The Chance encounter deserves a Chance

I’ve written numerous articles about women, and their pickiness. I’m almost the go to person whenever it comes up in my writing collective. It’s amazing that some of the pickiest women I know are also some of the loneliest, most passed over, and ignored also; and their question is always why? Why don’t men approach me?  Where are the good men?  I know, meet and get letters from far too many beautiful, successful and seemingly undesirable women. Or women that turn down men for too many of the wrong reasons, yet wonder why they are still single.  I’m all for having standards; high standards, but make sure they are standards that you can live up too and that others can also. Some have impossible standards or conflicting standards that basically rule out anybody (including Jesus himself).

One of the questions I’ve been seeing and hearing a lot more recently is, why don’t guys in the church approach women more often?

Here is the answer.  Because women have made themselves all but unapproachable these day; regardless of where you attempt to approach them at. And because women are so skeptical of a mans intentions when approaching them, it has made most men especially good/ eligible men afraid to approach or second guess approaching the majority of women they see, especially at church. The last thing a man that’s focused on church wants is to be accused of is working the church. We’ve all the heard the stories before, we all know that not everybody in church, is not there for the right reasons. No man wants to be misunderstood and become part of that narrative. And it’s an easy narrative to fall into, no matter how sincere his heart is, if he gets rejected by one or multiple women, and it doesn’t work with another, ta-da in walks the working the church narrative.  No man wants to be uncomfortable at his place of worship, his job or where he lives.

The reason why most women can’t meet decent, eligible men is because they have ruled out the chance encounter, so almost nowhere is a good place to meet or approach a woman (on the street, grocery store, museum, club, church, job, gym, etc, etc, etc). This is both conflicting and counterproductive.

Secondly, a lot of women claim to want to know the guys they’ll date, yet they don’t want to date the men they already know, they tend to banish those men to the friend zone. Once again counter productive and conflicting.  Its equivalent to sitting at home and never going out, no ones going to find you if your at home, and you wouldn’t except the person that knocked on your door, that’s be spooky and creepy.  And if your with the girls and someone approaches and you reject them because you’re out just trying to have fun wit the girls that too is counter productive and conflicting.

These things lead many into or set them up for bad decisions. In the world we live in today, we end up worrying about dating people we’re attracted to more so than people we genuinely like. We friend zone people we genuinely like, in hopes of finding more attractive or more lucrative prospects. We have sex, then try to build a relationship or love on top of that. But attraction can change over night.

I’d be remisssed if I didn’t mention the equally yoked excuse. You can be equally yoked without ya'll being carbon copies of each other, having the same degrees, same money, jobs etc. there other ways to make up for it. To be equally yoked is just to be balanced and to balance each other out.

A question that needs to be asked is do you really want to be in a relationship? If so why do you find something wrong, that eliminates the potential of every man that approaches? Are you accommodating to a man that wishes to approach you?

All in all give some a chance and reason to approach you.  Take the time to genuinely like someone. That’s a question you should ask yourself to avoid making a bad decision; do I like this person more than I think they are fine or how much I want to bed them? If you focus on sex, nothing else will matter.

Set a high standard, make sure the conversation is as good as the sex. Make sure you crave it, just as much as the sex also. To paraphrase a joke from Chris Rock, anybody you in a relationship with make sure you enjoy talking to them and eating with them, because the longer your relationship goes, it becomes less sex, more talking and going to eat, and if you don’t like talking to them or eating with them ya’ll are not gone make it.

I repeat, I’m not saying don’t have standards, or even to lower them. I’m not saying don’t  be picky, nor have preferences,  but don’t try to apply all of them at the same time. Life works on a sliding scale and on the law of averages. There is something to be said for potential, there is something to for possessing an x-factor.

Give people a chance when you see potential. While you’re waiting to see the final product, and by the time you see the final product, they may no longer be available or interested. Relationships are an investment. You have to give someone the time of day in order for it to payoff.  

But before you can get to that point, you’ve got to make your self truly available and open to the possibilities. Every place, possibility, and circumstance can’t be off limits for someone to approach you. Stop making excuses and getting in your own way; and let someone approach you. Rather that be at church, your job, the gym or at a dinner party. 

 ( The meme has a typo but you get the message)

That’s my perspective, what’s yours?

Slin_k

@slin_k_polymath on Twitter and Instagram

The overlooked / missed lessons of Straight Outta Compton

With the release of the Straight Outta Compton movie, I expect that NWA will have a bunch of new fans and people exposed to their music; which is a great thing. Lord knows we need people exposed to real hip hop and hip hop history. But while were caught up in the much deserved hype, it was a great movie their were some things that the average person that saw the movie probably overlooked/ didn’t know,  and some of them are great lessons/ messages that shouldn’t be overlooked, regardless of all negative things people have wrote about. * Warning possible SPOILER ALERTS

1. The Importance and complete leaving out of certain members. If you’ve seen the movie, it's heavily focuses on Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and Easy- E; the three best known members. But the movie kind of makes it seem as if MC Ren and DJ Yella were just back ground, which is not at all true

For those that don’t know MC Ren is one of the primary writers for the group, especially after Ice Cube leaves. In the movie DOC is given his props but not so much Ren. Also after the group breaks up, Ren has some solo success, his first solo album approaches gold, and his first EP goes platinum.

DJ Yella was the primary turnatablist for the group, but he was not just the dj. He was also a producer, often co producing with Dr. Dre. His work as a producer is on every NWA album, including Easy-E’s solo album Eazy-Duz-It. After the group split he overlooks the making of Bone Thugs N Harmony’s album and produced their hit “Foe tha Love of $”

Now the person you may not know and who was completely left out the film was a lesser known founding member named Arabian Prince. Why he was left out of the film entirely, who knows? However he was a kind of a do it all member providing writing, and production. He left the group in 88, but his work, vocals and contributions can be found on Straight Outta Compton, the previous lesser known first album NWA and the Posse.

2. Knowing the business. The people that were successful were the ones that knew the business and stayed up on the business. Ice Cube was insistent about getting his fair share and signing his contract. He noticed when he and the others were being exploited early on. When it was time to sign his contract, he insisted on letting a lawyer review it because he knew he didn’t understand the language.  He did the same thing with his solo career. He knew the difference and importance between being a worker and owner, when no one else did or would listen. 

Dr. Dre would learn this lesson the hard way, and learn that Ice Cube was right. And it’s a mistake he would not make twice.

3. The Strength, support of the women in their lives - The people that you have in your life can affect you rise and down fall also. The women that Ice Cube, Eazy-E and Dr. Dre pursued in the movie were instrumental in their growth and maturity as family men and business men.

The women in their lives encourage them to pursue their own dreams; they support them in it. The women in their lives that carry themselves differently and are not impressed by their celebrity are the ones that stick around.

Eazy-E doesn’t pay attention to his company’s financial situations until Tomica offers to look over the paperwork and shows him what she finds.

Ice Cube has the courage to leave NWA but he really gets focused once he meets Kim She helps him understand the debts to which NWA were dissing him, which lead to the greatest hip hop diss record of all time “ No Vaseline”. She was his business partner.  

Dr. Dre’s love interest Nicole, forces him to mature by what she accepts from him and the boundaries she sets for him. She lets him know that her child is her first priority, she doesn’t jump at the opportunity to sleep with him, she doesn’t jump at the opportunity to give up her independence and move in with him, she tell him she needs to think about things because its moving fast, and after the date she stops him at letting him walk her to the door, she doesn’t allow him to come up stairs and make it a night cap.

The women that carried themselves differently, had different expectations, and were supportive helped them grow and mature.

4. It’s Business not personal - One of the major lessons learned in the movie is that friends, even good friends can’t always work / be in business together.  Stubbornness and conflicting principles completely tore the group apart.  Ice Cube didn’t like beuracratcy, he didn’t want to talk to the group’s manager about money and contracts, he wanted to talk the owner (Eazy-E).

The artist also had to learn self preservation. They had to learn that they believed in themselves and loved themselves enough to leave bad situations. They had to wrestle with the notion that to leave a bad business situation was business, not personal. Ultimately they had to look out for and be loyal to themselves and their families, bad business is not good for friendships.

Even when the diss records started to fly and the embarrassment was being handed out on a silver platter, they were able to all understand that it was just entertainment. Nobody got shot, killed; and when they interacted with ach other in future, they were always able to talk regardless of how hot headed the entourages around them may have desired to be.

A lot has been written about the film. A lot was covered in the film and a lot left out. All in all it’s a really good movie. Could certain things have been covered or put in certainly. However with all of the criticism, its still a good movie and we’ve got to understand its business, The movie is two and a half hours long, and an hour was shaved off to make it that long, so we have no clue what was taken out.  Some negative events were left out, chalk that up to the benefits of owning your brand. People have complained about Ice Cubes son getting the role (even though he totally carried it) and Dr. Dre’s character being misrepresented as an uber nice guy to women and tough guy in the streets; but they were both producers of the film. When you are directing your own, biopic, and control your brand; you put in the parts that you want to know. History is defined by who is telling the story.


Slin-K

@slin_k_polymath on Twitter/ Instagram