Man, I so wanted to avoid throwing my hat in this ring but this male v. woman thing is so damn rampant. As we all know there have been recent discussions over the past month (years?) or so about the marginal marriage plight of the black community. It has sparked what I have noticed to be a whole lotta men v. women. I
remotely touched on it before and was content to leave it there but it just keeps coming up. The
Beautiful Struggler,
Sister Toldja, has quite a few posts of late dedicated to this "(un)civil war" of sorts and within
her most recent post she referenced others who have addressed the subject of "Bitter Brothers."
Very Smart Brothas discussed
something similar, as did the lovely
OneChele, and many others. Read those blogs for their thoughts on bitter brothers. Most of what you'll read is about bitter brothers or rantings from a brother looking quite bitter. I'm going to be forthright and discuss it from the perspective of the bitter brother.
I was a bitter brother. All of the arguments other bitter brothers and nice guys have made, I've made them too. At one point I was so bitter that back in the days I would make slow jam tapes complete with Jodeci, Intro, SWV, Chante Moore, Mary J., throwback joints such as Secret Garden (original flavor), etc. and the last song on those slow jam tapes was almost always "Bitches Aint Shit" by Dr. Dre. Yep. That was me. I was as bitter as a lemon dipped in vinegar. How did I become so bitter? Well I was, how shall I say, uh...unattractive, point blank. In high school I had a serious baby face; I "was" fat (let's not split hairs), I wasn't (am not) tall (5' 9" if you care), and I had braces (all for nothing I might add cuz I certainly didn't follow orthodontists orders). So while other dudes were growing taller, developing nice physiques, facial hair, etc., etc. I was just sort of there chillin in the cut. I was late every where I went because I couldn't find anyone to give me the time of day. I was romantically unnoticeable. Maybe it's better to clarify that at that time I wasn't bitter, I think sad is a better description. If/when I did try to talk to a lady, she wasn't trying to hear me...cept to be friends.
Fast forward to after high school but before the slow jam tapes. I finally had my first relationship when I was a month shy of 19. Get your late bloomer here! Anyway, she and I dated for about a year and then she cut me loose. Jamie Foxx screech. "The love walked out, pain walked in..." and along with that pain came bitterness. Any lady after her was fair game to f**k over. It didn't matter that my ex actually dug me in the first place because I wrote her off as a fluke and continued to consider myself romantically unnoticeable. The funny thing though is that I wasn't. The more women dug me, the more I didn't notice, the shittier I was to them, and the rest as they say...
is cliche (<---worth clicking, sums up the creation of a bitter brother). I am not sharing this to justify being bitter. Although I do encourage anyone who encounters someone with a bitter habit to understand that there are contributory factors, just like anything else. I'm sharing this to add some context and I hope knowing this will help to not be so aggravated when encountering a bitter person because that's their monkey to deal with, not yours. Wish them well (or not) and move on, lest you join them and end up in their makeshift bitter crackhouse.
Fast forward even more to today. I am bitter no longer, but like other rehabbed individuals, every now and then I get a twinge of bitterness. I'm not perfect. How did I kick the bitter habit? It wasn't cold turkey, I assure you. There was no group and I didn't have a sponsor (not a sponsor like that trife song). I kicked through self reflection and my own "three step program."
One, being bitter only makes you feel bad. Hell if I have to choose between being bitter or not...I choose not. It's a much happier life.
Two, I realized that while every woman I may have wanted didn't always want me back, I couldn't say that NO woman wanted me. On the contrary oftentimes women saw more in me than I saw in myself. And that is the crux of everything. Dudes that are bitter are no different than ladies that are bitter. We're looking for outside validation that should come from inside and sometimes don't accept it even when we do get it. I
STILL struggle with this. I finally recognized, acknowledged and embraced the things about me that are attractive and if there were things that weren't that were in my control, I own them.
Three, women that don't want me, don't owe me anything and are entitled to pursue who and what they want be it good or not. We all have to live with our decisions whether it's persuing (subjectively speaking) "
bad girls" or "
bad boys." If the statistics are in men's favor the way they're presented (and they are) then even nice, bitter guys more than likely have a woman or two (or more) vying for their attention. Perhaps it is the bitter brothers being too selective? Who knows? What I do know is that at the end of the day, I realized, I love women (as people, not only sexually), even the ones who I am "romantically unnoticeable" to. What agenda am I advancing being bitter? None. What point am I proving? No point. Who am I getting back at? Nobody. I'm only trying to drag people down with me.
I understand being bitter. I was bitter. Sometimes I'm still bitter. But it's a useless emotion. Just because my pops didn't handle his to the best of his ability, that doesn't give me the right to turn around and do it to my children (when I have some). Just because someone robs my house, that's not an excuse to become a booster. And just because someone does me dirty, that doesn't mean I should be dirty. And yes, I have done some women dirty and I'm actually sorry for having done so. Being bitter is bullshit. If you're bitter, male or female, take issue with the person who is truly making you bitter and that's yourself. Be bitter about being bitter, deal with it, and then work on being happy.
Some things you can't leave to chance. Sometimes we want an outside opinion before we make a decision. Think about it, on the Price is Right, the contestants are almost always listening to what the audience is shouting and find themselves flustered trying to figure out what price is right. Let's Make a Deal, same thing. Who wants to be tomorrow's millionaire gon broke, two of the three lifelines involve outside parties. Rotten tomatoes will tell you what movie you should, or should not, go see. There's less and less reliance on our own thoughts when making decisions. We gotta have our peanut gallery.
I'm going to start my own rating site named Holla! I'm sure Ja Rule will be happy to resurrect his career as our resident spokesperson.
