Look to the sky for the unseen that rides…

The other day while drinking in my slacks and hard bottoms, I received a phone call from my misses who was at a churchie wedding in Washington state. To be more accurate, this was a returned phone call, me having rung her hours previous to that moment (Sidebar 1: I don’t know why, but I’m not much of a voicemail leaver. I guess the way I see it, unless I’m calling to tell you something you need to know, I don’t have the patience to go through the message-leaving process. Some have you press one, others have weird pauses between the end of the voicemail and when you can start your message. I just don’t have time for that nonsense).

Getting back to the actual point, I received this call from a churchie wedding reception and after saying about five to seven words, I knew I was in some sort of trouble. I was in cross-country trouble. There was a palpable politeness on the phone that let me know I had done something wrong. Sensing doom, I did what any person who has ever dealt with a (Black) woman would do: I asked whether something was wrong, knowing full well that I most likely had something to do with it, but not actually knowing what.

Sensing that I sensed doom, young Shareef replied that nothing was the matter–of course–and that she was merely returning my call. Since the tone of voice was all wrong for her to be A) telling the truth or B) bothered by something other than me, I knew for certain I was getting set to go to Lump Town (which is like Pump Town, but with more anger and absolutely no sex whatsoever). Caring not to wake a sleeping giant, I said the requisite, “All right, I’ll talk to you later,” hung up the phone, returned to my drink on the couch and waited.

After having peed on the Trouble Test, the little blue plus sign came back about five minutes later via a text message. My transgression? Not having called back when I said I would. This is a particularly egregious repeat offense of mine, one that–thankfully–didn’t require rehashing at that moment in time. Indeed, it was of the swift “This is what you did, I’m heated about it, but I’m gonna sit at this wack reception across the country, get a little flavor–I’m gonna choose not to speak to you–recharge the batteries a little, shut down the engines and get back to neutral” ilk that any man worth his salt will come to appreciate with age.

Rehashing the event with Steve “Grey Goose” Biko the next morning, I sat befuddled. I wasn’t confused by why she was mad, I was more perplexed as to why that thing makes her mad. As Biko and I reasoned, it wasn’t like I had intentionally not called her back; I had legitimately forgotten and called back after the time that I said I would. Brainstorming, BIko and I realized that was precisely the problem.

Gestures–phone calls, letters, gifts–are, at their most basic, demonstrations of the respect between two people. There is an understanding on the most fundamental level that these gestures are saying, “Hey, I think you’re an alright cat.” Trouble, particularly in the realm of the phone call, seems to arise when those two people are of the opposite sex. Why? Because the scales of respect for men and women are different and disaster can strike when those schools of thought collide.

Between men, the respect is in the gesture. Unless a dude needs that other dude to call him back for a particular reason–you have my keys, I need XYZ phone number–the time at which he calls is irrelevant even if a time was set. If your boy says 3 and calls at 4:47, you don’t really trip because he’s your boy and your happy he called. Shit, a guy can be days late on a call and it’s OK.

Between women, the respect is in the details. The thinking seems to be this: Anybody can call them, but a friend calls when they say they will. If a girlfriend says they’re going to call and they don’t, regardless of whether or not the issue entails something of import, there will be at least a mild sucking of teeth by the offended party. They expect other females to be on the same wavelength. It’s not to say that every female goes overboard, but it is to say that it is a noticed offense.

Even the matters of exception differ between the sexes. For women, there are maybe 1-2 slots reserved for trifling friends that are exempt from teeth-sucking unless it is a matter of import and extreme triflocity on the friend’s part. For the fellas, there’s vague commendation and praise for “mufuckas that call back when they say they will” which is actually greatly overshadowed by the black list of “mufuckas it’s not practical to call when it’s time to get down to business.”

Working separately, these philosophies peacefully coexist, but intermingled, they are a hotbed of catastrophe in which the males get in trouble and the women get worried about.

When a man doesn’t call back at a time he said he would, it’s not necessarily that he is careless; rather, he is operating (to his peril) under the male gesture system (clearly we are excluded situations where he doesn’t call back on purpose, which can’t really be ascribed to males exclusively anyway). He may be focused on something else, busy doing this, that or the other and a call that isn’t part of that focus gets lost by the wayside. Understand, I am not saying that this excuses the action, I’m merely putting forth a possible explanation. I mean, let’s be honest, since any woman worth being around is probably the boss any damn way, you and I both know that when a man neglects to remember the female gesture system, he’s gonna get his ass busted, so excuses aren’t worth a damn anyway.

When a woman doesn’t call back at a time she said she would, more often than not something happened. Women (and I’m excluding flaky broads here) sweat the details. 4 o’clock means that hour before 5. So for a guy not being called back by a girl, there is a multi-step thought process. First, we find it peculiar that home girl hasn’t called yet; second, we get a little pissed because we consistently get cracked to the white meat for doing the same thing; third, we get worried because, unless you date a floozy, a callback is a matter of detail that would not be generally overlooked by a woman. Though I don’t have any imperical evidence to support the following, I’m still very willing to bet that missing persons reports are filed for women more quickly than they are for men.

Women can barely get their ass busted for the non-callback (unless they’re dating an Ike Turner-type, which, on multiple levels, is just too problematic an exception to spend time on here). If they call within step one, a guy doesn’t even notice. If she calls within step two, a dude can try and get buck only to have her remind him of EVERY SINGLE TIME he didn’t call when he said he would (and who needs that aggravation?), and if a woman calls during step three, a guy is just relieved she’s alright and can only muster a half-disappointed “Please don’t do that to me again, you had me worried sick” sort of thing that couldn’t really be considered a reprimand.

(Sidebar 2: In the above steps, you can possibly put step 2A which involves thinking your women is stepping out on you, but that lack of trust/jealousy is best reserved for people Richboy would term “fuckniggas”)
(Sidebar 3: Don’t think for a second that I don’t think women are capable of such a thing [see TLC's 'Creep'] but I’m of the belief that you don’t need to go there unless you need to go there, ya dig?)

These differing philosophies–much like the clitoris not being close to the vagina–are a cruel trick of fate. I cannot and will never be able to tell you why men find respect in the gesture and women find it in the details. Maybe a combination of the two is what one could call perfection and maybe that’s what the relationships between men and women are about (though I still find perpetuation of the species to be fairly compelling). Or better yet, perhaps they are merely matters of sick amusement that someone, somewhere threw into the mix to add humor and drama to this folliful three-legged race we call man, woman, chaos. Peace to the Night Rider.

Penultimate Thought: The New York Times: Fox News for the liberal elite.

Final Thought: I can’t enjoy a meal if I have to pee.