Being Bernard

I am who those scientific studies are talking about when they discuss how social media is bad for people, particularly the lonely and depressed. It is a fake space that you get to paint with the best moments of your life, leaving everyone to fawn over one another's lies and fairytales. I mean come on now. No one is posting their bills or bad credit scores. For the most part (with the exception of those that post those seven paragraph emo posts on Facebook), social media has become a never-ending scroll of plastic happy moments. Even knowing this, I have become jealous and absolutely obsessed with the "life" of a man I know named Bernard. 

Have you ever wondered if people that you know think about you? I do, mostly because I often think about people I know; what they are doing and how they are feeling. In today's detached world, I think that it is a good thing when people think about others. However, if Bernard knew just how much I thought about him, he would probably block me via all social avenues. I have to say that I am a little obsessed. But not because I am into him romantically, which is usually my M.O. I am hooked on his socials because they paint a picture of him being very...loved. 

What is so interesting about that? Well, for starters, it is important that you understand that Bernard is annoying. He has seemingly gotten more annoying with age. And this isn't just my opinion. People who know of him would overwhelmingly agree. He is very excited. Very energized. Very happy. Very extra. It may even be an understatement to say that the average person might find him completely intolerable. Not the people in his life though. His family and his friends- they consistently love up on him. They are there for him when great things happen like his starting a business and they are there for him when bad things happen like his failed relationships. It is like love surrounds this man from all directions. 

If I sound a little salty it is because I am. At this stage in my life, I can honestly say that I don't think that some of my dearest friends whom I love even like me. I have been sent to voicemail more than a bill collector. I sometimes wonder if those closest to me would even notice if I vanished. Bernard's friends would notice if he went missing. He is the center of their lives. They prioritize him. They seem to pour sunlight and good vibes into his mouth, and he swallows them proudly. I often wonder if he knows how beautiful that is, for I am ten minutes away from becoming buddies with a soccer ball like Tom Hanks in that movie. Say what you want, but that soccer ball was attentive and always there. Soccer ball-type loyalty is hard to find these days. Bernard has found it though, and this makes me hopeful for myself, even through the envy. 

Crosses to Bear

My friend Dizzle is talking to a guy who essentially does not want to go to college. He works two minimum wage jobs, which he hates, but apparently, they are better than putting one front in front of the other to apply to colleges. This is clearly a problem for my buddy, seeing that she is a third-year medical student.

I have advised her to leave it alone, for you can't make a grown person do what they do not want to do, even if it would benefit them in the long run. But Dizzle is determined. She has done everything in her power to get this guy into undergrad, including practically applying for him.
For the most part, he seems uninterested, assuming that since people like Bill Gates did not go to college, he doesn't have to get an education to do what he wants to either. I guess that is one way of looking at it, even though I wouldn't want to chance my future.

Anywho, Dizzle has stressed herself out about this dude for long enough, but she is not the only girl I know who has tried to point a brother in the right direction...with resistance from the other end. I knew a boy in undergrad named Andrew who once said, in a nutshell, that if you wanted a Black man, his lack of drive is just something you would have to deal with. Is trying to make a Black man a better man to the point of exhaustion one of the many crosses that a Black woman has to bear? One, by the way, that you will get little to no recognition for?

I would say off hand that the answer is yes; however, this bugs me, because when I have been low on octane, it was left up to me to fill up my tank. There has never been a Black man, from a father to a boyfriend, who has ever been there to push me across the finish line. Any strength I needed to do so I needed to draw from inside myself. I feel like I was raised to have to do this.

So if I was a brought up as a Black woman to have to get my own life together without help, why were Black men not taught the same thing? And why should it fall on my lap to pick up the ball for a brother where someone else dropped it, and why should I be jumping at the chance to do so?

Now this I can not answer. All I can say is that at this point in my life, I am consumed with trying to get my own life together, but I do not feel that I am exempt from what my friend Dizzle is going through. I will probably be writing a similar blog when I am thirty and a magazine publisher about my fiance who refuses to find a job.