Measure Of A Man

I am going to speak plainly for those of you that can't seem to get it into your heads that every black woman you meet online is not the same.

We are not all whores, we don't all have 9 kids by 12 daddies, we aren't all just baby mommas, we don't all get off by showing our naked bodies to strange men. Some of us know our father and not only love him but respect him. We weren't all raised in the projects and some of us have actually done big things. I get so tired of men thinking they can show me the world or teach me to be a lady. If you want Eliza Doolittle, go find her. I don't need remedial classes.

My daddy was one hell of a man, not much you can show me that he already hasn't. Let me tell you who my father is, because death doesn't defeat a man like that. My father was the smallest kid on the block but had great respect from even bigger kids because of how he carried himself. My father was in the military, served two tours in Korea. He had medals he refused to claim while he was alive and wouldn't allow us to claim when he died. He accepted the flag but always told us "let them keep their lil trinkets, that don't make me a man." He was in the process of retiring from GSA when he passed. How gangsta is that? My dad had seen it all, done it all, and taught us all he could.

My father could build anything, string wire like it was no joke, make a weapon out of a blade of grass. He could cook, clean, sew, and press and curl hair. He preferred to do most things because it was hard for other folks to live up to his standards. My father taught his daughters as well as his sons. Never spoke down to us. Always treated his children with respect, even when he got in our butts. We were given things other kids dream about but the material things are of no consequence. The measure of a man isn't in what he buys me, it's in the man he proves himself to be. My father was a remarkable man. He could have taught a class.

So when a man deigns to think he can approach me like just another net chick. That his turn of phrase and slick way of saying things makes him in some way some great catch. That he can impress me with " I've done this and I am that and I can do this for you". He is truly spinning his wheels. My daddy taught me very well. Well enough to know a bs artist when I see one. The only times I ahve gone wrong in my life is when I didn't take heed to the lessons he taught me growing up. See my father taught me how to be a woman. And he taught me that men as slick as you think you are come thirteen to a dozen.

To all the real men out there that get a bad rap because some wanna be hustler got to a woman first and she thinks that's all there is online. Don't sweat it. Some of us know a real man when we see him. He reminds us of our brothers, uncles and cousins. He gives us hope by reminding us of our father. He makes us so thankful that we waded through the mess that is called dating to find the treasure that is a real man.