Gazing Out The Window: The Thunderbolt

Written a good while back, one of the deepest and most personal things I've ever written...

My name is Chris Lamb. I'm a college student in Atlanta, a Man of Morehouse in his sophomore year with a lot of things going for him, and just as many not going for him. My intelligence is high, but I hardly use it for school purposes. I could easily find a job if I didn't have such negative views of work (ask about my dream of working at Starbucks). I don't have a license or a car, which wouldn't matter anyway seeing as Atlanta is nearly out of gas, and I'm a poet and a damn good writer in general, and ever since I was six I've had interesting (to say the least) views on love and relationships.

Yesterday I was walking around campus looking for a friend of mine. He was in a car and he was making his weekly trip to Atlanta (he's a big shot, thick knot in his wallet, got enough money to send your whole damn family to college) and I needed to go to Wal-Mart, so he offered a ride, a ride I accepted.

As we were leaving the campus, I saw this girl walk by. She was smiling, and I think the most appropriate thing to say was that I had caught the Thunderbolt, that Godfather emotion that strikes when someone instantly develops a deep, deep, less than love, somewhat lustful feeling whenever that person comes to mind. I saw her, turned my head to continue to look at her, and I had no idea that we were halfway to Wal-Mart by the time I was out of the accidental trance she put me in. Yes, this was the Thunderbolt, and I think natural shyness, classic word slip-ups, and adolescent fear of rejection is going to keep me from both finding her again and even striking up a conversation if chance presented an opportunity.

So why am I putting my business out there like this? I think I have several reasons, ranging from the nervous to the bold. Maybe it's a subtle way of putting my GIRLFRIEND WANTED ad in the Facebook classifieds. I think its more of a common story.

Here's the reason in its most literal form: my friend and I, right now, are chatting back and forth. Earlier we were talking about relationships, and how both of us are gurus of sorts within our circles of friends, people that others usually come to for advice and wisdom. Oddly enough, when it comes to relationships, its more like a confessional than a plea for help.

I won't use names. One time a friend of mine came to my home. He brought his girlfriend with him, something I didn't anticipate (he claimed he wanted to come over to say goodbye; I was bound for my freshman year) and we all sat down. He was a narcissist, she was a bitch (a female narcissist). Both of them had inflated views of themselves, both of them were assholes, but I could see past that, that they were both crazy about each other. I didn't want either of them to change, and I needed the two to show each other how much they loved each other. I did it the best way I knew how.

I told my friend to bite himself. Both of them were confused. I know some of you have figured out already where that comes from, but I loved it because that was on some real shit. So he did, and he left a bite mark on his arm. Then I told him to bite his hand, to show how much he loved this girl here. He shrugged and did it. To this day we still have to get that stain out of our carpet.

Love is insanity, something I've been advocating for a good while now. You wouldn't bite yourself to the point of bleeding if you weren't insane. Now his girlfriend understood this immediately. After getting my friend some bandages I explained to him what he just did, and they both got it. They're still together today.

So, since I've been advocating love going hand in hand with insanity for the past nearly fifteen years now, I had to stop myself and try to decipher what that feeling I had was when I saw that girl yesterday. Its easy to get feelings of puppy love at first sight, just juvenile "like" that comes with youthful base lust, appeal to the eyes before innocence is lost. This wasn't that. There are vibes, but that's between two people. I seriously doubt that she even knows I exist. There's base lust. That's what many men in my age group, especially in college, experience. Lust, primal urges that manifest into often misguided sexual relationships that sometimes result in irreparable damage, either to your life, theirs, "other"... so watch yourself. Those feelings I know well, very well, but this was new, this was scary.

How can I explain it? Imagine, if you will, that you're sitting naked in a meadow. This meadow is overflowing with thorn less roses of every color under the sun, varying heights and shades, all ready to bloom. There is a gentle breeze blowing that cools off any heat from the gentle sun's rays. The grass is just a little wet from morning dew... the roses are beginning to shiver in anticipation of blooming... (if you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend put her or him in your mind right now) and boom! There she is, just standing naked amongst the tallest of the roses, not ashamed, basking in the glory of a perfect soul. All the roses bloom in perfect unison, tossing off the dew that was once on them... I can only picture so many things more perfect than that.

And maybe I'm looking way too far into it. It's very inappropriate to think about a still unknown girl naked, even if its in a somewhat poetic way. Down the line, if fate is as cruel as I think it is, I might have explain the beauty of that daydream to her, but until then, it's nicely implanted in the back of my mind (sorry, mystery girl). Back on topic, though, I think this feeling is dangerous. I've been in lust and I've been in love, and you are about thirty to forty times less suicidal in the former. You would kill yourself for someone you're in love with; you'd kill that person you were in love with BECAUSE you love them, love is a dangerous thing to be in. I'm not in love with someone I don't know; the odds of that happening with anybody is about 99 billion to less than one. This feeling is foreign. It scares me.

People come to me for relationship advice because I can comprehend love and I can understand one basic fact that most people do not get. Men and women love differently. Men rarely fall in love immediately. Women are in love with you before they meet you, that knowledge is already implanted in them. They don't know who, but they know he's out there, and when they meet him (and sadly most do not) its a wrap. Also, men do not understand the love that women have. Women understand what kind of love men have, but the mirror is only one way. So, as we're sitting in the dark, trying to figure out just why the hell some of these women love us, they're sitting back laughing at us even as they kiss us goodnight.

This takes us to the concept of girlfriends. For me, I've always been kind of bad in relationships. I've always been able to comprehend what was going on, reading a girl's feelings and all that, but the thing that pissed me off always was how a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship isn't really that; it's a girl's relationship or a boy's relationship, rarely both. For me it's been the former or the latter. Either the girl was in control of the relationship, and I didn't realize it early enough to break up cleanly, or I was in total control, which sounds nice, but I want a girl that's a little more self reliant that that. My last relationship, however, put me in a weird state, a state that really changed the way I put my words when it comes to the situation.

I was sitting down with her, the girl I was with last, at the mall. I knew what I needed to say, but I wasn't sure if she would understand. We were eating from some fast food place, what place I can't say, but she was stunned when I said this, exactly, "See, I want a girl when I want a girl, and when I don't want a girl I want a girl who understands that."

Was it the right thing to say? Maybe not at that point. That's a hard thing for a girl to swallow when she actually likes you, but she was a little controlling. That's not why I broke it off with her, mind you, she was actually cheating on me, but that's pretty irrelevant. The above statement (props to the people that know where it came from) meant that right then, through my fault, I wasn't really trying to have a girl at that point. Outside of the cheating, she was real cool, and if she wasn't, I wouldn't have broken it off so much as put it on hold. If she understood, however, I think we might have been together longer.

Call it fear. See, I'm going to tell you a secret, reader, and if you're a woman you'll really appreciate this: men what a girl when they want a girl, and when they don't want a girl they want a girl that understands that. What are the odds of finding those? Pretty damn impossible. Why? Because while every woman has that capacity they usually only have it for one man, and that one man is hard to find. And its a hard thing to explain to a girl that really likes, even loves you, but its a thing all guys want.

So, back to my current dilemma: this foreign feeling, this Thunderbolt. I'm not wondering if she's this girl, this one that understands when I want a girl and when I don't, but this feeling has me contemplating parts of verses I recall in rap songs most people will never hear like they should. One rapper (really, I want y'all to tell me who, prove to me you listen to real hip hop) said, in an entire of part of his verse:

Sometimes I think I'm from another world (preach)
When I'm tryna tell a woman just exactly where I stand that (aight)
I want a girl, when I want a girl
And when I don't want a girl, I want a girl who understands that
And that's some hard shit to explain
To a woman that's in love with you, it's a pitiful thing
Until I had to figureThat I don't wanna play around, but I don't wanna settle down
And that's a man's dilemma, 'cause every man remembers
How his daddy and his uncles did it
'Cause more than likely that's the way they're gonna do it
I know it sound fucked up and most wont admit it
But yo, I gotta face it 'cause I know I'm living through it
'Cause when the party stops and niggas get old
And the chain and the cars and the houses get sold, and that
Other side of the bed gets cold, you don't wanna be alone

It wasn't just the answer to how I felt, shit, how I FEEL sometimes, but it was like listening to a mirror, listening to sights I seldom hear. He was speaking to what I was trying to explain to that girl then. I think... I think it's because I grew up a little bit too early. I forget my age and stop remembering that I'm 19, not 99. Maybe I shouldn't worry about love like I do, but I'm a poet, I just do it on instinct. I suppose I want to love, and not that puppy love, that vibe, that lust, but love, something I've been told about since the age of four, something I write about in hundreds of forms be it the good or the bad side of love. I think it's a little ironic that I can use that song that aforementioned verse came from down to the crack about the Nissan (that he's still paying a lease on) and work that perfectly into my life (technically I have a Nissan too, one I have to pay a lease on).

But I'm scared at the same time. I don't want to make another mistake, you know? I approach relationships as a whole with caution. Heh, and here's the saddest part about this: women will love it, but they'll call me a bitch because of it. It's one of those curses of time. One day, one day in the future, the guy like me will be the ideal kind of guy, but right now I'm the bitch. Fine, I'll deal with it, I'll be the "bitch" as people like to put it until that status is disbanded and I'm the desirable. I won't change for anyone.

So, finishing this unnecessarily long note off, I think I was hit the Thunderbolt. If I see her again, I'll probably stop in my tracks and look like a total fool. I grew up too fast to really know how to respond too. I guess I'll just follow my usual philosophy, both my most attractive and my most disgusting feature: my lack of care. That's not to say I don't care, but to say that I'd rather go with the flow of life than try and steer a boat against it. Detours are one thing, but going against the tide? No, I don't do it. Until next time, loyal reader(s), I'm out, the philosophical love sick lamb, Chris.