Sometimes I Trip On How Happy We Could Be Read online

  “Why would I not want to be with you? You’re not making sense. Is it an ex?” Jeremy tried his best to understand, but I was too broken. I could never trust his affection because I couldn’t see myself as worthy of it. He could keep telling me how beautiful I was, that he loved making me laugh, but it wouldn’t be enough.

  For a long time, I kicked my own ass over how I handled him. Maybe I should’ve let him love me into loving myself, like in the movies, but I had already used one white boy. I didn’t want to use another one to pull myself out of the mire of depression and low self-esteem. I frequently wondered if I had done the right thing by Jeremy, and I promised myself that if I ever had another opportunity to date a white guy, I’d give it a proper chance.

  * * *

  Two years after leaving grad school again and moving back home, I asked friends to meet me at a comedy club for my birthday. At this point, I had stopped hiding and was hoping I could meet the world halfway. At the table behind us, there was a white guy you’d overlook in a crowd. He was about five ten, with a compact, tight little body, a crew cut of dark-brown hair, and glasses. He was so plain he could’ve been either a mouse or a serial killer, but something about him set off my Good Lover Radar™. I mentioned him to my friend Lee, and she went over and somehow got us to introduce ourselves to each other. It was very much like high school, but I was drunk—and excited about setting my white-boy karma record straight.

  Devon and I exchanged texts and spoke on the phone for hours. We met for lunch, then planned our first big date—a night at a local film festival. While we were standing in line, a woman at another booth gestured Devon over and gave him free tickets. Once we had our seats inside the theater, Devon went to get snacks and came back with free drinks. Twice in one night, someone had given him free shit.

  “Do you know any of those people?” I asked, a little bewildered.

  “Nah,” he said. “I guess they were just being nice.”

  Struck that his white male privilege had benefited us both that night, I settled in to watch a collection of short films, feeling stunned yet smug. This was probably the only time I wasn’t resentful of white men getting stuff handed to them for no reason. One of the reasons I typically stayed away from white men is because they often pretended to be obtuse about how their whiteness and maleness helped them get ahead in life. They get offended when you bring up their race, because they bring up race only in negative contexts, so they assume everyone else does, too. Who would want to have to convince someone they’re intimate with about racial disparities and privilege? It’s too exhausting.

  After dinner, we went to a fancy hotel in downtown Nashville. As we walked past displays of country music singers’ guitars, boots, and outfits, I started to get nervous. We had planned the hotel stay, so I wasn’t surprised, but I had started thinking about my body. Would it be too much, too Black for him? I don’t wear perfume often, preferring to wear scented lotions and oils. In the hotel bathroom, I freshened up and wondered if I smelled too fruity, like a teenager high on Bath & Body Works. I was too old to smell like glitter fruit. Would he even be able to get it up?

  Back in the bedroom, I confessed how nervous I was. He tried to kiss me, but I couldn’t get into it. His thin lips made me think of Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote. Would I ever solve the mystery of what the hell I was doing with my life that had led me here? I turned my head to hide the image, and Devon did good work on my neck before easing down, down, down. When he finally made it to Lady Marmalade and got in one good lick, I gasped, “Oh, what the fuck!”

  I have been blessed with some very skilled and gifted lovers, and my Good Lover Radar™ is about 90 percent accurate. Part of my healthy appreciation for sex is because of how pleasurable it’s been for me most of the time. And when I say this white boy did something to me that made me question what kind of head I’d received prior, I want my praise for him and his skill set to be clear. After my initial shock, my mind went blank. Then the writer in me crawled through the blankets of bliss, and I tried to pay attention so I could be precise when I told my girlfriends what he did.

  The overall sex was good, too. Average penis, solid rhythm. He did what I needed him to do, and we had about two or three rounds before falling asleep. In the morning, I was hoping for more, but he made it pretty clear that he had to get back to his dog, and the shine wore off. As I rolled my body out of bed, I rolled my eyes as well. White people and dogs, man.

  We tried to make arrangements for another date, but it became clear that he was dodging. The mojo that had been hibernating inside me for the last few years had woken up fully and completely. It had pushed back the curtains and blasted me full of sun. How dare he not want more of this? What was wrong with him? I was angry. My mojo was pacing a hole in my mind. Maybe I had been terrible. Maybe the years of inconsistent sex and depression had killed my sexuality.

  Devon is the only guy I’ve ever had sex with who didn’t make a concerted effort for more, and it fucked with me. Boyfriends from high school, men who haven’t seen me naked in almost twenty years, still tried to get in my pants. And I barely knew what I was doing back then! So why was this one dude tripping? Why couldn’t I make anything work with white men? Not that my record with Black men was stellar…

  I became obsessed with dating a white man, and not because I thought a white man would save me from spinsterhood or because I thought Black men were terrible. It was because if I could overcome the challenges presented in an interracial relationship, I could conquer all of my relationship issues. Right?

  * * *

  I tried to date the old-fashioned way. I made an effort to go out more, but I still wasn’t having much luck. Finally, I decided to try online dating, just to get my feet wet. I’d done the Match.com and eHarmony thing before, but it never felt right. Now there were apps like Tinder and OkCupid, where matching with someone felt more like a game. The Black men sent me messages that were clearly their “Sunday best.” They told me how they needed a queen and were looking to get married. They marveled at how someone as pretty as me could even need a dating app. They sent immediate pleas to meet up and lick my toes and/or ass. The white men asked if I would dominate them or let them dominate me. Some white guys offered to suck dick to prove their worthiness to me. And almost all of them, regardless of race or ethnicity, failed miserably at spelling.

  I wasn’t fooling myself that I’d find the love of my life on OkCupid, but I had a few dates with a collection of white guys. There was the older man who looked like a photograph of Dudley Moore that someone had licked. When he reached out to me, it was with that old gambit “Hey, I’m in town for business and would love for you to be my tour guide.” I went back and forth on how to respond to him, but finally I said, “Fuck it,” and gave him a list of demands. I wanted to be worshipped. I did not want to reciprocate. He eagerly agreed. I made sure my friends knew where I would be, then met him for drinks downtown.

  We had a surprisingly solid connection. Our conversation flowed. We talked about movies, television, and literature. We shared opinions about the best places to live and visit in the country, and we were able to make each other laugh. It takes a lot to get me comfortable enough to have a smooth conversation. In the hotel room, the topics became sexual, of course. I gave him my list of limits, and he asked clarifying questions. He was respectful and accommodating. I felt very lucky that I didn’t end up with a racist sex murderer.

  We got down to business…Well, after my weekend with Freaky Todd, the name I used when I talked about him to my girlfriends, I started to believe that white men’s true superpower is their ability to give head. Are reparations in white boys’ mouths? I wouldn’t say yes, but I wouldn’t say no either.

  At one point in the night, I was limp, warm tears of praise leaking quietly from the corners of my eyes. He had a huge dick and lightly complained that I was too tight. It had been a while, but I’d been with men who had larger dicks and they’d never complained about snug
ness. In fact, they seemed to love it. Regardless, Freaky Todd seemed to think my fit was a result of nervousness or anxiety so he went down to get me to relax, and I felt no reason to stop him.

  Freaky Todd tried to get me to stay over every night of his stay, but I always refused. He was a cuddler, and after his orgasms, he would wrap around me like we were reenacting the Lennon-Ono Rolling Stone cover, his knee raised over my belly, arm curving across my chest. He constantly trailed his fingers along my skin and complimented my softness. He even got me to confess my most secret sexual fantasy. (No, I’m not sharing it here.) When I told him, he laughed, pulled me in close, kissed my cheek, and called me a delight. He said he hoped I’d find someone who would bless me with that fantasy, because I deserve pleasure in everything. I felt genuinely moved. I wasn’t expecting something that was so clearly and explicitly a hookup to be so intimate.

  Then there was a former traffic reporter for a radio station. He was tall and slim, but he was also cheap. His sex talk sounded like he was still on the air. His voice was booming yet soothing, with oddly accented enthusiasm. I didn’t think people actually said “Oh yeah, baby” during sex in real life, but he did. He frequently mentioned his white dick during sex. If I hadn’t already told him I hated the word “cock,” he would have been a porn parody. Whenever he would say something like “Look at my white dick in your hands, baby,” I had the impression that something about my Black pussy would be next, and that kind of talk is not allowed in my proverbial bedroom. He’d bring up his whiteness, and I’d go still and quiet, so he eventually got the hint and shut up. I ended that over text shortly after we became physically intimate: “We don’t seem compatible, but thanks for trying.”

  * * *

  Ultimately, white men are still men. Fresh haircut confidence is universal. They all take food into the bathroom because they’re gross. They all think they deserve a model with a doctorate in a STEM subject who’s also a chef and painter, who can deep-throat, and who won’t ask them to explain why they’ve disappeared for a week. But every now and then, there’s someone who saves you the last bit of chocolate ice cream from a container of Neapolitan or who buys you books of poetry, and it doesn’t matter that he’s white. Yes, I have to bring my own washcloths or constantly repeat that I don’t want anal sex, but I do deserve pleasure in all things, and if that comes with blue eyes and a high tolerance for mayonnaise and cold weather, then so be it.

  It makes a cruel kind of sense that the next time I fell in love, it was (1) with a white guy and (2) with someone I could never tell I loved him: The Russian. He was my favorite. We went on hikes and to the opera. He cooked for me. When he wanted to get frisky, he’d say, “Come sit next to me.” If I wanted to leave before he wanted me to, he’d say, “Well, have something to eat first,” and I’d end up spending the night again. He had red hair, muscular, pretty thighs, and strong, wide hands. He constantly played new music for me and made me drink kefir when I was constipated and growled when we made out and bought me Cara Cara oranges and emailed me GIFs that featured Keanu Reeves, because he knew how much I loved that monotone fool, and watched Frasier like I watch Frasier—over and over yet like it was the first time—and once spent an hour breaking my car free of ice and snow. He was newly divorced and never wanted to get married again or even have another serious relationship, so when I fell for him, I tucked my love in chess pies and greens and trinkets from Etsy and kisses against his forehead.

  He was a darling man, but I listened to what he said and not what he did, so I never told him with words how I felt about him. The Russian was also a smart and observant man, so I’m sure he knew. When our untitled relationship began to make him feel something he didn’t want to feel again, he was kind in his leaving but gone all the same.

  The unspoken love I felt for this man refreshed me. And it scared me. It had taken so long to get to him, to have a balanced exchange of affection, trust, and respect. The fact that he was white added an extra layer to our discussions about current events, to be sure. Yes, he definitely said things that bordered on offensive, and I’d have to check him, but then he’d make me soup from scratch when I was sick. He’d Skype me from across town when he was drunk and feeling silly. I would complain of being cold, and he’d place his warm hands on my back. Those things had nothing to do with race and everything to do with a generous and thoughtful kindness we should all be so lucky to experience.

  I don’t know if dating all these white boys has helped me become a better partner, but falling for The Russian helped me stop worrying about the what-ifs. What if I can’t escape this pattern of attracting men who don’t want anything long-term, at least not with me, or what if there is no one after him? Well. Yes. That’s the thing, isn’t it? Regardless of the duration, there will be no one else who cares for me in the same way, so I learned to stand firmly in the singularity of love, unspoken yet clear and worth every moment it took to arrive.

  Janet Jackson and the

  All-Black Uniform

  My parents liked to send messages to each other via song. The entire song didn’t necessarily have to apply to whatever situation was going on in their marriage. The chorus was the most important part, even just a line or two. My father would come home after being God knows where when he should’ve been at work, and my mother would cue up “It’s Over Now” by Luther Vandross. It was a song about someone suspicious that his lover was cheating. The chorus went: “You did me bad / It’s over now / You treated me so bad / It’s over now…” I don’t know if my mother really thought he was cheating. I just think she wanted to let him know she knew he had not been doing what he should have, and she was over it.

  Depending on my father’s mood, he’d give as good as he got, usually with Rick James’s “Cold Blooded.” The song was about how sexy Rick’s lover was and how he hoped she’d return his attention, but my father focused on that repeated chorus of “She’s cold…blooded.” He wanted to call her cold because she couldn’t tolerate the way he’d neglect his responsibilities. I got to hear a lot of good music because of my parents’ coded fighting.

  In 1986, Janet Jackson’s album Control began to take the world by storm, and the eponymous single rocked my home. My mother’s passive-aggressive game skyrocketed. Janet was twenty and ready to establish herself as more than Michael’s little sister. She wanted to show the world her independence, talent, and maturity. My mother was thirty-two. She’d never lived alone. A teenage mother, she went from her childhood home, following the rules of the grandmother who raised her, into what would become an abusive marriage, and she’d never had a chance to establish her own identity. Although Janet was much younger with a vastly different childhood, I think my mother connected to Janet’s journey of finding and asserting herself. And Mama was losing patience with my father, his addictions, his abuse, his irresponsibility. She had been working as a nurse at the same clinic since before I was born. In every corner of her life, she was taking care of someone—her patients, her children, and her trifling-ass husband. Mama was tired and ready to gain control over her life.

  Enter Janet Jackson’s third album and its lead single.

  If my mother started playing “Control,” it was for a few reasons:

  It annoyed my father.

  She was giving herself a musical pep talk.

  She was letting my father know that for all his abusive bluster, she was the decision maker in the household.

  The album was banging, and no one could deny that.

  When Control came out, MTV and BET played music videos around the clock. Janet released a video with every single. She danced her heart out, creating choreography that’s been passed all the way down to the TikTok generation. In most of the videos from this album, Janet wears all-black attire. I was eight years old at the time and didn’t think much about it until I overheard someone say that black was slimming and that Janet was trying to hide her chubbiness.

  * * *

  I don’t know when my body image issues began,
but they feel as part of me as my moles. When I was a little girl, I was so skinny and small people always thought I was younger than I was. As a tween, my worst fear was that someone would say I looked like a boy. All those fast-developing friends magnified my lack of curves. I’d stand in front of the mirror, wondering when my hips and breasts would arrive. My mother laughed at me and told me I wouldn’t want them when I got them, but I was impatient and envious.

  A late bloomer, I envied Janet’s all-black uniform and how it was supposed to hide her shape from the world. I wanted that. I needed to hide. I didn’t have the shape a Black girl was supposed to have, so I wanted to make myself invisible.

  Wearing fashionable, pretty clothes with bright colors and interesting patterns got compliments, but it also had people looking at your body. I didn’t want to bring any more attention to my lack of breasts or whatever else I thought was the marker of moving into womanhood. So when junior high hit, and my parents finally divorced, about three years after Control came out, I started adding more and more black clothing to my wardrobe.

  Mama hated it. She loved to stand out—with animal prints and colorful earrings. She wore slips with denim skirts. She dressed in a way that let everyone know she was both woman and lady. My sister was her girly girl, but I hated the pinks and flower prints my mom tried to dress me in. I wanted plain T-shirts and black jeans and black sweatshirts and black dresses. All I could think about was “Black is slimming,” so if I had nothing to begin with, maybe in all black I could totally disappear.

  * * *

  As my parents’ relationship withered, Janet’s career as an independent woman and artist grew. Her waistline shrank. Her clothes became more colorful and covered less flesh. My body changed, too. I got hips and a little bit of boobs and a healthy portion of ass, but I still wanted to hide. The ass brought too much attention. I understood why. It was the perfect shape to welcome faces. (It still is; there’s just a bit more of it now.) Guys I dated wanted me to show off—but not too much. I remember my college boyfriend and me leaving a friend’s house where ten or so dudes were “making music” (read: smoking weed and playing video games) and he scanned the room to make sure no one was watching my ass in the tank dress I was wearing. I can’t front. It had a really nice jiggle back then.