July 2008 Archives
Disappearing Acts
The other day, I happened upon Disappearing Acts, starring Sanaa Lathan and Wesley Snipes. For those who have not seen it, skip the spoiler alert below.
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After Franklin (Snipes) and Zora (Lathan) decide to let go of one another once and for all, Franklin goes into hiding for a year. In that year, he works on all the things he promised he would work on for Zora but never got around to doing. He goes back to school, gets his contractor's license, gets his mind right. Zora also uses the time to take care of the things she never got around to doing while she was in the relationship. In the end, Franklin pops up at her place out of the blue. Zora is shocked, and mentions she has not seen him or heard from him (with the exception of child support payments he would mail) in over a year. Nevertheless, she invites him in, and the closing credits begin to roll as Zora and Franklin play a game of Scrabble together. And scene...
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As the credits rolled, the question on my mind was this: How possible is it to pull a disappearing act similar to the one Franklin pulled, in this day and age?
Deliberately shutting a person out of your life isn't easy. Time always does a good job of weeding out the people we thought were going to be around forever, but such is life. It's not like you do anything to aid that weeding out process other than wake up and go to sleep night after night after night, until you wake up one day and realize someone who used to be in your life everyday, is nowhere around and hasn't been for a while.
In Disappearing Acts, Franklin pulls off something far more disciplined. When Zora calls it quits, Franklin not only leaves, he goes missing, which isn't that difficult for him. In the movie, Zora, nor the audience, is ever hip to where Franklin lives. She never goes to visit him. He's a construction worker, so his job location is ever-changing. In other words, he disappears so easily because he hasn't left much of a social footprint.
My life is nothing like Franklin's. If a girl I hooked up with randomly three years ago wanted to get a hold of me tomorrow all she has to know is my first and last name and access to Google. Not to mention, my name is printed in a national magazine every single month, along with the address of that magazine. Finding me is like spotting an afro in a room filled with cotton balls, which is fine. As a writer, the more eyes on me, the better.
But I can still put a limit to my accessibility. So what I have decided to do is the next time a woman comes into my life, we're keeping in touch like a couple in one of those World War II movies - long love letters delivered through the U.S. postal system and calls from untraceable pay phones.
I'm kidding, but think about this. The ability to disappear from someone's life is entirely dependent on what you give up front, which is why the next woman I get involved with is only going to have a cell phone number and one of my emails. No AIM screen names and personal email addresses; nor will their be any sober or daytime visits to my apartment for the first three months. If she comes over, there will be no giving of my exact address; strictly cross streets and vivid landmark descriptions. I understand it all sounds extra, but it's really a necessary evil.
In these days and times, we like to use everything short of two tin cans and some string to keep in touch with one another, when the truth is none of these new methods of communication - AIM chat, Facebook friending, putting someone in your MySpace Top 8, more than one email address - are not really necessary, at least to the most important people in your life. My mom and my best friends can get a hold of me simply by hitting me on my cell phone. It's the most immediate way to get at me. If there was an emergency, and I needed to be notified, I highly doubt anybody would hit me on my "wall".
Some may call Franklin's actions - and in turn, my own quest to mimic them - cold blooded or a cop out, and I disagree. Keeping a lid on the ways in which my woman can get a hold of me is not only about making it easier for me to disappear if things were to go sour, but it's also about trust. Trust that even if I disappear for a while, we will find each other again, and if we don't, we never were supposed to.
A Thing Women Say
A couple weeks ago, my boys and I were down in New Orleans. The last night of our weekend, one of my homies gets a call at 3 in the morning from this girl he hasn't seen in a couple years. Now, it's late, and we have all just got back from a live concert, so we're up but we have no energy. None of us do. But the girl insists on coming over to see him, and my boy finally gives in. Right before he hangs up she says: "But just so you know, we're not having sex."
Needless to say, my boy immediately reneged on the invitation and told the girl not to come to the hotel. Of course she gets upset and accuses him of only wanting one thing, and though he did make some sort of effort to explain why he changed his mind, he didn't have the energy. But I do, so allow me to explain.
Before I wrote this post, I talked to various women and told them why I hate it when a woman feels the need to tell me there will no be sex going down. Some of them said when women say nothing's going down, they're just trying to psych themselves into thinking nothing will happen, even though, through the powers of persuasion, something can. Some other women said they just want to keep a guy's expectations low.
But in my book, neither of those dogs hunt.
Human nature tells us to go left when the sign goes right, so when somebody tells you they don't want to do something, there's a chance you might want to do it, even if you didn't have it in your mind to do it in the first place. If I invite my boy over, and he says, "Yeah, I'll come through, but man, just so you know, I don't want to play ball today." Guess what? Now I want to play ball, so he can just stay home.
The same rules apply when I ask a woman to come over. If I invite you over for a bad movie and some great Chinese food, why would you ruin my invitation with your little caveat? All I really wanted was some company, but some women act like I asked them to go pick up a box of condoms on their way over to my spot.
Something else I don't buy is this idea that when a woman says, "I want to come over but we aren't doing anything," she really means "We are doing something." The way I see it, a woman needs to say what she wants and knows what she means. Ladies, if you do want to sleep with the guy, how about you just tell him that before you come over?
See, this is how women get pregnant by accident. They tell a guy they're coming over but they're not going to do anything, so the guy doesn't bother restocking his supply of rubbers. An hour into the visit, you two are on the bed, rounding third base, and the girl stops and says, "Do you have protection?"
"NO I DON'T BECAUSE YOU SAID WE WEREN'T DOING THIS!" What makes it worse is the woman doesn't have any protection either, because supposedly she didn't mean for things to get so far. So next thing you know, two months later, the two of you are reading copies of What to Expect When You're Expecting. But I digress...The fact is, I'm not about to get your "no" to mean "yes" because that's a very dangerous and slippery slope. If you think you're going to change your mind once you get to my place, stay strapped.
Then there are those women who do mean what they say, and when they say nothing's going down, they mean it. Let me tell you why I have a problem with them.
Sometimes when a man invites a woman over, he genuinely wants to just chill. He could really want to watch a movie and break bread with the woman, but because she's felt the need to treat him like parents taking their children to Target ("We're just buying clothes, no toys."), he's put into the awkward position of defending himself against something he didn't have in mind in the first place. It's really not fair to think all men really want is one thing. I mean, it's true, but it's not fair. We could want that one thing the next time you come over, not the first time.
Ladies, telling a man how the movie ends before it begins is a surefire way to get plans canceled. So from now on, what I have decided to do is beat the girl to the punch and the bearer of bad (or is it good?) news myself. The next time a woman asks me to come over to watch a movie or just "kick it", I'm going to accept the invitation. But just so we're clear, I will let her know there will be no wrestling with the clothes off. If that's okay with her, I'm on my way. And if that's not okay with her, guess what? I'm on my way. ;)
