So I recently started going out with this new girl, Huggy (so named because of her penchant to *just* hug me for hours at a time). Huggy is petite, pretty, and a little on the zany side. Now I don’t normally do zany, but Huggy is one of the more entertaining girls I have gone out with in a while and I genuinely enjoy hanging out with her. Any girl who can fart and belch (not burp) and then flash her pearly whites at you is cool with me.Yesterday, on my way home from work Huggy calls me. She wanted to know if I could help her with her hair.

“Uh. Maybe. I dunno. Its possible. I guess. What do you need me to do?” I ask perplexed.

“Well a girl is coming over to do my hair but I need help to take out my weave before she gets here…”

WTH?!

“Woah! I don’t know the first thing about weavels missy… Trust me. You don’t want me near your hair!”

“Its ‘WEAVE’ not ‘WEAVEL’ and I just need you to help me find the threading to take it out because I can’t see back there.”

“Huh?! Thread?! They sew it in?! I thought they just used hair glue or braided it in with your real hair or something…”

Well Huggy eventually persuades me to come over and help her with her weavel.. I mean weave. The good news? I learned a decent amount about how weaves actually work, how they are put in, and I figured out a fairly quick way to get them out. The bad news? It took a little trial and error, and a few strands… ok clumps of Huggy’s hair to get to that point.

Poor girl.

Control. Its one of the most sought after intangibles in life. We all seek control in some (if not all) areas of our lives. Unfortunately, we don’t always get what we want.

I have been single now for a good three years and counting (has it been that long already?). Previous to my current interval of singleness I had been in three consecutive relationships spanning a period of roughly eight years. Each relationship had similar starts: boy meets girl… boy finds girl irresistibly attractive… boy prays to God to allow him to get with said girl in return for promising to be good for as long as he possibly can. My approach may have been slightly on the pathetic/desperate side but it worked every single time. Or mayhap God just really wanted me to start being good. Either way I ended up with the girl of my dreams (at the time) and never had to settle.

The last three years of being single have seen an unprecedented number of prospectives come and go; none of them triggering the need to negotiate or campaign favors with the man upstairs. During this time I have observed an interesting phenomena: the more control I seemed to have in my dealings with a woman the more interested she appeared to be in me. The consistency of the phenomena has prompted me to label it the law of attractive control.

The Law Of Attractive Control; the law states that once control is introduced to a relationship between a male, A and a female, B, the amount of control attained by A in the relationship is diminishingly proportional to how attractive they become to B. The converse is not necessarily true. Neither is the inverse or any other “verses”. *

Allow me to explain. As a man you may have wondered about the accuracy of the age old saying “nice guys finish last” as well as the penchant for women to gravitate towards guys who seemed to rank a little high on the “bad boy” scale. The Law Of Attractive Control explains away these seemingly confounding situations. Men who act aloof or don’t fall over themselves to please women tend to attract more women. Is it because they just don’t appear to be desperate? Is it that women feel the need to step up to the challenge of a guy who isn’t as in to them as they should be? Or is there something strangely charismatic about a guy who doesn’t act like the world revolves around a woman, but instead has other focal points in his life? A combination of all three? Whatever the reason… place a woman on a pedestal and you risk giving her too much control as well as reducing that masculine characteristic that the woman probably found attractive in the first place.

Now its important to note that this is a law of diminishing marginal returns. Meaning that enacting an increasing measure of control over a relationship will result in increasingly less desire for the relationship. Enacting too much control will have negative results. The law is not a license to be a jerk, or ignore your woman or love interest. It’s really only a reminder to not be a doormat.

Here are some tips on how to put the law to work for you:

1. Don’t be a punk.

Women can sniff out desperation and insecurity from a mile away. So don’t act desperate, pandering to their every desire or acting like they are doing you a favor by dating you. Don’t let her use her feminine wiles to get you to do ridiculously inconvenient things (like walking in the rain at 4AM in the morning to get coffee from Walmart). All that does is result in your being sexploited and in her losing respect for you while continuing to take advantage of you.

2. Sex is a two way street.

Apart from greed and ESPN, sex has historically been one of man’s greatest weaknesses. Women know they can control men with sex. But here’s the secret… your sexuality has worth too! More worth than women are willing to admit. Sure they will spite themselves to prove a point by denying you sex during an argument that has nothing to do with sex… but thats all a part of their attempts to control you. Turn the tables a little. Don’t always initiate sex or jump at every chance to have sex with her. The more she thinks she can get it any time she wants it is the less she will want it. Remember she has to earn it too.

3. Say no to pedestals!

Women love to be put on pedestals. But this really does not work to your advantage. Instead it gives off the illusion that they are some great prize that you must prove yourself worthy to attain. Not so. The RELATIONSHIP is the prize that you BOTH are seeking to attain and must both work at equally.

4. She isn’t always right.

Sometimes its just not your fault. Sometimes she’s just plain wrong. Don’t be afraid to tell her. A woman will respect you if you are man enough to stand up to her. Just remember to be consistent with this. It doesn’t work if you are man enough to stand up to her but then agree with everything that the lady with the huge rack at the gym tells you.

* The laws of relationships do not work, in any way, akin to the laws of science: They are not consistent across the board and often are complicated by a plethora of factors that usually end up nullifying the rule in and of itself. Beware.

“A generation gap is a popular term used to describe wide differences in cultural norms between members of a younger generation and their elders. This can be defined as occurring “when older and younger people do not understand each other because of their different experiences, opinions, habits and behavior.” The term first came into prominence in Western countries during the 1960s, and described the cultural differences between the Baby Boomers and their parents. Although some generational differences have existed throughout history, during this era differences between the two generations grew significantly in comparison to previous times, particularly with respect to such matters as musical tastes, fashion, drug use, and politics.” ~ Wikipedia.

I have been meaning to speak to my generation on this for some time now. I understood what generation gap was and why it occurred at a pretty young age. I would correctly label it as it made its rounds during my pre-teen years in the form of my mother screaming at me to turn off the “Goddamn boogah yaggah” music and listen to something positive. Like ABBA right mom? No. Never.

Strangely enough I was not alone in recognizing generation gap at an early age either. In fact I may have inherited the talent from my mother who explained to me that my grandmother’s generation hated Bob Marley and his amalgamation of conscious roots/rock steady with rock. “Rebel Music” they branded it and thus so did he. Yet once my mother became an adult she strangely lost the ability to recognize generation gap. Her Bob Marley became my Buju Banton and, like her parents before her, she was quick to dismiss the popular artists of my era as “lost and without morals”. I remember trying in vein to point out the hypocrisy of her actions every time I had to change the radio station during a long trip to the country or pull my pants up under my armpits because wearing them four inches below my navel was “unacceptable”. I vowed never to be like that. I would tolerate the generation after me.

So here I am: me and my peers rapidly approaching the 30s and life on the other side of the generation gap. And while for some the generation gap has mysteriously vanished, as evidenced by parents and older folk dressing and cavorting with and like those half their age, for others the gap is as wide as it was for my parents 20 years ago. Many in my generation shun top selling recording artists like 50 Cent and praise underground or neo-soul artists like Common and Jill Scott. Many of us have become like that old uncle who still wears his bell bottomed pants with butterfly-collared rayon shirts: unable to move with the times, and worse, unable to understand others moving with the times; garbed in new generation music that still appeals to our old generation tastes.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand and partake in the same nostalgic emotions that keep us attached to the familiar. But I can also appreciate how music evolves, flips, loops, and comes full circle. Today’s Souljah Boy/Crank It was yesterday’s Electric Slide and last week’s Mashed Potato. I may not like all the music out there today, and I appreciate the classics more than I ever thought I would, but I can also admit that the music of my age or my mothers age or the ages before that are no better than the music of today. Its just on the other side of that gap is all.

Is it me or is it noose season?! Whats with all the nooses?! After the nooses hung under the “white tree” in Jena, Louisianna, a noose was found hanging from a tree outside the University of Maryland’s Black Cultural Center, and another set of nooses found at Andrews High School in High Point, NC. Meanwhile, just 40 miles south of Jena, police arrested two persons driving around with nooses tied to the back of a truck and taunting protesters on their way back from the Jena 6 rally.

~ As taken from the Coo Yah! section.

I noticed her while playing indoor football (soccer for you Americans). She sat in the bleachers watching someone she knew play. I casually checked her out from a distance while I sat on the bench catching a breather: caramel-brown complexion, darkly sharp (or sharply dark?) features, athletic petite build, and a mega-watt smile.

Like most guys it was probably embarrassingly obvious that I was checking her out. Like most guys I hadn’t an inkling that she was doing the same. After three more days of me doing absolutely flippant soccer tricks, scoring acrobatic, but unnecessary goals, constantly finding reasons to change my shirt mid-game while sweat dripped down my mahogany-sculpted body (so I’m conceited… bite me), and her acting as if I were a piece of white lint on a white carpet, I finally got tired of the theatrics and just went and introduced myself.

Then it all came out:

“Oh! The first time I saw you I was like, ‘Who is that?!’”

“I stayed after all my games just to watch you play!”

“My favourite part was when you would change your shirt after the game!”

What’s wrong with women?! Why is it so hard to emote what you’re feeling? What’s the worst that could happen? Rejection? Is the fear of rejection that great? Is rejection somehow worse for women that it could possibly be for men?

I remember the first time I got rejected by a woman… er… OK… I probably can’t remember the first time. But the first time that I CAN remember being rejected was when Nicole Powell told me to “get lost!” at my annual high school barbecue. Of course that was because I had also accidentally spilled a plate of curry goat on her brand new, spotlessly, white Reeboks. Irrespective of why I got rejected I was understandably discouraged from approaching girls for awhile after that. Eventually I got egged into approaching a much older lady who worked as a cashier at a jewelry store. She had to have been at least 10 years my senior, but my “friends” told me she was a sure target and one even bragged of “getting some” from her before. I was young, so, after walking casually past the front of the store at least 18 times, I went in, tried to hit on her and quite rightly got my ego battered, bruised, and trod on… several times. While the immediate result was my ego on life support at the Kingston Public Hospital, the long-term results were actually beneficial: if I could summon the courage to approach a grown-ass woman like that, then approaching pubescent girls in my age group was a cake-walk… and after the verbal and physical assault I was put through on that fateful day there was nothing those high school girls could do or say to me that would remotely compare. I guess it kind of armored me, and, based on the actions of my other male cohorts, I would assume that they too had been similarly vaccinated against rejection.

Many women seem to lack this vaccination. As a result of this (in combination with societal pressure) many women seem to think that ignoring a guy is a good way to get his attention. Acting like you don’t notice him. Looking away quickly while playfully tussling your hair when he stares at you. Walking right past him without nearly a glance in his direction. Sitting down with your arms folded and that “don’t fuck with me today” look on your face. All of that translates to “not interested” to most guys.

But don’t worry. I am here to help… here is a list of things you can do that won’t quite throw you in front of the rejection bus, but will still get your intentions across:

1. Ladies… maintain eye contact. In fact, go out of your way to make eye contact with guys. Your eyes are the windows to your vagin… I mean souls. Also learn to be expressive with your eyes. Don’t just stare with a blank expression. Try to seem mischievous or pleasant or… drum roll… interested. If the guy does not make a move no one will be the wiser. And you can make up a ton of reasons for the let down: Intimidation. Shyness. Gayness.
2. Appear approachable. I know this one sounds tricky but its really not that hard. All you have to do is stop glaring like someone kicked your puppy all the time.
3. Just stand next to us. Do you know how many women I decided not to go talk to just because I did not want to lose my spot at the bar? Better yet order a drink right beside him. If he is interested you just gave him a great chance to prove it.
4. Dance by yourself as opposed to with your girlfriend. Dancing with your girlfriend only results in the interested guy gawking and wondering if he is witnessing some bona fide lesbo action in the making. Alternatively, dance with multiple guys while he watches. This will make him think you are approachable. Just don’t over do it. You don’t want him thinking you will dance with ANYBODY.
5. Find reasons to go off by yourself without your girlfriends in tow. Women are like wolves in a pack and can appear intimidating to some guys. Guys tend to hunt alone or with his one wing man… so straying from the pack a little can open up the opportunity for the guy (provided he is interested) to stalk his prey.