Quite a few years back I learned a lesson: just because we went to high school together doesn’t make us friends.  I call it the #BlameTia clause.

Tia is a woman who I met at Girls’ High. She left in our sophomore year when her family moved but we mostly figured out how to stay in touch over the years.

In our early 20’s we reconnected like it happens sometimes. That friendship from our adolescence didn’t evolve into an adult bond.  In fact she did a few things that were not forgivable and caused me to exit from her space.

She wrongly disclosed some information about me that she didn’t have the right to do, and got it wrong to boot.  The final straw was she lied to a friend I care about, that the baby she was carrying was his and she got him arrested and put into jail.

Anyway, the #BlameTia rule came back to remind me that friendships aren’t always what I want them to be, and its alright to let shit go.

In my adult life New Year’s aren’t all that memorable.  The only one that I recall is 1999-2000.  I remember it because I spent it weeping that I wasn’t in Time’s Square with Gei as we planned.  He wasn’t in the picture and I was alone in “our” apartment.

I haven’t been a big party girl since Clyde came along.  In this moment of time though I am working very hard to get my “adult” shit popping and out the way because I am literally days away from signing a new lease.

I agreed to meet a few of the women here at the location at a watering hole around the corner.  I was the lady in red:

As the lady in red I attracted attention.  I am used to attention, and I often seek it out.  All I wanted New Year though was to have a couple shots, dance a little bit and hit the sheets…..alone.

My pretty simple plans got derailed by Rosario who with his friend Kenny decided that I was the most beautiful girl in the place. Kenny fell in love with my girl Lou, in the middle was Marlene…..alone.

I truly don’t know how things went so sideways so quickly, but I know some shit jumped off that I would never have to deal with had I been out with squad.

My real friends, not the #BlameTia type know the rules:

you arrive together you leave together

you never leave a sister alone we are always in pairs at a minimum

you have each others back and present a united front even if you have to cuss her out when you are both sober later on

None of that happened. The opposite actually happened.  Marlene got angry with some thing I said, Lou ran off to fight Marlene, and I was left to be the voice of reason.

Yep —- me.

I’m not yet calm enough to talk to Marlene, and Rosario disappeared in the night.

But:

Kevin slid me his number, the gatekeeper lives alone now, the iceman is still high on the list of things  people to do and a sister is still winning. STILL FUCKING WINNING.

I go back to #BlameTia though.  When she and I would go out she would have this painfully annoying habit of making her suitors “prove” their worth by showing me attention.  I hated it and never did figure out how to get her to stop it.

I’ve never needed someone to throw  me their scraps.  I also never needed to hook up every time I went out.  Statistically sure sex happened…..a lot. What wasn’t needed was someone to throw me their leftovers. Her behavior made me feel like an ugly duckling even though I am nothing of the sort.

I imagine Marlene felt like an ugly duckling new year.  She isn’t by any means, but what she also isn’t – approachable. I’d never insult someone by throwing them scraps, like Tia used to do with me.  I would hope the people I choose to surround myself with aren’t looking for scraps.  What I know without a doubt though is the crew I rolled into 2017 with…aren’t lifetimers.  I’m not about that life, and I am not gonna baby sit a grown woman. If she felt some kind of way, not being chose, you don’t take that out on your “girls” — you step your game up.

Now if she’s willing to come to the Aphrodite school of keep his attention, I can hook her up.  There won’t be a final exam though because going out with her… no mas.

 

 

Aphrodite Brown