You know, being a blogger, putting out blog posts, is like being a musician or and actor putting out a new album or a new movie. Of course you hope that people are gonna like it, although you know some won't. Your greatest hope though is that whether people agree with, like or hate it or you that they at least understand where you're coming from. Unfortunately in the case of Sunday's post ""Oh Girl"/Oh What A Tangled Web We Weave... Especially When Ya A** Gets Caught In It Tryna Be Slick.../Lying 101" many of you just didn't understand my rationale.
I'll briefly summarize that post. It was the story of a guy I met late last Friday night. We met up, we chilled, we seemed to like each other and we made a tentative date for the next day. After confirming that date he contacted me soon after via a suspicious sounding text message to cancel the date. I became suspicious due to the language he used in the text that more than likely he was postponing on me for another date and tried to conceal it with a flimsy cover story because it's something I'd done many times before. Our subsequent text message exchanges that evening confirmed my suspicions so much so that I even caught him in the lie. He's a juggler, but I'm an even better one. For the purposes of this blog I republished and examined our exchange here to illustrate how I knew that he was lying and what steps he could have taken to make his lie better.
The blog post was a social experiment of sorts and was not meant to be an illustration of how deep my feelings were for him. What feelings? At that time we'd only met 36 hours ago. The post was a dissection of human behavior in general with the use of his words, his existence as a living, breathing person and possible life partner wasn't really important in the post. I wanted to show how someone who came to me saying that they wanted to settle down, giving the impression that they were tired of games, went and played a game less than 24 hours later. The post was meant to show that irony.
I thought that my intentions were in clear view but I quickly learned from the comments I received that they weren't. I received a litany of comments whose overall message was that I was over analyzing the situation, playing games, being overly emotional and that I shouldn't have put so much mental investment into him. Someone even questioned my maturity and went so far as to say that my writing of the post showed him my age. As the comments kept rolling in, all basically in the same vein, this deeply troubled me. I thought to myself 'Are they reading this whole thing? 'Cuz they are just not getting it.' I actually kinda felt bad for a second, my blog is my baby. It's like having a baby and everyone saying it's ugly. Okay, that was a little dramatic but you get the point, it bothered me.
This morning, my redemption finally came. The fourteenth and last commenter on that post before I started writing this one post got it. This is what that commenter said:
First of all, Adam, the first half of this was funny as hell.
I have a different view than most of the above commenters who may not get what you were attempting to do here.
In a nutshell, you have a lightening fast mind. You sized up the situation instantly and correctly - which is quite different from someone trying to figure out what the hell happened after the fact, then analyzing it to death to get the correct answer. The difference is seen in a math class: some kids catch on quick, while others are still stuck on Question #1.
What you did here, in this post, was take a snapshot of common situation and broke it down as a social scientist or attorney would. This was an excellent "teaching post" about lying, lying poorly, lying well, and spotting a lie.
This is what many of your readers failed to notice or appreciate. They're stuck on the event, not seeing the bigger picture of how it applies to numerous situations including politics.
You had a number of jewels sprinkled in the post, such as:
...you can't juggle a juggler. I invented that shit.
...I'ma have to teach this nigga how to lie. This shit is pitiful, almost painful to watch, yet funny.
Rookie lie mistake, too many details... The more details you put into a lie the more details you then have to be responsible for.
In order to make someone else believe a lie you have to believe it first. His mistake was that he didn't believe his own lie and that he needed to validate it in his own mind by reciting details to me.
...put more emphasis into engaging the person [you're] lying to than into explaining [yourself].
For someone to be a decent liar they must first understand the truth. The thing that people need to understand about the truth is that the truth just is. There's no need to explain the truth.
...he didn't lie to validate me, he lied to validate himself.
Now, Adam, my dear Adam, I ain't gonna get into whether you should or shouldn't see this guy again. That shit is off the radar in terms of what's important.
Waz that? You gotta helluva first class mind. I don't know if you're in school, got a degree, or what your career aspirations are, but baby boy, you could make a mint off of brilliance.
If you ever become a criminal attorney, other attorneys would fear your fucking name if they had to go up against you in court.
Hell, if you got a business, marketing or finance degree, oh shit, you'd be rich. You figure out scams quick and I think you'd be able to follow the mind and find the cheese.
This country is changing by the hour. When the smoke clears in about ten years, if you've been working your God-given talents, yo black azz could run for a public office and win.
Whatevah you do, I hope you can mobilize yourself to put your genius where it's gonna pay off big time.
There's always gonna be a Rufus; they're a dime a dozen and fun to pass the time with. BTW, I don't think he insulted your intelligence by lying, he just wasn't sharp enough to know you were sharper. When you look back over life, who the fuck was?
If you can count 'em on one or two hands, you in the wrong neighborhood and playing the wrong game. That suggests that it's time to leave the pond, dive in ocean and play with the big boyz on the university and pro level.
You'll find mentors, too, who will nurture and help you cuz you got some talents that can't be bought nor taught. I hope you can seize the moment while you're young. I think you can, if you want it bad enough.
Good luck, my friend. I'm rooting for you.
Kit (Keep It Trill)
http://keepittrill.blogspot.com
She (yes she, she's a woman) summed up my intentions beautifully. Upon further inspection of her blog I learned that she has a master's degree in social work and currently works as a social worker and mental health therapist, no wonder she broke it down so keenly. Granted, her comment was filled with compliments to me (Thanks, I'm a Leo, flattery gets you everywhere with us) I appreciate it most because reading her comment felt as though she walked into my brain and started posting things on a blackboard for all to see. She was the first commenter to understand my intent.
You guys can check out her blog at http://keepittrill.blogspot.com
So do y'all understand now what I was getting at? This shit ain't about Rufus' lying ass. He is what he is. I'll deal with him later, if I choose to do so. The original post was an illustration of irony and a lesson on lying. The most rewarding thing about it all though was that it fostered thought and discussion and that's the overall point of my blog is anyway. And far as me being analytical, that's what I'm here for. I'm a writer, a blogger, an artist if you will. I analyze things. I'll tell you all what I told someone else regarding this post and my overall purpose:
"If I didn't pay stuff like this any mind then I'd have nothing to write about. Although this [and a lot of things about dating and meeting people] isn't the biggest deal in the world. Taking stuff like this, breaking it down and making it cerebral makes for a good read. Art is achieved when you can take everyday things and pull from them something deeper. Andy Warhol made a whole career of it."
-Adam Benjamin Irby
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Playing In The Background...
"In Person"
by the Pussycat Dolls
from the album "Doll Domination"
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Addendum: This post is not to say that the first commenters to the original post are wrong and that I'm right. There are no rights or wrongs here, there never have been. I just wanted to make sure that my intent was fully understood.
