CUT OPEN, HUNG OUT TO DRY.

I’ve been lying to myself all these years.

I’m not easygoing. I’m not reasonable. I’m not as anti-discriminatory as I thought I was. In fact, I’m impatient, have unreasonable expectations and, as I now know, extremely choosy. And it only took one girl to show me that.

In this very blog I’ve stated that I can get with anyone, any type of girl that is. Time and again I’ve expressed my open-mindedness, about how the stuff between the ears is what really mattered and that everything else was inconsequential.

Which begs the question: Why was I on the Bilaz Train® for the longest then? It’s not that there wasn’t anyone who tickled my fancy, or I theirs, for that matter. It was the gut. If there’s anything I trust, it’s gut-feeling. Call it that or intuition, or conscience, or even the Holy Ghost, but it never lets down.

So I gave up the casual conquest in place of someone with some real gray matter. Of course there were the inevitable slip-ups, [a.k.a. Blame it on the a-a-a-alcohol] but I never once convinced myself that I should be with anyone. Sure, I knew a number of smart and beautiful women, some of whom might’ve liked [or despised] me, but I’d not commit. Shoot, there wasn’t even any nookie involved. Lord knows I wanted to, but I’m grown enough to know that nothing’s the same after sex; kinda like skydiving – no getting back on the plane. The complications, and subsequent disinterest, that comes after sex with someone you don’t really care for isn’t worth it.

So I resigned myself to the idea that maybe, just maybe, relationships are destined to be cyclic: meet someone, break up with them, swear off relationships for a spell, and then move on to someone else. And it was like that for the longest, until the pimp that is fate bitch-slapped me right across the face, reminding me that I really didn’t know sh*t.

I met the aforementioned girl a good while back. When we first met it wasn’t explosive at all. She just boldly looked me in the eye and coolly said hi back. I couldn’t help but notice tho that she looked real good, but I didn’t linger on that. Matter of fact, for the next couple of years we pretty much ignored each other and only saw each other a couple of times.

Now, like a lot of men, I suspect, I can hardly remember anything in explicit detail. Shoot, I can hardly remember what I had to eat yesterday. But for some reason I could remember everything about this girl, everything. I’m talking about what she wore, what she said and when she said it, how she wore her hair… everything. Of course, I didn’t – or wouldn’t – wonder why she was the sole exception; I’m pretty good at not thinking about stuff, especially stuff that could leave me all sprung and miserable.

Sometime last year, by some rather unfortunate circumstances, we were forced to converse on the regular to try and figure some stuff out. It was the strangest thing, but the more we spoke the more I wanted to speak to her. Anyone that knows me knows that I, unfortunately, don’t like talking on the phone. But I now find myself constantly checking the phone, listening out for that personalized ringtone. Good Lawd, I’m sprung!

I thought I wasn’t choosy, like I’d written earlier, but if I’d been given the chance to design the ultimate frame, she’d still look better. Lord knows I love that tall, slender frame. Or maybe it’s the smile. Or maybe it’s her pride, her obstinacy; she can be so chill, but will turn right around and rip me a new one when I’m grating on her nerves. Or maybe it's because I know that, despite her oft professed affection for me, she’d be just fine without me. No, I know what it is: her passion; she’s passionate about everything she does, likes or dislikes. Bottom line, with her there’s never a dull moment and truthfully, that’s all this cat here needs.

I guess what I’m really saying is that, though I'm a couple of days early, Happy Valentine’s Day, baby girl.