I guess this post is mainly geared toward men, but I guess women can chime in and get in where they fit in, because it may be applicable to y’all as well.
Have you ever been just hanging with one of your best male friends and it feels EVAR so slightly like a date? Well, I have. I got a homeboy out in Birmingham, and it’s only 2.5 hours from Atlanta and that’s cool just to get away from the ATL sometimes just to hear myself think. I went out there last time for Thanksgiving, and I remember just in killing the time between hooking up with his friends or going to the strip club, we’d be at the mall walking around. It wasn’t until we stopped in a furniture store that I said to myself “WTF?!?!? This feel like something me and Uppity Negress would be doing!” I didn’t give it much thought. He had invited some people over that night, we cooked, everything went okay. Great Thanksgiving. End of story.
Then Christmas came around.
Another friend who I had played baseball with back in undergrad who was up in Chicago for Christmas break asked me to roll out with him to the mall. I was like cool. I hadn’t seen him and he always be gettin’ on me for acting brand new when I come back to Chicago and don’t hit him up. So I drove over to his spot and we took his car out to the mall. He actually went to the mall to get some earrings for like two or three of the chicks that he was talking to at the time. I’m not sure what it was, but just something about walking up and down the corridor just felt like….well….a date!
Or maybe it was the contact high I had gotten from him smoking in the car the entire way there all the way from East 79th to Cicero Ave.
I’m just curious as to whether it’s just me or is this some weird phenomena experienced by others. I’ve been out with plenty of my other male friends and it’s never felt like a date—AT ALL. And please understand that both of the guys that I was talking about are masculine dudes who are in love with the opposite sex and don’t mind letting you know that—and the same goes for me as well. So, I was curious as to why the one-on-one interaction left me feeling as such. Most certainly in group settings it’s not the case.
Also to the female readers, have you ever experienced that with one of your girls when it’s just you and her that go out? Is it really just one of those “no homo” phenomena that takes place and no one ever talks about it. I mean, could you even remotely imagine me bringing this up with one of my friends?!?!?! The subject is so taboo in all male environments. Our way of dealing with our issues and problems, as single young black males is often times going out with ya boys and getting tipsy at the least.
Honestly, I’m not sure how to approach this. I’m sure of my friends’ sexuality and I’m quite sure about my own, but those two random occurrences just totally threw me for a loop. Is this just a case in how weirdly socialized we really are here in Western culture or is it just some weird unspoken bond shared between black males that’ll probably remain tacit until the end of the world.
Question: So, is it really possible to go out on a “date” with ya boy or for females go out on a “date” with ya girl and not even know it?
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