Help me…help me

So, I went to this relationship forum tonight. The setting was nice, it was held at a reputable establishment…The Breakfast Klub. There was free food and light music playing. By the time I arrived, the place was comfortably crowded…with women. This in itself is an issue but we'll come back to that. The moderator for tonight's event was a middle-aged lady named Marilyn. She was very engaging and the setup was nice. She'd gone around the room asking this mostly, woman-filled crowd, relationship questions. Questions ranging from "what did you do in your last relationship that aided in it not working out" to "why won't men tell women they are looking for a 'playmate' instead of pretending they are interested in a relationship". Needless to say, it was a very interesting evening.

The problems I had are as follows: In a room specked with mostly women, it was the moderator's position to go around the room to ask the dozen men present (and I'm being generous, I think their number topped at ten) to give their advice on many of the questions answered. 1) Not all, but some, not most, but a lot of men, aren't honest. For the ones present, many of their significant others were in the room, so getting an honest answer…was like pulling teeth. Prime example: in a room full of women, when asked what guys thought of women who go to nightclubs scantly clad, every male (because she asked each and EVERY one) except one, frowned upon those women. She did not give the women a chance to respond to the question at all (and yes, my hand was up lol). My thing is…really? Is that really what you think when you see a women in a balloon-bottom dress and 4 inch eff-me pumps? Somehow I doubt that. But how DO you respond when the moderator has already shown her disdain "why would a woman dress that way, especially in winter time, blah, blah, blaaaah".

My position is…it's not cold inside the club. I personally talk about the man or woman who enters a nightclub in a Christmas sweater or mock turtleneck so yeah…be more appropriately dressed. Dockers and a pocket protector aren't exactly club attire. Now I do agree with one male who stated that it takes more effort to put on clothes, and to be sexy when you are fully clothed. No objection there, whatsoever. I think we have to realize that women dress how they want to dress. Not saying it's right or wrong. If men are to judge a woman based on what she has on, how is that any different from a woman judging a man by what kind of car he drives?

Speaking of judging, I did find it astounding that many people don't want to know about the "past" of the people they plan to get involved with. There were 2 of us, (myself and another guy) who stated we'd like to know. No credit to the guy…he just wanted to know in the event that he was dating the town slut, he could end it and ward off embarrassment. Others stated they didn't want to know because a person's past is essentially "irrelevant". I'd like to know, NOT to judge you, but I definitely think your past shapes you and has helped to make you who you are. In addition, if you have (had) the tendency to punch in walls and hit women with frying pans, that's just information I don't need to "stumble" into (literally). Plus it helps show what kind of growth you have made, and the real testament is whether I can deal with ALL of you, not just the pretty picture before me today. Everyone has a past, let's talk about it.

We also talked about black men not being allowed to be the "head of the household" because women were bringing home more money or because women were being too controlling. It was my expressed position that a woman making more money than a man shouldn't be emasculating because in the event that they moved toward marriage and agreed as such, their money would become one. In addition, a man's worth and sense of self should not come from his ability to take care of a person he did not birth. My opposition to his "manhood" comes when it involves running MY life. Being head of the household and dictator of my life are two different things (even God gives free will). I think that people are missing the point. We need to be solid people prior to going into a relationship, we should give just as much as we receive and it should be my pleasure and position to lift you up as a person and as my man. If this isn't happening, no amount of income, your ability to change the oil or take out the trash or discipline the kids won't matter…we have a bigger issue.

Finally, the moderator suggested that the next meeting be a panel of all men, in which women would sit back and only be able to ask questions and not give any feedback. Though I am not a feminist, I was definitely not in cahoots with this. It's wrong on SO many levels. One, the mere fact that you have more women in the room than men indicates men aren't too concerned about fixing the state of the "black relationship". Two, I'm tired of every self-help remedy being that a woman sits back and listens to what a man THINKS she should be doing. Three, unless you plan to put every man on that panel you will never have an accurate account of what men want or what women "should" do. They (and we) can only tell you how to be with them. Every man is different. We are not carbon copies. So, if the goal is to help [black] women do better in relationships deal with real issues that lead to breakups and divorce, such as insecurity, poor money management, extreme baggage, lack of reciprocity etc, in doing so, you help them, help themselves. That's all we really need…help me, help ME.