Hello....is it me you're looking for?

The question comes up often when my well-meaning friends, associates and colleagues are kind enough to listen to my worrisome situations. A question that makes sense in the eyes of many, but has yet to be answered legitimately by yours truly. A question that needs to be answered if I'm ever going to get the ball rolling and start doing what normal people do, I think they call it dating.

"Chris....what type of woman do you like? What are you really looking for?"

I've never really figured that part out. Sounds really silly in the grand scheme of things, right? Well...take a walk with me. Y'all love to do that, right? Cool.

At first glance, I seem to be the (African) American dream in terms of what a single heterosexual male has to offer. College-educated, no children, a career that he enjoys, and his own apartment and automobile. However, at the risk of igniting Jam the realist (it's all love!), I will say that I think back to the Chris Rock special where he was like "Whaddya want? A cookie? 'I take care of my kids...' YOU SUPPOSED TO! LOW EXPECTATION-HAVING MOTHER****ERS!" So I don't hold myself up as being better than this man or that man because I did this and am currently doing that. Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of what I've accomplished so far, but I know it's not enough to keep a woman around for any length of time. Those are intangibles that merely serve to get her at least interested in talking to a man.

I think that's where the trouble for me begins because while I have those nice things going for me, I honestly feel that a woman who has HER stuff together could never be interested in me. The thing is, I know black women who've got it going on. My lady friends in Bloggerland and other places are beautiful, intelligent, educated, gainfully employed women who hold their own and don't need a man to survive. Yet and still, they are my friends and of course THEY'RE going to be kind to me...they care about a brother and if he can get it together personally. Who's to say a woman with their same characteristics, yet isn't familiar with me, is going to feel the same way? And everybody's like "well you should go where the women who've got it together hang out at!" And they would be right, but I end up being my own worst enemy because I don't feel I measure up aesthetically to what that type of woman, as dynamite as she is, prefers her mate to be.

So while shying away from women with careers, goals and homes of their own, I find myself chasing after women with multiple baby daddies, living at home with their parents, couldn't care less who Toni Morrison is and use slang and sailor talk all day long. While I may get lucky in a physical sense with them once in a blue moon, most of the time, those are the women who are the ones calling me out of my name and trying to play me for a fool. Now I know you're saying, "well Chris, wouldn't it make sense to stay away from these skip skap skallywop skanks?" (You can thank Vdizzle for that terminology, LOL) Yes it would, but there's that self-imposed wall again.

You only go after what you feel you deserve and/or what you think is easiest to get. It's like that age-old e-mail forward that says the best apples are at the top of the tree, but guys won't climb because they're afraid they'll fall and get hurt (send this to every girl you know who is a good apple and you'll have good luck in a week!...kidding). I'm that guy who is aware of where the good fruit is, but MAN, those branches are a long way up there. So I reach for the fruit that's been there a minute, but is indeed within reach and then I have the nerve to be surprised when the doggone thing is spoiled and sour. Not a good look.

So the obvious solution is one that I've struggled with since at least 16 years old...find some self-esteem and get out there and go after real women, not to mention stop trying to force the square peg in the round hole in terms of sex jumping off. I'm ready to start that process. I owe that much to myself.

So I guess as of July 1st 2008, Chris is looking for self-love, self-acceptance, self-esteem and self-confidence. Then he'll start trying to identify where the good women are hiding. Then again, who's to say they've been hiding at all? Maybe I've just been hiding from the group of women who've been waiting for me to come to my senses for quite sometime now.