“SG, when the fuck did inviting the ex to the wedding become the move??!!”

Manny has a problem. He’s a great guy, so great in fact that most of his exes still consider him to be a friend.

One has just mailed him an invite to her wedding. He’s not happy about it.

“No idea,” I offer. “Guess they think we adults”

I’m dying laughing because I could tell by his voice over the phone he was sitting on his couch looking at the invitation on his coffee table probably rubbing his forehead.

“Where’d they get that bullshit idea from?” He is clearly torn. A part of him is honored while the majority of him is offended.

I don’t know what makes people invite their ex to their wedding. The person who sent the invite is nuts for thinking that their past intimacies with the invitee won’t come to surface, even if its just in the mind. The big “What If” is going to hit as soon as they see each other on the wedding day. They may even be subconsciously hoping the ex speaks up when that time comes up in the vows (you noticed people have cut that out from the ceremony). Maybe the to-be-wed wants to make the ex feel like shit.

Most times its not done out of spite but a lapse in judgement. The person who has moved on is on a completely different plane of existence. They’re not seeing the ex as a past lover with lingering emotions/resentment. They see them as two more eyes focused on them, on their day and another gift.

Exes also truly believe that since they’ve moved on and are happy you must be in the same place. Its the reason why whenever you talk to them you ask “So, are you seeing anyone.” When you say no they go on to tell you why you’re so great and how you deserve an amazing partner. All the shit they wasn’t saying to keep you two together.

Perhaps the bigger question is : What would make you want go to your ex’s wedding?

Vengeance? Resolve? Punishment?

One person’s lapse in judgement shouldn’t be your downfall. OK, so they invited you their wedding but that doesn’t mean you have to go. Some major factors in your decision to go should include:

- How long did your relationship last?

- How did it end?

- How long ago did it end?

- What kind of friend have you two been to each other since ending it?

- Do you still love/want them?

You don’t want to go to a wedding when part of you feels like you shouldn’t be there. You end up, the known ex, walking in with that searching look on your face. You know the one where you try to find that familiar face, someone from your ex’s life who you were cool with — a friend, cousin, mother. Someone who will validate you coming: “Oh, its so good to see you.” Only then will you relax and tell yourself you’re happy you came.

Then at the reception, someone will make their way over to say hello to you. Thanks to the open bar they blurt out to the table “You know this is [Bride/Groom]’s ex. We thought for sure you’d be the one up there.”

O-M-G.

You smile graciously but inside you want to run for the hills. To make matters worse you brought a date, who knew nothing about your past relationship.

A W K W A R D.

At some point you expalin that your relationship was so long in the past and hype up your “friendship” as if the ex is your BFF “even though we don’t talk or see each other often.”

Of course I didn’t tell Manny any of this. I was enjoying his disgust too much.

…Says the Single Girl

Last night I received an e-mail from a dear reader (shout out to Jennifer) who brought it to my attention that MJB Jr. went and got a tattoo of her new beau’s name. In case you didn’t know Key-Key has been dating a NBA player. His name is Daniel Gibson and according to her tattoo, he’s “Truly Blessed”. Yup, that’s what the tattoo placed on the front side of her left shoulder reads: Truly Blessed D. Gibson.

As Neffe would say “Are You Serious?????”

What in the world is he doing that has her skipping to the tattoo parlor? They haven’t even been together a year.

In order for me to even think about putting someones name on my skin they’d better have saved my life. I’m talking blood transfusion, organ donation, bone marrow transplant. Either that or give me million and millions of dollars. Maybe then I’d get their name on my body but it’ll be in a place where no one, not even I, can see it like the sole of my foot or the under carry of my butt cheek.

For the record, I do not have any tattoos and seeing how Ms. The Way It Is chooses to showcase her love and beliefs by inking them on her skin, I’m very content with my decision. Seems like the more tattoos you have the less selective you are resulting in shit like this:

There is no image, symbol or name that I want on my body for the rest of my life. Hell, I’m trying to get rid of a birthmark and God wanted me to have that.

But seriously, Gibson must be knocking it all the way down to the ground. The look on her face says it all. The look on his face is kinda telling. (STSG prediction: This isn’t going to last)

I wondered how I would feel if someone got my name tattooed on their body. For one, I would be shocked followed by embarrassed and finally sorry for the guy cause I believe in bouncing and no tattoo is going to lock me in.

If you look at this picture, it’s clear the once little black girl lost is happy. The woman is glowing. Gibson must have that magic stick. Let’s just hope that Gibson isn’t her K-Ci and but instead her Kendu. Women have been known to let love misguide them. Cassie sent naked pics of herself to Diddy her boyfriend. Like Keyshia’s tatoo, images of Cassie’s cat trap will float around the Internet for eternity. Ri Ri got a tattoo that she shares with her sparring partner. I bet if she has his gov’t on her body she’d cut it off with a knife.

Don’t get it twisted, her half angel wing is stupid looking especially since C. Bruiser has the other half. E-V-E has a tattoo of her boo on her arm but got it covered after he cheated on her and they broke up.

Men have their WTF tattoo moments too:

Nick Cannon

Jermaine Dupri

Nas

There are many other ways I’d rather been shown that I’m loved. Let’s start with him paying my bills. Clear out my student loans and I’d marry you ASAP. He can also buy me a house. I’d make sure you have a copy of the key. Buying me clothes, purses, shoes, unlike most women, that means nothing to me. If you want to show me you love me, fix my credit.

- STSG

If you ever want to know what’s on the mind of a man go out to dinner with a bunch of guys. About an hour into it, you will start to hear their crazy rationale, doggish behavior and insecurities.

The keys to making this work: liquor, good food and great company. You can’t jump down their throat or start with your “I’m a strong woman and I don’t stand for x, y, z…” crap cause they’ll clam up.

Another key is to have more men than women present. More men means they have people to back them up in their P.O.V . If there were more women, the guys present would feel the need to defend themselves and the whole thing would turn into a battle of the sexes tennis match.

Last night I had dinner with 11 men. I was one of three women and we all peed our pants from the stuff that was coming out of their mouths.

The conversation really picked up when we started talking about how to end a relationship .

“Send a text,” said one 29 year old guy, who claimed to have 12 lady “associates”. I didn’t know people still used that word.

“Question is, how long they been together. If it’s a couple months you go over to their house, have a cab waiting out front. Knock on the door but don’t cross the threshold and say ‘This isn’t working’ and leave. Whatever you do, don’t let them start with, ‘Let’s talk about it.’ If they do, you’re done for.” The gentleman who said this was in his early 40’s and has been in a relationship for four years.

So I inquired about his relationship and where he saw it going.

“Oh, we’re very strong. She is a good woman. I love her and haven’t cheated once.”

“Are you going to get married?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“So you’re engaged?”

“No but I call her my fiancée because she’s more than my girlfriend.”

“Are you serious?!? Just get the woman a ring already. Please don’t tell me you introduce her as your fiancée and she has no ring on her finger.”

“Of course I do. She doesn’t like the word ‘girlfriend’ so I say fiancée.”

“You know, your making her look like a damn idiot. When you say to me ‘ SG, meet my fiancée’ the first thing I’m gonna do is say hello and look to see the rock. When there isn’t one I’m looking at the both of you like you’re liars.”

“How you know she didn’t leave it at home?”

“No woman would leave her ring, a ring she been after for years at home especially at an event where she knows she’s going to be introduced to new people.”

“Damn SG, you got all the answers, huh?”

“Get that woman a ring asap!”

“Damn, are you her legal representation?”

“No, but I’m saying you need to stop calling her your fiancée when she isn’t. You know that an engagement ring is a legally binding contract. It shows you have real intentions.”

“SG, the next time she and I have this exact argument I’m gonna check to see if you are in the closet cause you sound just like her.”

“Seriously, what’s holding you back? Just get her the ring.”

“You’re right. I should. I’m going to start shopping around. You think I could get something nice for $3,000?”

“Absolutely. Get a princess cut cause it makes the stone look bigger then say round or oval.”

“That’s smart.”

“You know once you get her that ring, she is going to want to get married in like a year.”

“I know! That’s what I’m afraid of.”

- STSG

I received this letter last week but had to get some clarification on the issue at hand. Below, you will find the correspondence with the reader “One Year Later”.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Single Girl -

Next week is my one year anniversary. I’ve been thinking what I want to do with my guy but my friends seem to think that I’m not really in a relationship at all. He and I have been dating, we hang out and the sex is great. We don’t have titles but we are exclusive. SG, should I celebrate our anniversary or not?

-         One Year Later

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One Year Later -

I really need to know a lot more about the status of this “relationship” before I can give my thoughts on it. Firstly, you mentioned that you two don’t have titles. If a stranger asked do you have a boyfriend, what would your answer be? Secondly, what is keeping you two from being in a committed, labeled relationship? Third, do you love him? And most importantly, has he ever said “I love you”?

-         STSG

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Single Girl -

Your questions are like the same ones my friends ask me. Here are my answers:

1. I never say I have a boyfriend, but will say that I am dating someone exclusively. I only refer to him as either “my friend” or by his first name.

2. When we first started dating it was more of a friend with benefits type thing but grew into something more. We’ve spoke about us and what we want but he expressed early on that he wasn’t looking for a relationship. We’ve been going with the flow since.

3. Yes.

4. No.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One Year Later aka No Love -

I hope you peeped my new name for you. If your boo hasn’t told you he loves you after a year of being in whatever it is you two are in, chances are what you think you have is nothing at all. It’s a house of sand and fog build on a foundation of sand. All too often women will try to turn a booty call into a husband and the success rate of that transformation is .000009.

No love, don’t you dare play yourself talking about a damn anniversary. You’d be better of going out with friends in your “fuck me pumps” and find a man who wants you, all of you, for himself, outright. This guy has been getting the milk for free and you want to congratulate him for that? That is what your celebrating this mock “anniversary” will do.

Now, I’m not blaming this guy for doing what you’ve allowed him to do. You should take some credit in this mess. It’s clear that you want a real relationship and this is not it. Instead you decided to stick around hoping that he will see how great you are (which I am sure you are), change his mind about not wanting to be in a relationship and show up at your door with a bouquet of red roses professing his love.

Girl, this is not going to happen. What will happen is you will smarten up or have your heart broken so badly that you will have no choice but to leave. Once you are gone and he isn’t getting that attention from you he will come back saying how much he misses you and wants you. Don’t fall for it. This is the age old trick of “I’m a man and my ego is bruised because you aren’t here to stroke it.”

I hope I answered your question.

Be strong, be smart.

- STSG

]]> http://saysthesinglegirl.com/2009/dear-sg-should-i-celebrate-my-one-year-anniversary/feed/ 8 http://saysthesinglegirl.com/2009/are-you-the-dummy-in-this-relationship/ http://saysthesinglegirl.com/2009/are-you-the-dummy-in-this-relationship/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 20:43:18 +0000 STSG http://saysthesinglegirl.com/?p=422

It’s not that we want to know we are smarter than our boo, we just secretly want to think that we are.

I have this one girlfriend who only dates dumb guys. “They are easier to control,” she says. She trained, yes trained, on sorry sap to perm her hair. Every six weeks he’d willingly put on his plastic gloves and work the perm in her hair as she sat on a stool in her kitchen. She had another guy who argued with us during a game of Scrabble that the word “knife” did not start with a “k”. While the rest of the room gave her the screw face, she simply ignored him. When you purposely seek out a mate who is missing a few cards in their deck, what does that say about you?

Like my girlfriend said, it’s about control. Some people, smart or dumb, don’t want to be challenged. They want a partner who will go along with whatever they say. (We call these NBA wives, just kidding.)

If you aren’t the dumb one in the relationship, is it better knowing that the person you love isn’t too bright? Can you make it work despite their low I.Q.?

Not all dumb people are easy to spot. It usually take them working on a project, playing with a gadget, trying to master technology, filling out an application when you first catch a glimpse of their ineptness. You are shocked and disappointed. One of those moments was with the same “Cup of Tea” guy. For the life of him, he didn’t know how to e-mail using BCC. I would get e-mails with 200 other addresses on some chain letter type -ish. Finally, I told him. “You know, there is a way to e-mail without showing everyone’s e-mail address.”

“Really, I didn’t know that. Say, can you make me another cup of tea. Just the way I like it?”

Sigh.

]]> http://saysthesinglegirl.com/2009/are-you-the-dummy-in-this-relationship/feed/ 7 http://saysthesinglegirl.com/2009/dickmatized/ http://saysthesinglegirl.com/2009/dickmatized/#comments Mon, 11 May 2009 04:42:33 +0000 STSG http://saysthesinglegirl.com/?p=365

There is only one thing that I know can make a woman cut her hair, lose or gain crazy weight or insist folks call her by a new name she picked from a fortune cookie wrapper – dick.

I’m not talking regular d.i.. I’m talking the equivalent of California kush or hydro kinda magic stick.

Look over the course of history. While women have proven to be strong, leaders and rationale all coolness escapes once they’ve been turned out by a man who has managed to eff them so good they start to lose brain cells.

Cleopatra killed herself.

Monica Lewinsky kept a souvenir.

The Astronaut bitch drove for hours and pissed in diapers.

Lauyrn Hill…need I say more?

And the newest attention to the juicy got ‘em crazy crew is…Cassie.

For the last two years Cassie has been getting dicked down by Diddy. She’s been forced to keep it a secret. She’s probably being turned out and mind fucked by his egomaniacal ways. The child even released a song about it (”Official Girl”).

Recently, the beauty shaved her head. Not the whole head, just half. I guess to show she’s only half crazy.

Believe or not, this happens more often than not.

You can be dickmatized and be happy as well as sad.

When you’re happy your skin glows, you have a hop in your step and hear the birds sing, even if its night.

When you’re sad, you act out, become withdrawn and depressed. Wanting more than what you’re getting yet you don’t want to take the risk of losing all of your d-game access by bitching and complaining too much.

I love to tell the story of a girlfriend who was seriously dickmatized by a dude. None of her friends understood why she was with him but they assumed it was the way he laid it down.

It’s his birthday and she decides to throw him a party. However, there was a catch. Over the couple months they’d been dating, he never made it a point to introduce her to his friends. They were, themselves, planning a party for their homie. She decides to attach herself to what was essentially a group of his male friends kicking it at a bar/lounge. She insists her girls come to her man’s party.

Her girls get there. Its dead! 20 mins in, her man and his friends are slipping out the front door. She catches wind. Runs to the back kitchen to come out with a huge cake to try to get him to stay.

Doesn’t work.

The girls, seeing their dear friend slipping, decide to leave as well and take her with them. Her man and his friends hop in a cab. She, still holding the cake, insists that they drive behind the guys.

At a red light, she rolls her window down and starts begging this man not to leave her. They exchange words and as the light turns green she hops out, drops the cake in the street and jumps in the already full cab.

That must have been some voodoo if I do say so myself.

PSA: Dickmatization is an epidemic. It claims the sanity of millions of women each year. If you or someone you know is caught up please ask for help.

- STSG

originally published April 16, 2009 on

]]> http://saysthesinglegirl.com/2009/dickmatized/feed/ 4 http://saysthesinglegirl.com/2009/facebook-makes-stalking-easy/ http://saysthesinglegirl.com/2009/facebook-makes-stalking-easy/#comments Thu, 07 May 2009 14:05:04 +0000 STSG http://saysthesinglegirl.com/?p=345

Leave it to the desperate and horny to turn a social networking sites, originally intended for recent college grads and underclassmen into a meat market.

There’s nothing wrong with liking someone and hitting up their profile to see if they are single, employed and the like. Assuming the person is your facebook friend, you should already know this about them.

The real problem with FB cruisin’ (to use a rainbow term) is stalking those you don’t know at all or know but not really.

Manny called me one night perplexed.

“SG, this chick is stalking my FB page?”

“Well just block her.”

“That’s not going to do anything. We have other friends in common and she’ll just look through their pictures to find me, comment and send e-mails.”

“Do you know this chick?”

“Yeah, she was cool. She’s actually  friend of a girl I briefly dated but recently I noticed she was looking deep into my pics. Like she’d comment on picture #118 or any picture that had me and another girl in it.  SG, you know how many clicks that is. Its like she was rummaging through my garbage. I feel violated. ”

I felt Manny’s pain and offered some suggestions.

In turn, he wanted me to address this growing problem of FB stalkers.

Folks if you like someone or are interested in getting to know them just send them a message and build up to asking them out. Don’t you know how foolish you look commenting on picture #225 or seeing them in real life and quoting some wall convo they had with someone else?

Under any circumstances are you allowed to question someoneon about their FB interactions:

“So who’s the chick who wrote she can’t wait to see you on your wall?”

It doesn’t matter how slick you are with your question the impression is the same–you have nothing before to do than watch their every move.

I had an ex hit me up about a pic of me on FB: “SG, I didn’t know you were seeing someone.  Who’s dude with his arm wrapped around you?

“Excuse me? Since when did you start jockin’ my FB page?”

Needless to say I blocked him from my pics.

When used right, social networks are just for that socializing. Stop hiding behind your keyboards and make a move.

We are grown!

- SG

I got a text other night from a homegirl who wanted to see what I could do about helping her “he’s not my boyfriend, we’re just friends” a job.

INSERT SCREW FACE HERE

Homegirl: Hey SG, do you know of any accounting jobs. NotMyBF is looking to get into accounting and I want him to stay in close to me. He’s talking about moving but I figure if I can find him a job here he won’t leave.

DOUBLE SCREW FACE

I wanted to reply:

Bitch, he is not your man. Why are you acting like his agent?

Instead I wrote:

I don’t know of any opening but I’ll keep my eyes open. I didn’t know you were together now. Congrats.

Homegirl: We aren’t together, but we are exclusive.

Yeah, right. Whatever the hell that means.

Homegirl is making a huge mistake but at the time I didn’t (and still don’t) have the energy to tell her the error of her ways. She is trying to win a man by helping him map out his life. She thinks that by finding him a job she is going to lock him in.

The real question is whether he asked for her or if she offered her help/ doing this without his knowledge.

Let’s start with option #1:

He asked.

In order for a man to ask a woman to help him find a job he must be completely desperate or totally lazy. The male ego won’t allow him to admit to his woman that he needs help. Men don’t even ask for directions much less employment. It says that he is not capable of handling his own. Yet, if he did ask it means he knows you will go above and beyond for him. It is something you have exhibited before and this time he is willing to take advantage of it. But this in no way means he is going to stick around or feel indebted to you. Don’t be surprised if when he gets the job he starts working so much you don’t see him. Before you know it, he’s pushing you to the side.

She offers / She does this behind his back

This is the classic cause of a woman “doing too much”. He’s not your man and you aren’t married to him. Outside of keeping your ears and eyes open for when something becomes available that is nothing more you should do. All this texting me at odd hours just to help you keep your dick supply close is a bit much don’t you think. I made the mistake of trying to Joe Jackson a man I was dating—calling up people, making appointments, working on dude’s resume. No, I wasn’t his “girl” but I wanted him to see how good of a cheerleader I could be. Didn’t work and in the end I played myself.

Before you start throw hate, I’m not saying that a woman should help her man out. But the key words are…HER MAN.

It’s bad enough that he is getting the cow and the milk for free but now you giving up her time and energy. He isn’t invested in you nearly as much as you are in him. Situations like these never end up well. If he does stick around it is because it’s been years and he give you time served points, puts a ring on it cause he realizes that he used you up and no one else will take his bullshit demands.

Hey, but like I said, I’ll keep my eyes open.

- SG

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