Why Nice Guys Finish Last (Pt 2)

“Whatever we do, we gonna do it together” – Edible Arrangement

Prior to this year, I never knew dudes really had a care in the world about Valentine’s day. Edible Arrangement did. I won’t get all deep and philosophical about why I wasn’t tripping off of the day. I just wasn’t dating any one seriously so I felt no need to really go out of the way to spend it doing anything extra. Even beyond my disgress, that wasn’t going to be the case for me this year.

 

The Second Date

I remember Valentines Day fell on a Thursday this year and when it came to the planning EA really outdid himself. I was flattered at the effort that he put in to make the day special despite me not wanting it.  It was about two weeks before Valentines Day and he was asking me if I had plans. Truthfully I didn’t, I’m always nonchalant when it comes to making any lol.

For our second date we went to get some freshly pressed juices (cause I be on my healthy wave from time to time lol). This time I parked at his house and rode with him. We hit the city from there. After we got our juices we headed to brunch. The plan to get juices was something I knew about, the plan to get brunch was a surprise. Yeah, the man was full of surprises. Mista, which is the name I often called Edible Arrangement in exchange for him always calling me Ms. Miller, decided to take me to SoHO, otherwise known as Southern Hospitality. He was on point this time though, we had a reservation. When we got inside we stopped at the host stand. We made it literally right before dinner started and best believe I was starving. The host asked if we wanted brunch or dinner. Even I know the worst thing to ask a female is what do you want to eat. All I knew was that I wanted to eat, whether it was brunch or dinner, I had no preference. I just wanted to eat lol. When Mista asked me which one I wanted, I simply replied, “dinner”. He responded by asking, “Are you sure you want dinner”? This made me question my damn self, did I want brunch or dinner? So in return I said, “It did not matter”. His response was that he picked SoHo because he heard they had a good brunch and that he knew it was my favorite meal. Only thing I could think was that somebody had been paying attention.

So I smiled and turned to the host, “we’ll have brunch”, I said. We headed up to the second floor to be seated. As we sat down, we were quickly greeted with menus. I ordered the chicken and waffle with fruit. He ordered shrimp and grits. We both ordered bottomless mimosas. We we’re racing to guzzle our mimosas down because we only had about an hour left before dinner started. Of course I was a happy camper, I danced when my food came out. We talked, again mainly about his family. Some was good, most was bad. Maybe he was venting and I won’t tell his business. I did get the vibe that he had been dealing with some deeply rooted and unsolved issues. It won’t get disclosed here, but it definitely felt like a spill over effect in the moment. I just continued to take the time to listen to him though. It always sounded like he needed someone to talk to. When we were both just about finished, EA went to pay the bill. Then he answered a call and told me he’d be right back. He wasn’t gone long. When he returned though, he was walking back to the table with roses. As he was walking towards me, I reached out to grab them assuming he was giving them to me. “Nahhh, not uh, let me ask you this question propely”, he insisted. “Ms. Miller, will you be my valentine?”, he asked after he sat down in front of me. Three things was happening in this moment, I was blushing, cheesing and drunk lol. It was cute of him to ask, he wanted it to be a moment. I think it was a moment but I was drunk from the freakin mimosas, feeling whoozy as hell and I was cheesing because, I was just.. flattered lol. Even though I had told him several times that I did not want to do anything for Valentines Day, he insisted. How could I possibly say no? From SoHo, we drove all the way to Jessup to go to Autobahn Go Kart Racing. I’m telling you, the man was full of surprises man. I won the skills race for both races, so its not much to say there. The second date was a success.

The man was winning so far. I couldn’t even fake. I had told my gang and some of my girls about him. There were a few things that made it awkward at this point though: he constantly hinted at wanting to follow me on instagram, even insisting that he doesn’t post anything but funny stuff all day. I was trying to do something different and so no, I never gave up my IG. What was different was that I wouldn’t allow him to sway his perception of me by looking at my page everyday. Suppose I didn’t want to talk, he was already so into me and I wasn’t feeling the same yet, though I wanted to. The other was that he wanted to talk all day every day, in-between dates and low key fall asleep on the phone. I guess that’s what happens when someone likes you but at this point I was still considering what he said around the first date which was that he wasn’t looking for anything serious. It was embedded in my brain lol. I was hoping to kind of slow walk it a bit but that was naturally just me wanting to stay in my comfort zone.

The Day for Lovers

Leading up to the big day (for him) was interesting. He wanted to surprise me but he was low key spoiling the surprise before the day even came lol. He was asking if I liked teddy bears, cute little glass figures, candy and asking about what my favorite colors were. I cooperated though, it was clearly important to him to make a good impression. And I don’t mean that in a bad or narcisistic way. On the morning of Valentines Day, he called before I left home to ask if I was ready for the day. “Yes”, I responded, “What are you trying to do Mista?”, “Don’t worry bout it”, is what he’d always respond back when I asked a question. Truthfully, I already knew what he was up to. But I had to go along with it because at this point, homie was more excited than I was. EA called again shortly after I got to work and asked if I had gotten a call from anyone, again I can tell he was excited. At about 1pm, the guards booth gave me a call. I had a delivery that I had to sign for. A young boy was actually handing the gift off to me, “Happy Valentines Day!”, he said. “Someone must really love you”, his father responded while sitting in the driver’s seat of the delivery van. I laughed, thanked them both and headed back into my office.

It was such a cute gesture.I had two balloons, a teddy bear and some beautiful flowers. As soon as I facetimed EA, he had the biggest smile on his face. If I could describe the look on his face it read, yeaaah I did that muhfucka.lol. And I had to confirm it lol. To this day I don’t know if most of his doing was really about making me happy or if it was more about him. I loved the gestures and that he wanted to do something nice for me, but I’m not flashy and I don’t really like attention. I would’ve rather had received everything at home. He was trying his hardedest to keep me impressed. He succeeded with that just by the effort alone. My only wish was that it had felt more natural but still everything was cool so far. Let him tell it he was applying “major pressure”.

As with everything else, that “pressure” came with a price. EA one day out of conversation, mentioned how his hard work would soon pay off “once he reached the golden gates of heaven”. Now in my mind I really did imagine some golden heaven gates but I also couldn’t help but think WTF was he talking about. I can’t make this up. That sh*t threw me so way off but I tried not overthink it because again, the goal was to stay out of my comfort zone. 

I did run that past my gang though, and everybody was thinking the same thing. Edible Arrangement was up to something. I wanted to still think that he was doing everything to be kind but just like I just mentioned, everything comes with a price. The price with him was my time if anything else at this point. Here we were just shy of two months in and he was beginning to want to go on dates in between dates. I’m not saying this to complain at all, I was just trying to figure him out. I wanted to take my time with getting to know him, but I felt rushed. What started as not looking for something serious was beginning to feel like a relationship real fast. To challenge myself and stay out of my comfort zone however, I stayed down. I wanted to believe that maybe I was just trippin and maybe I should continue to try something different.

The one thing that I can mention about EA without telling confidential parts of his business was that he was really working hard to get himself re-established. I admired that part a lot. I’m all for the black man, a hard working one at that. A few years back, he was in a place where he had it all. He could go to the mall, drop a bag, go home and get it right back. His daughter didn’t want for anything and let him tell it, he was one of the freshest n*iggas out here, gettin’ it. Life at some point took its course and of course, that lifestyle he once lived went away. I noticed how with every conversation he was beating himself up for basically falling off. He was lost and trying to find his way again. For me, I thought that if I kept giving him positive affirmations, that he would soon began understanding that life wasn’t as hard as it had seemed. In his mind however, life was hard for a black man. With that kind of attitude, I began feeling bad for everything: the dates, the lunch monies and the just becauses (you’ll find that out in part 3); Pretty much anything that required spending money. I wanted EA to know that none of those were a requirement but he felt that he HAD to do it. For lack of better words, he assumed that things like that would keep me. Still, I wanted to give it a chance. I wanted to like him as much as he liked me. I wanted to see all of the good in him. And I didn’t want to give up knowing how he felt about himself, his life, his situation with his daughter’s mother and his relationship with his mother and grandmother. So I kept it pushing. I wanted to be there for him.

Let my gang tell it, I low key had a boyfriend. Let me tell it, I was low key feeling a little pressured. A lil too pressured. I loved the dates, but I also felt overwhelmed by them as well. I wanted to keep things going with EA for the experience, especially because he was so excited for us to spend time together following Valentines Day.

The weekend was quickly approaching and Saturday was almost here. That man was making me feel like it was Christmas, he was super anxious to link up. He had something exciting planned and whatever it was, it was so much of a mystery it took two weeks to make it happen. It wasn’t our initial plan but it worked out perfectly. Again with the surprises, the only clue he gave me about this date was that it was outside and that we couldn’t go when he initially planned to go because the ground was wet.

The ground was wet? 😳

Where do you think we went to celebrate our Valentines Day? Leave a comment with your guess below 😌

Find out the deets of the next date and what happens with Edible Arrangement in the next excerpt of Why Nice Guys Finish Last 🌹