Part One: She's Cool, But...She Smashed The Homies!

Over the hundreds of years that I’ve been here at Columbia P&S, I’ve played a fairly active role in the recruitment and support of students of color. In particular I’ve focused on the Atlanta University Center, but I’ve still been receptive to students from any other college or university so long as they were of African descent somewhere along the line. Recently, I was given the duty of giving a tour to yet another Black prospective student, a woman who was making her final decision on medical schools. I am and was genuinely excited to have another opportunity to sell our great school to another future physician, so I took to the task with all intent of having a new commitment to P&S minority community.

The one variable in how this interaction was different from the others lies in the fact that I was, for the first time in almost a year, single yet again. The few fellas reading this already know that this means every woman you encounter is evaluated as a potential prospect, her pros and cons weighed heavily before ultimately deciding whether or not to offer a date or ask for the digits…assuming of course that she passes the “look” test.

And damn did she.

She was dressed in a mildly unprofessional but otherwise sexy manner, hair all long and curly, face as pretty as could be, body was right…she was NICE! It made the flow of the conversation fairly easy and casual, and selling the school wasn’t hard to do either – uh thank you! Being that she was from Harvard, I had a feeling that she likely was familiar with some of the current students also from there.

“So do you have any friends here now that are helping pull you to Columbia?”

“Yeah, I’ve met quite a few people here that were cool. Plus my ex is here as well. I think you know him. (Insert name)?”

As it turns out, I did know her ex. Very well. He is in fact a pupil of mine, learning the art of…well I can’t put that out there in public, but truth remains I’m on a first name basis with her ex.

Scratch her off the list.

Some time later, I thought about what I had done on a bigger scale. I’d met an attractive young lady who seemed to have a lot of things going for her and was cool overall and I eliminated all potential of dating her because of a past lover of hers.

Yep…sounds about right.

Ray J encountered the same scenario on his “For the Love of Ray J” when he found out that Danger, one of the final women of the group, had had relations with a friend of his, leading to the Tom Green inspired chant of “Danger! She smashed the homie!” And I, as well as the rest of the young black male contingent, also deal with the issue of deciding whether or not to eliminate a potential mate from the dating race based on her past relationships, which is like everything else that’s held against someone because of their past, unfair and likely superficial. As with EVERYTHING else, you know I had to over-analyze this phenomenon to identify its central parts and hopefully come to some humorous yet insightful conclusion on how we should deal with it going forward.

So what’s the REAL problem here?

Premise Number One: It’s all about HIM! Many men build their ego on their perceived sexual prowess.

But even in this case, the REAL issue is rooted in the dominant male insecurity that is truly best defined as “Penis Envy.” I addressed this phenomenon many years ago in a blog piece I did entitled as such where I dissected this obsession with the male genitalia among men (and in this case, heterosexual men in particular).

In this piece, I posed that the primary motivation behind everything men do, material and not, stems from motivations from the groin outward. If you talk to sexually experienced women, many will tell you that they can often tell when a man has “the broom.” It’s typically something about the way they talk or walk or carry themselves in general – yes, I refuse to call it “swag” – that gives clues to their sexual superiority. But, as has been made painfully obvious throughout countless blogs, tv shows, sex toys, and R&B songs, not every man can choose his penis, and, as expected, some fall before the national poverty line as relates to size. Now, while some men have developed other “penile extensions” if you will to compensate above for what they lack below, adopting the Mannie Fresh moniker of doing “everythang real big.” The jewelry, the hair, the clothes, the muscles, the house, the cars – everything that can be controlled by his own energy and efforts to woo in women to sleeping with them at the very least. BUT, if you continue to question women about these men, who have the “bling” but not the “sling,” they’d tell you that these guys are often the MOST insecure of them all. And of course they do. All that other stuff doesn’t make up for the fact that they aren’t bringing much to the table sexually.

Fortunately, most women learn at an early age that most men are HORRIBLY insecure about their sex game (and everything else for that matter) and that permanent ego damage can be done by giving a man a bad sexual review. So they, the loving and supportive creatures that they are, keep their resume of lovers under tight lock and key, doing the best they can to protect their man from his own insecurities. Hell, some women even go as far as to fake their own sexual pleasure, thus the concept of “fake orgasms” (which still to this day absolutely blows my mind). What more do you need?

Obviously the answer is exclusivity.

You ever been to a party or some other social event and seen someone wearing the same shirt/tie/dress/shoes as you’re wearing? How’s it make you feel? In my case, it pisses me off to no end. I do my best to pick out unique styles and patterns and combinations of my own, so when I see someone else wearing MY stuff, it immediately cheapens whatever I’m wearing. A similar principle applies to women in dating: A woman who hasn’t been with many men is more valuable than a woman who’s been with a larger number of men, though this way of thinking has become increasingly less significant over the years.*

What’s even more awkward than having a woman who’s been with a large number of men is having a woman who’s been with someone you know personally. Like…REALLY awkward. For the most part, many of the men in your past are people we don’t know and likely will never have occasion to meet, which is a contributing factor to a decreased emphasis on “how many?” and a shift to “who?”

Speaking of “who,” lets discuss the homies…

Premise Number Two: We KNOW our boys, and them niggas is nasty!

Barney from The Simpsons might suggest that men won’t seriously date women who’ve dated friends so as to avoid conflict with their boys, in his suggesting that men always choose “Bros before hoes,” opting to choose the security of friendship over anything that can be had with someone of the opposite sex… but there’s a deeper reason for its adherence in general. Though women have taken most of rap for being gossipers, I think it’s fairly common knowledge that men have the capacity to gossip just as much as women do, especially amongst the bruhs.

When your boy drafts a new woman onto his team, there’s a whole informal ceremony of meeting her, getting the look and personality approval, and in some cases sharing any known dirt on her so your boy is fully prepared. In the case that the woman is unfortunate enough to be just another number, the details of what went on are shared with all the homies that can keep a secret. And when I say details, I mean DETAILS! Sights, smells, sounds…we’ve basically smashed vicariously by the end of the story. On the other hand, if it’s a prospective significant other who goes on to get the title, we never hear word of what goes on sexually, though it’s not entirely needed because we know about all the other stuff that he’s into sexually because of his other freaky tales.

In sports, having thorough knowledge of what a current player can bring to your team is looked upon as a good thing – they call it a scouting report. But in the case of the dating scene, the scouting report handed over from the homies is almost never something that makes you want to take the woman seriously. Sure, you may still smash cause “It ain’t no fun if the homies can’t have none,” but as far as making her your girl or (gasp) putting a ring on it?! Cmon son. It’s not going down. There’d be too tough of a time trying to get the images of all the nasty ish he did with her out of his mind AND he runs the risk of losing a friend, either because he’s pissed you’re now dating her or because you’re pissed that he clowned you for it (and the latter is definitely the case if you’re with someone I smashed. I’d be TOO quick to laugh at you and be on some “You kissed her in the mouth, didn’t you?” type ish, but my boys know this already). It all adds up to being a situation no man wants, no matter how tight the lady friend is.

Confounding Factors

The biggest problem I foresee with living by these principles is our tendencies in partner selection: Most people of a certain race and class choose partners from within their pool of race and class. It’s not a surprise when black medical student A marries black medical student B. Or even marries black law student C and so on. And you know why – the black professional network is TINY! When people speak of six degrees of separation, it REALLY applies in our community. Facebook is the biggest evidence of this, especially when you meet someone and become their digital friend. Though you may have never knew they existed prior to actually meeting them, there’s a good chance that they have at least 10 mutual friends with you, one of whom you probably know on a first- or nickname basis. And it works the same for future friends. I had an occasion where I met and became cool with one of my ex’s ex lovers. I didn’t hold it against him (though I knew a lot about his “shortcomings” from her…womp womp) and still kicked it with him and he’s actually a cool guy – all to say that as our networks grow, we’re bound to make new friends and contacts who may potentially limit our dating pool EVEN FURTHER if we adhere to the Ray J principle.

…And we haven’t even addressed how it’d change the dating scene for us as men if WOMEN truly held to this principle.

Closing Thoughts

For most of us abiding by these general principles of same race and class selection, avoiding the awkwardness of the situation where your potential significant other or soul mate involves a history with someone with whom you’re cool with or close is a pretty tough task. In the event that it does happen, some serious decisions will need to be made, but hopefully for the right reasons. No person, man or woman, should come between good friends – period. But to deny what you feel because of an otherwise harmless aspect of their past is really a disservice to yourself and that special someone. Be real with yourself and them. Discuss your worries and insecurities with your potential mates and the homies – you’d be amazed at what conversations and growth can be had.

...And try to keep your numbers as low or as unknown as possible.