. Ex-Factor by Lauryn Hill,  9. Song Cry by Jay-Z, 10. Blame Game by Kanye West