The Compliment Translator

I’ve spoken about compliments before. Receiving them, giving them out, the ultimate compliment, and so on and so forth. Compliments are important, not because they help raise self-esteem, but because when we receive just the right one, they make our day. I know how good it feels to receive a compliment, but I know the greater joy is in giving one to a woman who upon hearing it, smiles so deeply I can tell her face is going to stay like that for the rest of the day.

But the question remains, how do we give them out? There is an art in compliment giving, as I’ve said before, as Esquire once wrote an entire article about. One specific rule of thumb I apply is to be specific when giving out a compliment. I don’t like the umbrella types of compliments where I’m acknowledging everything about a woman. I mean, she could be fine with ashy elbows. Who knows? So, instead, if I see she’s wearing some flashy accessory, I acknowledge that accessory. If I like the way she’s walking, I might say something about her walk. Fly hat? “Fly hat.”

But as a lady friend of mine recently pointed out, sometimes specifics can do more harm than good. If a woman just got her hair done, and I’m complimenting her shirt, what’s that say?

With this logic applied, sometimes the umbrella compliments, ones like “Hey beautiful,” or “You’re pretty,” are our best bet. What’s left to figure out is what umbrella compliment do I apply? I’ve thought about this for a couple of weeks, and I finally have what I like to call  the compliment translator.

Below, a break down of the most general compliments men give and what they might mean.

Five Things A Man Must Look Out For When A Woman Leaves His Place

Most men (and some women!) have had to clean up their place after having over some company they know damn well they shouldn’t have had over. Or, in some cases, the company of the opposite sex is perfectly appropriate, but still, to avoid an awkward situation, one in which the present casual friend notices something left behind by the previous casual friend, we have to make sure our area is spotless.

Now I can’t speak for the women, but I know as a man, cleaning up after a woman has come over is not like cleaning up on a regular day. If I was smart enough, I’d invent a female detector. It would be sort of like a metal detector, except it detects all female stuff. But unfortunately, I’m not smart enough, and apparently no one else is either because I have yet to see a female detector on the market.

So until then, men like myself must rely on our eyes to spot out any damning evidence, which takes years of training. Most men are programmed to look out for the big stuff like panties, and even strands of hair that’s not hers. But as some would say, where the devil truly lies, is in the details. Thus, we have to develop an eye for the smaller, less obvious things that may call attention to our “lifestyle.” Here’s five of those things.

An Idea About Engagement

They say an idle mind is the devil’s playground. Well, I say an idle mind is where genius happens because the other day, as I was taking a shower, I came up with an idea that I not only find brilliant, but worthy of application.

When a man asks a woman’s hand in marriage, she gets a ring and he gets a what? A “yes” one would hope, but after that, what else does he get? What kind of symbolism does he get to show he is engaged? Traditionally, none. While a woman gets to go around and flaunt a ring, an engaged man does not receive anything to show he is engaged.

Will someone tell me how this is fair? Then will someone tell me why women for so long have allowed their fiancés to go walking around looking no different than the man who isn’t engaged at all?

These questions are rhetorical. Instead of attempting to answer them, I aim to implement an alternative tradition, one that I hope other men put into practice and women will be accepting of.

As reciprocity for asking my woman’s hand in marriage, I too would like a symbol of our engagement. Something specifically for me. Here it is:

Five Things A Woman Should Have At Her Place

“I got Alize at my house. I don’t drink Alize, but b*tches do.”– Katt Williams

All men have something at their place to help set the mood with the female company they entertain. Maybe it’s a bottle of Alize, like Katt Williams, or maybe it’s a copy of Clueless. Incense and candles are also common. The whole point of these things is to get a woman to feel comfortable enough to sleep with us.

Duh.

Women, on the other hand, never seem to have the comforts for men to enjoy.This is not to say I need certain things to get me in the mood. Trust me, the mere sight of the woman is going to be enough. But what a woman does need to provide for me is comfortable distractions.

Every time I want to leave a woman’s house, she wants to know why. Well, it’s not because I don’t like her. It’s because her place is boring as hell or it’s missing certain things I need.

Comfortable distractions can serve one of two purposes. For the women who invite me over for some platonic company, who don’t want to sleep with me, comfortable distractions are a great way to keep me focused on something other than her body. For the women who do invite me over to sleep with them, but would like me to stay for a while afterward, comfortable distractions will help me stay put. They won’t distract me from her, but they will distract me from what’s going on outside of her four walls.

Women, I’m sorry to say, are not enough sometimes. They, like me and my brethren, need to have the comforts too.

So ladies, consider this my Valentine’s Day gift to all of you. Five things you should have in your place to get a man to come over and stay a little while longer. Happy

Valentine’s Day.

Why Girlfriends Matter

I can’t recall if it was a man or a woman who said it. Maybe it was both. But I do remember the first time I heard someone say being somebody’s girlfriend doesn’t really matter. And I do remember thinking, Wow, that’s wrong.

I don’t have a girlfriend right now. Haven’t for a while now, and to be honest, sometimes that matters. Sometimes it makes me think of the girls who I could have made my girlfriend, but because I knew I wouldn’t be a good boyfriend, I didn’t ask them. It sounds like a cop out, I know, but trust me it isn’t. I was a professional boyfriend for a long time, but I was so bad at it, I’ve been demoted to professional bachelor until further notice.

Still, my time spent with girlfriends past mattered then and it matters now.

Girlfriends, all of them, matter.

Bring Back The Slow Dance

Men, when’s the last time you slow danced with a woman?

I’m trying to remember myself. Maybe it was at my friend’s New Year’s wedding. But before then, I have no recollection of the last time I took a woman’s right hand, put it in mine; took my left arm, wrapped it around her waist, and together, we shuffled our feet in a slow clockwise circle.

The first time I slow danced was in 6th grade, and it was definitely a big deal. I had no idea what I was doing, and the entire Boyz II Men song the girl and I danced to sounded like mush to my ears. All I cared about was not stepping on the girls feet, and to prevent such a catastrophe, I put both my hands around her waist, and kept her arms length away from me. The way I danced with her it was as though she had cooties.

PBS And Service Dating

Anyone used to watch the show Blind Date? Roger Lodge was the MAN, wasn’t he? I bring this up not because I’m watching television at 2 a.m. and nothing else is on, but because I’m thinking about first dates. Good ones. And nobody had better, more creative dates, than Roger Lodge and his team.

Blind Date proved dating is an art form. Inspired by my memory of this classic show, I present the downsides and upsides of two different dating genres I plan to incorporate into my own dating life.

I Like A Lot of Girls

I like a lot of girls.

Japan, Los Angeles, D.C., Boston, Mississippi, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Harlem, Brooklyn, Dominican Republic, New York. The girls I like are everywhere. They’re far away and down the street. Sometimes right in front of me, and sometimes on the peripherals. Out of sight, but on my mind. Out of mind, but in my sight. In my dreams, in my bed, on my phone and on my screen. Everywhere.

And all of that, all of that is just hard sometimes. I like them all at once, and one at a time. Seems impossible, I know, but trust me, it’s very possible. As a matter of fact, it’s too easy. My heart sometimes acts as a magnet for feelings that come from more than one woman at the same time, and like a kid trying not to laugh when they’re telling a fib, I’m a man trying not to feel when I’m telling a girl how I, well, feel. Of course I like the girl, but of course I like others. Actually I like to like them, and some would call that being a romantic but I don’t. I call it the ugly beauty of being single and social: Meet a lot of great women and in the midst of these chance encounters, get blind sided by a few who really know how to get liked back.

For the sake of clarity, what I’m not talking about is random hook ups and one night stands. I’m talking about liking more than one person at one time. It’s really that simple, and yet, people want to act like a heart comes whole; like it can’t be split off into bits, pieces, slices and slivers. If liking more than one person at one time makes me a player, pass me the ball.

I like a lot of girls. And a lot of girls like me back, but with all of them,  we have this unspoken agreement they can like other guys too. Especially those who don’t live anywhere near me. They can make out, sleep with, go out with, cake with any guy not named Jozen and I can’t really have a problem with it. But I kind of, sort of, definitely, absolutely do. Kind of one day, sort of the next, definitely the day after, and absolutely usually by the end of the week. It all depends on how I feel and sometimes, it depends on how they feel about me too. Because liking a girl is one thing, but when the girls like me back, we are headed to the problem land.

The Ultimate Compliment

Sex.

That right there is the ultimate compliment.

For far too long, we have glorified the age-old adage, “It’s what’s on the inside that counts.” The only people to whom that applies are the people who have already established they have a mutual attraction to what’s on the outside, so much so they’re willing to give the ultimate compliment to no one else but each other.

I have heard a lot of nice things said to me. As a matter of fact, I once wrote a post about some of the most memorable compliments I ever received. But when I think about all the compliments women have said to me over the years, none of them come close to the feeling I get when a woman wants to have sex with me.

Maybe it’s because I still remember my virgin days like they were yesterday. Back then, I used to think women only have sex with the best looking guys because that’s all I saw on TV. I thought, In order for a woman to have sex with me, she has to like me enough and think I’m cute enough. It took me 17 years before I met a girl who thought I was both of those things at the same time, which says a lot about my teenage years, but I digress.

After I lost my virginity, I got hip to the game, and realized sometimes I don’t even need to be that cute to the girl, I just have to be there. Or, sometimes, I can be a complete jerk and a woman will be so turned on by my jerk-ish ways, she actually will want to sleep with me more than the nice guy buying her drinks.

But even in those instances, when a woman has decided it is I she will be making faces with solely because she feels like it and not because I look like her crush, there is a compliment being paid to me. I may not be all that, but I’m good enough, and there are a lot of people in the world who are good enough, but not more good enough than me. Add on to that the vulnerability of sex, how it involves our most covered up areas, ones we don’t show to the world, but only a precious few, and the entire experience makes for one big giant compliment.

It’s an act of pleasure, of course, but it’s also an act that says, “I want to feel good with you and you with me.” No matter how casual or mindless the affair, and no matter how many people we exchange this compliment with, when one thinks about all the people we meet with whom we don’t want to have sex, people we don’t even want to see in sweaters and jeans let alone t-shirts and underwear, the fact that someone wants to have sex with any of us is mighty nice of them.

And yet, women still want to question a man’s motives whenever he asks her to come over or he’s trying to get her alone. A woman will tell a man there is more to them than just sex, and if he cannot keep his hands to himself while they’re watching a movie, he isn’t being respectful of her. How dare he want more than just her company while watching this movie. How dare he try to take her into his bedroom where there is no television and no movies can be seen. Doesn’t he know she is a complete being, filled with feelings, emotions, and intelligent thoughts? Why can’t he see what’s on the inside, instead of trying to get in the inside?

Okay, I totally get that. A woman has so much more to offer me than just her body and I respect women more than anyone will give me credit for, but when I want to have sex with her, I actually am respecting her, in the form of a compliment. Just follow me here…

If I just want to talk to a woman about things like the weather and Obama’s health care plan, it is a fool proof sign that I don’t want to have sex with her. And why wouldn’t I want to have sex with her?

Exactly.

She’s not cute enough for me to want to have sex with her.

How uncomfortable does that make any of us feel? Even if the woman wasn’t ever thinking about having sex with me, I’m pretty sure she would like to believe I would want to have sex with her given the opportunity. But I don’t. I don’t because I don’t want to see what’s underneath her clothes, and there is honestly, nothing respectful about that. Or maybe there is, but really it’s just respect by default. There’s nothing on it.

In my opinion, true respect is both complimentary and understanding. True respect is when I make a move on a woman and when she tells me to slow my roll, I slow my roll. It is not when I treat a woman like my sister or my mother, because I have never felt good when a woman tells me she sees me as a big brother. Sure, such praise is a testament to how nice of a guy I am, but it’s also a testament to the fact that she will never, ever, in a million years, want to see or feel me naked.

For The Good Guys Who Lose To The Bad Guys: A Resolution

I didn’t title this post Shaky Dating Advice, but I did file it under the category, because it is, well…read on.

A couple of days ago, I was talking to a female friend of mine. She, a well-educated, very successful young professional, was telling me about some guy she was dating. This guy had his own car, which in New York City is somewhat of a remarkable feat, and took her to the finest restaurants, plays, and other expensive activities. This guy paid for everything. But now this guy is in jail. Why? He dealt drugs.

“So you’re still doing that,” I asked rhetorically. “Still dating them bad boys?”

I was shocked not because she was dating a thug but because she was over-25 dating a thug. And even though I don’t want the girl myself it irritated me to think  some good guy out there was losing to guys like the one she was dating.

In college, I was one of those good guys who despised the bad boys because every girl I liked seemed to like them. To me, it didn’t make sense that a woman who either wasn’t from the streets or removed herself from the streets, would go back to the streets to find her Prince Charming.

But I have outgrown such petty jealousy. Women should date who they want, bad boys included, and though it doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever, no thug is leaving me hurting. Let’s not forget, even a woman who dates a bad boy can see the appeal in a man like me.

It took me years before I finally stopped tripping over high-quality, take-them-home-to-mom type women who wouldn’t choose me over the type of guy whose  career goals include getting furloughed. The sad thing is, I know the battle between good boys and bad boys is still being waged out there. And as someone who has always fought on the side of good, I must continue to stand up for all the men who lose a woman to the bad boys, and for them, I have a resolution.

Before I lay my resolution out, let me just say this: I know a lot of these guys I’m calling bad boys personally. Some are my friends, some are in my family, and I have nothing against them. They are, for better or worse, good guys to their women, or at the very least, no worse than the self-proclaimed good men who don’t break the law, but do break some hearts. So please spare me the whole bad-boys-can-treat-their-women-good-too lectures. I’ve seen them do it, I know they can.

What this really is about is getting the good guys to understand they don’t need to be pre-occupied with finding their female equivalent. If you’re a good guy who is always losing the good girl to a bad boy, date a bad girl. And when I say a bad girl, I don’t mean a woman who is in the streets. I mean a woman who is on the pole.

Yep, that’s right, I’m suggesting all the men out there who are tired of losing their good women to thugs start fighting back by dating an exotic dancer or two. If a well-educated, high-class woman with a promising career wants to date a man who goes to school on street corners, then you, as a man, are entitled to date a woman who takes dance lessons at clubs with the word “Lace” in their name.

Not only is it fair, but it makes way more sense for a man to date a stripper than it does a woman to date a bad boy because stripping is 100 percent legal. Being a bad boy, for the most part, isn’t.

Other positives of dating a stripper include: financially independent; works late hours so you can always hang out with your boys; they’re generally nice women. If a man can find a way to get over the fact that one of her job requirements is to get naked in a room full of strangers night after night after night, he’s in a good place.

Of course, I would never do such a thing, but that’s only because I have found a way to not care so much about the women who want to date bad boys over me. I’m just saying, for those men out there who having trouble coming to grips with the good women who want to date the bad boys, take my advice: Date the strippers. They’re bad, but in a good way.