FAKERY

There’s nothing as bad as lying to oneself. That, to me, is the ultimate treason. I’m somewhat accomplished in the art of lying to myself, as I recently realized. Since I’m pretty ordinary I’d like to think a lot of people go through the same stuff I do. But then again, maybe you don’t, and it’s all good.

I’m talking about fakery though, so let me not get sidetracked.

Fakery sucks. Coincidentally, the fakery thing came up while a friend and I were e-conversing. Well, not exactly a friend; more like someone who’s determined to be my friend. [Sorry friend; I couldn’t resist that one!]

The most commonly played fakery, I think, is between people that are either together or want to be together. Allow me to paint a scenario for you:

Dude meets girl. Dude likes girl. Girl likes dude back. They exchange numbers or emails. Dude keeps frontin’ like he doesn’t like girl that much, but the truth is that every time he sees her his belly feels like there’s ping-pong balls bouncing inside of it. He decides not to call girl for a couple of days coz he might seem too eager, though his thoughts are consumed by her. Two-three days later he calls her.

Girl too is seriously sprung, but like dude she’s frontin’. After they swap numbers and emails she waits. She checks her phone and email constantly, wanting to see whether dude will call. By the second day she’s a mixture of mild anger and resignation: Why the hell isn’t dude calling? I’m not even trippin’ about it but if he liked me he would’ve called by now. By the third day she’s like: For real dude’s not gonna call? Whatever then. Shoot, he wasn’t that fly anyway.

By the end of the third day dude calls her. He’s a little nervous. She’s glad he called but won’t show it, and instead allows a hint of nonchalance to creep into her tone. Dude starts wondering whether she’s feeling him; it’s almost as if she’s trying to terminate the conversation. The call ends in a few short minutes and as soon as both their thumbs hit the *end* button they’re both like: What the hell was that? You sounded like a freaking idiot!

Dude calls her up the following day, on a Wednesday. This time they’re both determined not to sound like idiots and the conversation flows easier, maybe because they got that first call out the way. He calls her again Thursday and the conversation’s even better, and they both go to sleep that night in their respective cribs feeling all warm inside.

Friday night, just as he’s about to call her, his boy comes thru and persuades him to go hang out. He really doesn’t want to but he succumbs. I’ll call girl tomorrow, no big deal, he consoles himself.
On the way out dude texts her: Going out 2nite. I’ll call u 2morrow.Gnight.
She responds a minute later: Goin out 2. Thats cool. Talk 2 u 2morrow then.
They both go out & rave, all happy and stuff.

Dude gets soooo wasted that night he decides to crash over at his boy’s house. He does. He wakes up late on Saturday and has a beer with his brunch. The Corona tastes so good, particularly since he’s thirsty as hell and the beer is so nice and cold, so he pops open another one. And another, and another. By 9pm he’s semi-wasted & ready to party again, and out he goes with his boy, and does it all over again.

Girl gets a little tore up Friday night but goes back to her crib and wakes up Saturday feeling aight. She runs errands and stuff and before she knows it its Saturday night already. Her girls want her to hit the club with them and even though she doesn’t want to, she takes one for the team and rolls with them. She keeps glancing at the cellie just to be sure dude didn’t call and miss her. He doesn’t call. On the ride back home she’s livid – and disappointed. And livid.

Dude wakes up Sunday feeling like his brain is loose inside his dome, thanks to the overindulgence the night before. He’s still at his boy’s house so he gets back to his own crib and spends the rest of the evening watching TV. Trying to, anyway, after which he’s like f*ck it, imma go to bed. And he does.

Girl’s still livid.

With the rising sun comes mental clarity and dude’s like shyyyyyyyyt, I was supposed to call her!!! He spends the rest of Monday constantly thinking about that. He knows she’s at school/work/wherever so he waits till evening to call her up.

Girl sees the phone ring, snatches up the phone to see if it’s him. It is, but she doesn’t pick up. If he really wants to talk to me he’ll call again, she rationalizes. And he does. She picks up this time, feigns sleepiness in her voice and says wsup.
I hope I didn’t wake you, he says. He really doesn’t care about that; he’s just glad she picked up.
You woke me up but that’s OK, she says.

He then proceeds to apologize for not calling her even when he’d said he would. That’s OK, she says, but they both know it’s definitely not OK. They speak for a while longer and girl says she’s gotta go back to her nap. They exchange goodbyes. Their thumbs hit their respective *end* buttons again and both their minds are racing, each trying to figure out what the other’s thinking.

That concludes my story, for now.

There’s only one word than can sum it all up: BULLSH*T!!!!

My thing is, stop frontin’. If you wanna call someone, do it! Stop waiting for the other one to call! There isn’t that much time in the world, for real.

And another thing: we dudes might love our chicks to death, but sometimes we don’t think about you at all. It doesn’t mean that we don’t care if we don’t call – not at all. It’s just one of those things hard-wired into the male psyche.

Now, if I had my way, my version of the story would be like:

Dude meets girl. Dude likes girl. Girl likes dude back. They exchange numbers and/or emails. They go out to eat or for a drink. Then they go back home to their respective cribs.
Dude calls when he feels like it, and she’s glad he called. Girl calls when she feels like it, and he’s glad she called. They make plans on when and where to meet next, to eat or drink. Or maybe go someplace else, or do something else. They enjoy each other’s company, and that’s all that really matters. Their friendship could metamorphize into something greater, or it couldn’t, but they don’t care; they just relish the time they spend together.

End of story.