Situations!  Why was I always coming across brotha’s with them?  I don’t mean your good kinda situations like, “I just bought a new home and can’t find enough time to furnish it.  Long hours at work and no woman make things tough on a man.”  No I always run into the one’s with needy issues:  “It’s good to see a sista holdin’ things down like you.  You gotta a good job, nice place a jazzy ride and you’re easy on the eyes.  Yeah, you the type that make a man wanna do right.  Sheeet, I’d move up in you place in a minute, be glad to get out of my mama’s house anyway.  She act like she doing me a favor, it’s not like I don’t give her half of my SSI check.”  See situations!

            Just once I’d like to meet someone who really was what he professed.  Who, like me had is life under control.  I was tired of being stuck with the tab because he “forgot” his wallet, or having babies’ mama’s calling my place and cussing me out because he ‘ain’t doin’ right by his kids’.  Damn, I even dated older brotha’s hoping things would be different.  Not!  Okay, if you’re 45 and still hustling please don’t hustle your ass my way.  Now that I’ve complained let me say that I know there are some good black men out there my father and brother were great examples, and my girl Tasheena (Tas for short) finds them all the time but they’re usually gone after a month or two.

            “Girl please, those men are tired.  I need a little thug in me… I

mean in my life.”  She would say.

            “Well throw a sista a bone at least.”  I half joked.

            “You can have ‘em, I don’t want to come home to the stuck up

corny corporate types.”  She complained.

            “Yeah, you would like your man to grease your scalp and sport

matching cornrows.”

            She looked wistfully.  “That’s what I’m talking about.”

            “It was a joke.”  I rolled my eyes.

            The dating game for me was pretty pathetic, I even tried joining on-line groups to meet guys, successfulblkwomen4successfulblkmen or blkkings4blkqueens, and lets not forget harmoniousbrothasNsistas (all of them a laughable).  The one guy I met who wasn’t trying to get his rocks off was 50lbs heavier than the 5 year old picture he posted.  He had a hairline that had gone beyond receding, and breath that stank so bad I had to maintain a two feet distance, but I even gave him a chance, for a minute.  A quick minute (I wasn’t that desperate).  I wanted my man to take pride in his looks the same way I do.

            I’m not shallow by any means but I have a gym membership that

I use religiously and a hairstylist whom I loving call the weave master. 

What that woman could do with fake hair was sinful, shit sometimes I

forgot that it wasn’t my own.  I swam with it, wore different styles daily

and proudly drove my convertible SAAB with the top down.  It’s not like

I’m bald or anything, but after letting her talk me into it one day I was

hooked.

            I haven’t had a decent prospect in over three years and the last one turned out to be married.  So here I am banging on 30’s door, a senior architect in one of the most prestigious firms in LA and my biological clock was ticking so loud I’m sure it woke my mother up at night.  Shit, I’d seriously consider a sperm bank or maybe even adopting, but I didn’t want to do this alone.  I know there are plenty of women who raise a family on their own, and I say more power to them. I just wanted the whole shebang, the husband, four bedroom house (which we would design), the kids, dog mini-van, little league, everything.  What’s so wrong with that?