Open Letter To...Myself

Dear Chris,

How's it going? I know you're sitting in the house chillin' on a Saturday night. That's fine, there's nothing wrong with that. Damn glad you got the Fourth Season of Martin this weekend, watching In Living Color 1-through-4 was getting dull. I guess that's why we need to talk, blood. You've been on your own for just about seven months now and you're still single, still by yourself and can't find decent people worth keeping in your life. We've gotta fix that.

You seem to think there's some sort of problem with being selective of who you want to deal with and what you want out of certain things, and that's not cool. As one of all humans God created, you have a right to anything positive that you desire, so why not be selective? Yeah yeah, I know you're gonna say "but how I can be selective when I'm darkskinned and a heavyset guy?" Uh, you've been around someone who's three times your size, nowhere near as nice, intelligent and funny as you, and that person's married. Come on now.

When a friend tells you that you are damned hilarious, embrace it. Women LOVE to laugh. With all the drama going on in the world, women don't want to talk to a guy who can't liven things up. Your timing on your jokes, your impersonations, everything about your sense of humor is brilliant and best of all, natural. It's IN YOU, my dude. You don't have to work to be funny, that's a GIFT FROM GOD in itself!

You may not get physical compliments from every woman you run across, but the ones who have dropped them on you to date have been for the most part sincere. Most chicks aren't that cruel to where they'll call a guy handsome and then retract that compliment and replace it with insults. The ones you've run across that have done that? Well, they're just stupid, shallow, immature and ignorant low-class skanks that will get theirs eventually, if they haven't already. With the era of the Independent Woman in full swing, the WORST thing you can do is tell a girl how to think or take the decision out of her hands. If she's giving off a positive vibe, FEED off of that, and who knows where it'll go?

This friends thing? Your fault. Yep. Mhm. All you, sir. Only because you let yourself get roped into a situation you detest by either being way too down on yourself or being too chicken to speak up and say what you want. Hell, you do BOTH at the same time without knowing. Get over that fear of rejection and start telling women what you want. If it's sex? Fine. Knowing most women won't go for that, you'll just have to deal with the no's. Even still, you know we haven't been a virgin since the morning hours of April 6, 2001, right? O.K. then, let's act like we've been there before, shall we?

And if you want to get to know a woman, you're going to have to stop with the faux-mack mentality of not paying for a date. That whole "Why spend money on a woman that's gonna screw someone else," spiel is defeatist thinking. How about you put your best foot forward, and if you're lucky, hell, you might find the adoring, nurturing, caring, crazy about Chris love you dream of every time you lay down and close your eyes.

More importantly than all that, I have to ask this question; where is the love...for you? Come on man, we've made it through 26 years of life so far, with hopefully many more to come. We've grown up in the ghetto of Wilmington, Delaware and left without a mark on us, we've survived educational and personal disappointments to at least get started in what we want to do in life and dammit, we survived 365. Of course we're still trying to get under 300 and stay, but it doesn't seem like such a big hill to climb, now does it?

Bottom line? We're not getting any younger. With the Lord's will, we will see some more time on Earth, and I hate being alone, not when I know there are people out there who would love to know us. We have to be selective in who we want around us and devise a plan to meet people that fit our interests. Now you did get a stimulus check, which caught you caught up on an important bill. No reason not to take your black ass to the Borders in Waldorf and hang out a little bit now. You've got to kick it where like minded people are. You love to read, you love thinking, why not meet a smart woman instead of hooking up with hoodrats and batshit crazy older women? Hmmm.

You can do this, Chris. You're smart, you're focused, committed, talented, funny, aware and you've got it going on. If no one else believes that, you've got to believe it, because I do, and the Man Upstairs does too. Why not be who he created you to be?

Love Always,

Chris.