Wiktionary.com defines the term boyfriend as a male partner in a non-marital romantic relationship. It also goes on to add this footnote:
Use of boyfriend generally implies that the male is a boy or a young man.An older man in a non-marital relationship and sometimes even a young man in a long-term relationship is more often described as a significant other or partner.
Now while there are some men out there who won't mind being somebody's "boyfriend" and there are some women out there who are content with having a "boyfriend", my question is very simple. At what point do we, as men, strive to be less of a "boyfriend" and more of a "significant other"?
At what point do women stop looking for a "boyfriend" and start looking for a man?
Granted, even I know that you have to work your way up to being somebody's "man", and I'm one of the few men I know who are not only willing to do that, but aspire to do that when the right woman comes along. 1 Corinthians 13:11 says "When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things (How often do you see me quoting the Bible?
). Unfortunately, there are too many "grown ass boys" out there who would rather go out there and be with as many women as possible while the good woman that they have is sitting in the house. Too many "grown ass boys" out there who would rather renew their playa card year after year than to settle down with one woman and treat her like the Queen that she is.
We have all had our phase of "sewing our wild oats" and "getting things out of our system" but they should be just that - phases. For most of us, there has got to come a time when we want more than the label of being someones "boyfriend". We have got to want the responsibility of being someones "man".
Maybe I am typing this just to have something new on my post. My hope is that all of you who are reading this agree with me, but that might be asking too much. .
. or is it? Either way, this is my "thought provoking" topic for this week and I hope that if nothing else, it lived up to its name.
I'm pretty sure all of us have suffered from it at one point and time in our lives. We have all had it to some degree. Al Bundy Syndrome.
A very curable disease caused by a combination of pride in past accomplishments and fear of future success (Much the same way Al Bundy would wax poetic about his days at good old Polk High School where he scored 4 touchdowns in one game).
It wasn't until this past weekend that it was brought to my attention how severe my case was. Life does not allow us to rest our hats on past accomplishments.
They are what they are, but life is more like Janet Jackson. Life is more concerned with "what have you done for me lately" than what did you do for me a long time ago. To put it another way, I'll use a quote from Aristotle:
"Excellence is not a singular act.You are what you continue to be."
Just because you've had success in the past, you are not exempt from having to repeat yourself. Child stars are very famous when they are young, but how many of them have had adult success.
Just think about the child stars from our era - Jaleel White, Kriss Kross, Another Bad Creation (a pun to itself) the Boyz, the other two members of Immature, any of the Brady children. What are they doing with themselves now? Yes, they were famous, and we still recognize them, but now we laugh at them as they appear on reality shows.
I say that to say this. Embrace all of your successes, but don't let your most recent success, be your last success.(Hopefully) we all have long lives ahead of us and what we do in our 20's and 30's won't matter much if we aren't doing anything when we are in our 60's and 70's.
We will be sitting on somebody's porch in a rocking chair telling stories that nobody really gives a damn about, when we could really be out there doing things that people read about in the papers. I don't know about you, but I'd rather be in the newspapers than the history books. And I damn sure don't want to be on a celebrity reality show.
I lifted this from Dynasty, who got it from who got it from
1. You can flip a switch that will wipe any band or musical artist out of existence. Which one will it be?
PARIS HILTON . . .
who gave her a record deal in the first place?
2. You have the opportunity to sleep with the movie celebrity of your choice.
We are talking no-strings-attached sex and it can only happen once. Who is the lucky celebrity of your choice?
3.
You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who do you pick?
4.
Now that you've slept with two different people in a row, you seem to be having an excellent day because you just came across a hundred-dollar bill on the sidewalk. Holy shit, a hundred bucks! How are you gonna spend it?
At this very moment?
After all the work I just finished putting in, I think I need a massage.
5.
You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?
6. Upon arrival to the aforementioned location, you get off the plane and discover another hundred-dollar bill. Shit!
Now that you are in the new location, what are you gonna do?
7. The Angel of Death has descended upon you.
Fortunately, the Angel of Death is pretty cool and in a good mood, and it offers you a half-hour to do whatever you want before you bite it. Whatcha gonna do in that half-hour?
Four-some with those three women I met on the plane.
Hell, if I gotta go, might as well go with a smile on my face.
8. You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables.
They were good, and what's even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What's it gonna be?
Invisibility.
If the Angel of Death can't see me, he can't kill me. Plus, once I get away from him, it has other advantages.
9.
You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?
The drive back from back to my house after "Sigma" and "Zeta"'s wedding reception. You couldn't have scripted it any better.
10.
Rufus appears out of nowhere with a time-traveling phone booth. You can go anytime in the PAST. What time are you traveling to and what are you going to do when you get there?
11. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?
May 25, 2005. The night that I swore I was going to die of massive blood loss.
12.
You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit..
.you can move to anywhere else in the world! Bitchin'!
What country are you going to live in now?
I'm already in Cancun, so I have no problem staying in Mexico.
13.
The constant absorption of magical moonbeams mixed with the radioactive vegetables you consumed earlier has given you the ability to resurrect the dead famous-person of your choice. So which celebrity will you bring back to life?
Selfishly, I'd resurrect my uncle, Jam Master Jay
My heart got broken, oh it hurt so bad
I'm sad to say, love wins again.
Then I turn around, and you're standing here.
How did you get here?
My heart say no, no.
Welcome to my new blog!!!
!! I can only imagine that the abrupt demise of my previous blog came as a surprise to some and a shock to others.
Honestly, I sort of caught me off guard as well. You may find that hard to believe since it is MY blog, but if you had asked me a week ago, when I was going to shut down my previous blog, I would have told you that I have no idea. I have thought about it a few times, most recently Labor Day weekend, and before that, my birthday, but both times, I figured that I would just ride it out and let it evolve into what I want it to be.
Obviously, that train of thought changed (heavily influenced by some events I'd rather not get into).
Life in itself, is all about phases. You hear it all the time - "the beginning, the middle, the end", "before, during, after", "I came, I saw, I conquered".
Regardless how you phrase them, there is one common denominator, they all come in threes. My life, or more relevantly, my blog, is going to be done in three phases as well. The previous phase, which most of you have enjoyed, was an introduction.
You getting to know me as I conger up stories from my past to help you understand who I am and where I've come from as well as to help me get some things off of my chest in order to help myself evolve. I think that I have evolved a lot in the last 22 months and I am a much better person than I was when I started. Phase I, as I'll call it, allowed me to see things in black and white and learn from them even more than I did when I first experienced it.
That being said, I feel that I am more than ready to move into Phase II.
What does Phase II have to offer? Only time will tell, but I will tell you this; as much as phase I focused on the past, Phase II will focus on the present.
Living for the moment, enjoying life and everything that it has to offer. How long will it last, who knows. Phase I lasted 22 months, when I thought it was only going to last 12.
I'm not too worried about when it will end, I'm more interested in what's gonna happen while its here. Hopefully those of you who rode with me in Phase one, will stick around for phase two. It should be interesting.
There were :17 seconds left in the game, but the game had been over a long time ago. Morgan State University had found a way to lose another homecoming game. Delaware State had finally found a way to beat Morgan.
I was off the yard by the time the game was officially over and on St. Paul Street when my cell phone started ringing with "where are you? I was hoping to see you" phone calls.
All I could do was apologize. I had plans for Saturday night. Plans that, honestly, I was looking forward to just as much as, if not more than homecoming itself.
Especially after reading what happened last weekend. Tonight, I was going to meet some of the Baltimore Area Bloggers.
I got back to the hotel just before 5pm, only to find out that the fire alarm had gone off and the hotel was being evacuated.
(ASIDE: Why is it that you always have to go to the bathroom when you can't get to one?). We were finally given the all clear about 5:15pm, but from what I hear, most of the guests, including a couple that was getting married Saturday night, had been outside for almost an hour.
Once back in my room, I see that I have at least an hour before I have to start getting ready, so I had planned on taking a nap, of course that didn't happen because those "where are you? I was hoping to see you" calls were still coming in. After called me a little after 6pm to let me know that he couldn't make it, I started to get ready.
calls me about 6:45 to let me know that her and GTL are stuck in traffic. I didn't mind that too much because the Tennessee-Alabama game I was watching was a good one. About five minutes after seven, the first couple of blog pulls up in front of my hotel.
The plan was for everyone else to meet us at the hotel as well, but after seeing how far the hotel was from the restaurant (which actually wasn't that far in my opinion, but I was outvoted 2-1.) they decided to find a lot a little bit closer. Good thing for them because they ended up saving $10 on parking.
A change in meeting place prompted me to call and hope that would call me since I didn't have her number. I finally spoke to Bajan Queen after TTD, GTL and I had got to the restaurant. She let me know that she wasn't going to be able to make it because of circumstances beyond her control.
I understood and expressed her disappointment with my two compadres who had already started browsing the menu. By the time I got off of the phone, and had arrived. Sadly, I didn't recognize Brooklyn Diva at first because the picture that I saw of her on her myspace page does not do her justice.
I didn't know it was her until someone called her by name. But she had definitely caught my attention as soon as we were introduced. When I went to hug her she proceeded to molest me.
After reading her version of the nights events, I guess she was just marking her territory. . .
either way, she got no complaints from me.
Shortly after and , "Vanilla Sky" and "Class of 02" came in, bringing the total number of Morganites to three for the evening; giving us the clear majority that we should have had considering it was OUR homecoming weekend. I was told that both of them graduated a year behind me, but only "Class of 02" looked familiar.
Either way, it didn't matter, they bleed orange and blue just like me so it was all love (I guess we could have made GTL an honorary Morganite since also sports the orange and blue).
By the time walked in and completed the group, we were already seated at our table and our waiter, Michael Jackson, Jr., had already taken our drink orders (round two for most of us).
Everyone but me messed around and got a liter-sized Iced Tea, imported from Long Island. On the other hand, I started out with a Mudslide, then moved to a screw driver, and finished off with a Hennessey and cranberry juice. The human sponge managed to down his first liter of imported iced tea in less than 15 seconds, which prompted Michael Jackson, Jr.
to give him his appetizer for half off. He also starter giving free shots in order to find something that was considered too strong. He failed miserably.
Once we ordered our food, the night really got fun. Highlights included: the singing of the Eastside High School alma matar (RE: "Lean On Me"), a near food allergy attack, a taste testing of potatoe salad that was so bad, Michael Jackson, Jr. told us not to eat it, a game of "never have I ever" and a coincidently-time trip to the bathroom by two people that peaked the coriousity of everyone else .
. . hmmmmm.
All in all, my only complaint (ok, maybe not my only complaint) was that the night ended too soon. It was definitely a good night and a good time was had by all. The only thing that was missing was a deck of cards.
I could have definitely seen us breaking out a game of spades right there in the restaurant. Anyway, we all parted our seperate ways. TTD and GTL dropped me off back at the hotel shortly before one.
The Baltimore Blogger Meet Greet was a success. By this time the alcohol was finally kicking in and I was off to sleep, thinking about the night I just had, and looking forward to doing it again in Philadelphia in two and a half weeks.
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