“See a butterfly
Up in the sky
I got a story to say
And I'll tell you why
I'm searchin'
You see, my friend
I need someone
Who feels and needs
The same as I
I'm searchin' Roy Ayers
The brother Roy is a genius. More so than looking, I’ve spent a great deal of
my life searching. That means that I am prone to overthink anything down to
the sub-atomic particles of its creation. And for a while, I thought it to be
problematic. I am often told, “It just ain’t that deep,” when really, it’s never that
shallow. So, I embrace my searching. I honor the wisdom of Baba Ayers.
Which leads me down my newest rabbit hole.
In the words of Johnny Taylor, “I’m looking for a love.” I’m looking in that
theoretical sense that makes practical sense. That love that can transform a
current affair with its deeper understanding of the universal connect-the-dots
that creates a pretty and dynamic picture. And one day while shooting the shit,
a hypothesis came to me. This post shall serves as my scientific method to
test out this theory. I wrote a post about it. Wanna hear it? Here it go!!!
I think we got the "Friend Zone" all the way fucked up. It might be the
relationship mana from heaven that we’ve been applying incorrectly. Which is
odd, because why would one starving in the desert be so cavalier with the
nourishment that falls from the sky in front of their blistering, weary feet?
Let’s unpack what I’m thinking. The Friend Zone as a meme and a passive
aggressive movement is a bastardization (see what I did there?) of what
friendship should truly mean. Friendship is not lurking, it is not grooming. It is
not giving of self solely for the sake of reaping later and unspecified returns.
It’s just friendship. You know, 3rd grade: somebody shares their snacks or y’all
wear the same shoes and suddenly you’re bosom buddies. Or in some cases,
y’all actually hate each other until some miraculous moment arises where you
both have to call upon the skills of the other to survive. You know, like when
the 6th graders wage war on the 3rd graders. (I watched the show Recess with
my little brother and sister in the 90’s.) Feeling nostalgic.
And what’s so dope about friendship is that it comes fairly natural. It crosses
all lines. Kids with cars ride through the “part-ments” to swoop the homie so
everyone can have fun. Girls share make up and do each other’s hair. It’s
such a free and open expression. And yes; some friendships inevitably end,
but those wind up being friendships of convenience… or someone moves
away, but most end fairly peacefully.
Of course, nothing is perfect. There definitely are those who wear friend
clothes with an enemy heart. But guess what? It’s usually your real friends
that help smoke said snake outta the grass.
So, what am I saying?
Maybe relationships really should be like friendships. And, I know, married
couples have said they felt as though they were marrying their best friend
when they took their vows.
That’s what they’ve said. But if divorce rate is
above (or near) 50%, some of that must be capp. So, let’s rewind. Let’s compare.
You know what we do with friends? Really close friends? We are our fucking
selves. We are imperfect. We are weak. We acknowledge our areas of growth
with a chuckle and another shot or another pull. We know we’re going to work
on it, primarily because our friend ain’t gonna let us sink too deeply into
delusion and self-deprecating rhetoric. Our friend is also going to chuckle,
take another shot, and take another shot. It is what it is.
For those having friends of the orientation that we might like to orient
ourselves, we often do the same thing. Hallmark didn’t create a whole friend-
turned-lover genre because they were just so great at programming. For
shame! Much like their other tropes, it’s based on some real grain of reality.
The fantasy is fed by the reality.
And it makes sense if you take a moment to ponder. To continue the Hallmark
allusion, the two friends are so busy with work and spending quality time with
each other that they don’t see how it appears from the outside. But their other
friends do. And they constantly make sly comments about anything they do.
Their friendship is so cute. They’re so perfect together. But they continue to
say that they’re just friends. Through their tumultuous relationships, they are
the rock for each other. They dry the cliché tears. Then, bam! Somebody is
about to get married and the other realizes how much they REALLY love the
other one. Cue some airport or train station montage and voila: Happily, Ever
After!!!
I’m not suggesting you base your life on Lifetime or the Hallmark channel. But
I’ll also say that truth can be found in the wildest of places. If you know where
to look and how to look.
But the key take away: they were vulnerable with each other. The womanizer
was honest to at least one woman. The closed, business-minded woman
overly concerned with her career made time for at least one man. All the time.
And by the time that happily ever after began, there isn’t a multi-layered
disrobing where they FINALLY get to each other’s truth. They know the exes.
They know the proclivities to which the other is prone. Prolly the only thing to
be discovered is sexual chemistry. Yet, I might suggest that a bond that
intimate and true must foster AT LEAST the possibility of hot, passionate sex.
And the best part? They actually like the person afterwards. They might play
2K. Or watch a Hallmark movie.
So, don’t be a creep. Don’t offer friendship to try to curry favor and pimp that
into love. I’m definitely not encouraging you to size up your friends and figure
out which one will be the best lover. But what I am saying is think of how free
you are with your friend as you pursue your lover.
Furthermore, we think we put on to impress others. Actually, we put on to
impress ourselves. But we project that put-on as what others might expect.
And then they do, because we’ve said it is us. How dope would it be if we
were to accept that maybe it isn’t. Maybe all the multiple garments with which
we adorn ourselves prevent our truer selves from shining through to our lovers
and ourselves. Because when we must take them off; and we will, by choice
or by (universal) force, we’re all left butt-naked and afraid.
On “Pretty and Afraid,” Jidenna croons, “All I want is the way you look at
others to be like the way you look at me.” That shit touched my soul. I have
recently realized the reason it wasn’t happening for me is because I wasn’t
even looking at myself the way I looked at others. And I could not see the way
others looked at me. So, I’ve been successively stripping layers of cool. And
while I won’t be donning vulnerability with every outfit, I’m more comfortable
with it sitting nicely on my lapel. I deserve it. So, do you.
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