Once upon a time… okay it wasn’t really that long ago… I was a certified asshole. I might have fell short of Jersey Shore alumnus status but I definitely had enough traits to make the list.
Now, no one aside from my mother and a few ex-girlfriends, (under their breath and walking away), have ever called me an ass within reasonable earshot, but an honest appraisal of my evolution (journey) would lead me to assess that I voluntarily took on the characteristics far more than necessitated.
My childhood heroes were Malcolm and Muhammad. Though innately reserved, I carried the bravado and brashness of someone who wouldn’t be relegated or defined by the stereotypes and self-fulfilling prophecies of a young Black and Latin man growing up in the hood.
Pride and self-awareness are not a catalyst for a-holism. The oversimplified causal connection would be youth and immaturity, coupled with an over inflated sense of accomplishment stemming from higher education goals achieved and getting a little bit of money. For the first time I had options and now my grandma wasn’t the only one calling me “baby”.
I’m not sure if this was the typical overcompensation of the underdog overachieving…perhaps it was to a degree. I wasn’t particularly insecure (though that is based on such a subjective scale. I am not sure any of us are actually impervious to insecurities). I will admit to overcompensating confidence. Most of the time it was real, others it masked uncertainty. Too often it came out as arrogance, though anyone who really knows would argue for my self-deprecating sense of humor.
Initially self-awareness sucks. It makes you question things… most for the better, sometimes unnecessarily. Ultimately if you are lucky and really honest it brings positive change and growth. It’s never easy to admit to flaws, though we implicitly understand we all have them. It’s easier to blame our parents, teachers, surroundings, skin color or other’s skin color for our deficiencies. Of course external factors contribute, but ultimately, generally, we are the deciding factor.
My love and respect for my mother is so pervasive that by default I have had an innate love and respect for all women. However, when pushing myself beyond superficial honesty, I had to come to terms that my actions did not always consistently reflect that love and respect. My mentor John Hoffman used to ask me as a teen over and over “Rich, why should you never run for a bus?”… (Now anyone fortunate enough to have ever met John prior to his marriage and kids knows that he was Peter Pan, possessing the innocence and naiveté of a kid, as well as the corniness) His rhetorical question was answered with his own laughter… “Cause there will always be another one.”
I met John when I just turned 13. The first two hundred times I heard him ask the question I am pretty sure he was being literal. NYC public transportation was my only method of transport and I really think his reference had little figurative relevance. Over time I took it to mean other things, particularly when it came to women.
As a man, when you think of women as disposable or as objects that if you miss one don’t chase cause there will always be another…well there’s a definite cause and effect to such thinking. What makes dumb sayings and clichés resonate so much with people is that there is always an element of truth to the statements. On its face, its healthy to look at all people to some degree as interchangeable. People on all levels of our relationships come and go and its more prudent to understand that the loss of anyone in our lives can often be replaced by the inevitable addition of someone new. However, oversimplifying women as objects that shouldn’t be chased because there will always be another is a stretch that I didn’t need to take.
The defense mechanism, conscientious or not, eventually became the dominant influence in my interaction with women. I was a cocktail of confidence, dismissiveness and Uptown Swag, validated with a hip hop soundtrack “When the Remi’s in the system, ain’t no tellin’ Will I F’ em will I diss ‘em, that’s what they be yellin’ I’m a pimp by blood, not relation Y’all be chasin’, I replace them, huh?”
Loving hip hop or reciting its lyrics doesn’t make someone a misogynist, but the soundtrack to my life was in fact reflective of my life, or at least part of my way of thinking at the time. My life was fast. I was in several long-term relationships. I liked being in those relationships because they provided some stability to the otherwise madness of my lifestyle. However, I realized that while I fell short of fascist dictatorship, the background thought of being young and eligible with plenty of other perceived options, left me living Trump’s version of democracy: take it or leave it aka my way or the highway.
When I was single…I was really single. I was like a big man at a buffet…I got it in. I am not saying dating is bad, I just took it to extremes. Beautiful women were a commodity and I felt it was within my rights to play the market. But I played like it was with other people’s money… It was a game and I didn’t take it seriously enough to consider any potential fallout for my cavalier attitude.
Just typing this makes it sound so bad, and unfortunately I have specific examples to make it sound even worse, but there is a silver lining at the end of the tawdry admissions. I am not the man I used to be.
There was no epiphany that I can remember. Rather, a series of events and dare I say time that led to growth and maturation that simply made me want to be a better man. Having a series of long-term relationships can mean several things. Inevitably it means that most of my relationships have ended. Some may classify ended relationships as failures but I always chose not to. They all served a purpose in my development, but semantics aside they all ended because of me.
People can choose to become set in their ways as they get older. I am more pliable than a pre-teen, not because I am impressionable and without conviction and direction, but because the older I get the more I learn. The more I learn the more I realize that I have so much more knowledge to acquire.
Compromise and patience were once traits I attributed to weakness. I now see them as necessities to growth. My values have not necessarily changed, but my evolution concerning my definition what it is to be a man has indeed.
The journey continues and I’m not 1/10 the ass I used to be…knowing there is still room for improvement and willing to do so… just a further step in the right direction.
#personalgrowth
#respectforwomen
#Lifeisajourney
