Stumbled upon a website today, Madamenoire, that features a slide show (headlined WHO’DA THUNK IT?) of 15 African-American women who married (gasp!) white men.
Shocking.
The whole thing is dumb and petty, and I clicked on it not because I care about mixed couples, but because I felt the need to blog about something dumb and petty. It also sparked a funny memory …
Back in 1995, when I was sad and alone and lonely, I dated a woman named Michelle. She was, physically, about 800 levels out of my league. Just drop-dead gorgeous. I actually first spotted her at a dance club, which is funny because: A. I’m America’s worst dancer; B. It was a 99.9-percent black club in Nashville (my career started at the local paper). So I’m out there on the dance floor, gritting my teeth, doing the ol’ two-step with a cross, when I see my friend talking to Michelle. Because I was always chickenshit around women (and because I was a gawky white guy in this all-black club), I didn’t have the nerve to approach at the time. However, my friend gave me Michelle’s number, and I called her up. We went out a few days later—miniature golfing.
Michelle was hot. Michelle was evil. Like, a bad person. Dismissive of people. Mean. Selfish. At one point, she hit her ball into the water, and she looked at me with a, “So, you’re getting that, right?” expression. Of course, I got it. Because, eh, Michelle was hot and I was 23 and desperate. I bought her dinner. Drove her home. Tried kissing her goodnight. Failed miserably.
We went out a second time. She was hungry; asked that we stop at the McDonald’s drive-thru. We did. She ate her burger, crumpled the bag and threw it out the window.
We never dated again.*
* I would like to say we never dated again because of the bag out of the window, and I’ve suggested that myriad times through the years. Truth is, we never dated again because she lost interest in me. Which made sense, because I wasn’t very interesting.
