Truth be told pt 1

What is love???  How do you know if you've found it???

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Welcome back to another edition of the Creation Fans Podcast. Mike Jr. coming at you guys. And I think last week I said that I would be talking about falling in love. How I knew I was falling in love and why some men run from it. So I'm going to stick true to that. But I cannot, I'd like to start these off with telling you guys what I'm going to talk about next week. I don't know yet. I'm going to probably like that I'm going to be broadcasting with the feathers. So it'll be all five of us. Well, maybe, I don't know. Some may come, some may not. But anyway, we're trying to get that together. I think I already know we're going to be minus at least one person. But we will see if I do not, this series that I'm doing, Truth Be Told, I'm calling it Truth Be Told, but it's talking about falling in love. And I'll be discussing some other things as well. If I don't run an episode with the fellas next week, I'll run part two of this Truth Be Told series. And not really sure how many parts I'll have, but don't really know what me and the fellas have decided, landed on. We got a few topics out there. We haven't really landed on what we're going to talk about just yet. But excuse me. When do we do? It'll be out there. So one of the two things will happen next week. It'll be another edition of The Truth Be Told, or it'll be something with the fella. So we'll see what happens. So last week I did Leave Nothing on the Table. I hope you guys enjoyed it. You know, so I'm gonna go back to that. That was part one of that. But I will go back to it. Try run these back to back to back. But I may change the name. I don't know. I don't know. But there's other parts to that that I'll be touching on. But today, let's just get into the truth be told. And I'm talking about love today. And I don't have all the answers. I truly don't, guys. And I can't speak for every guy out there, but I can speak for myself. And there may be some guys out there who feel the same way. I don't know. But it's possible. I wrote a book long time ago called Introducing Men, and I used the capital M E, Introducing Me. It was talking about my relationships with women and how I was when I was kind of a hound or dog or whatever. I just I wasn't about commitment during that time. And I dated quite a few women, you know, wonderful women. I couldn't write about everybody, but I did write about some that I felt were the most impactful. And, you know, played a part in my decision making and things that I do now. Or how I view dating as I matured, I would say. When it comes to love and dating and all that, you can you can get older, your age changes, but you have to mature your attitude, your mindset, all of that has to change when it comes to dating and what you're looking for. And also just knowing what you're looking for. If you're looking for love, that's great. And I'm not here to bash anybody. If you're not looking for love, that's great too. If that's on you, you know, you're just looking for the now and the hookup or the kill, the chase, whatever. That's fine too. If that's what you if that's what makes you happy. Nobody can come in and judge you or say what you're doing is wrong or right. If you, I would say if you're hurting people when you're doing it, then yeah, somebody can say that's wrong, right? Because you should really shouldn't be hurting people. And a lot of times when you're about to chase and, you know, somebody's gonna get hurt unless. But I think nowadays it has changed. You know, people are kind of open. You got a lot of open relationships, which I'll touch on that. I got some podcasts coming up on that. Open relationships, what they call dual, plural, whatever, marriages. I mean, it's just all kinds of stuff out there now. So the whole uh cheating and hiding it game, you know, you don't really have to do that anymore. Just pick somebody else who's okay with being open. But the problem with that, with men, a lot of times is we don't want our women doing it, but we want to do it. And I'm just saying, I'm just putting that out there. You know, some guys may be like, uh, nah, you know, whatever. But most of us don't, you know, unless you're into the swinger lifestyle or whatever. But back in the day, I don't know, a lot of men, or at least you didn't want to admit it because it made you look weird, or, you know, other men may have something to say. Me personally, I don't envision a world where I would be okay with sharing my wife with another man. It's I don't know, it's just not my thing, you know. And even when I was the person that I was back in the day that cheated or whatever, I didn't want to share my main girl at the time. And I had different main women at the time, I believe, but like my son's mom, I didn't want to share her with anybody. But I still wanted to do me and do my thing and just keep that from her. You know, but I didn't want her to do it with anybody else. So that's where that comes in. You know, it's not not all the time. And, you know, speaking for myself, I'm pretty sure there's other men out there, you know. I just couldn't handle that. Knowing that, you know, she was out there doing what I was doing, and some dude was just destroying it like I tried to do when I was in it. So, you know, you don't want to you don't want to think about that. But that's how some guys are. And I would imagine some women probably like that too. I don't know. Are you ladies? I don't know. Hit me up. I don't know. That's hmm. Interesting. Probably should have had uh some females on here. Because I would like to ask that question. That's the question I would like to know. I'm gonna write that down so I can revisit this to get the female perspective. But that would be interesting. Because I'm pretty sure the times have changed that it's different now than it was back in my day. Because back in the day, if women felt the way they do or was open, what is it, open to an open relationship, y'all were considered sluts or oh, she a hoe, or she looks for, you know, I think the term nowadays is thoughts or whatever, I maybe be behind and maybe something new now. But that's how it's looked at for women. But for men, you know, you know, like you're here, it's like, oh, he a hoe girl, he a dog or whatever, but it wasn't this stigma of you shouldn't be there. For men, it was more like, all right, my man, all right, he's getting it in. But for women, when y'all got called hoes or sluts or whatever, it was negative. It was something that you shouldn't be doing. And I think the the I guess you would say the doors have been blown off of that now. Like, I don't even see that as a problem anymore. And I could be wrong, and that would be something else I would have to get a lady's perspective on because a lot of women nowadays they act just like the dudes. And it's just like, I'm just gonna get what I want, and I don't need you for nothing else. Just slide that D into my inbox and get on up and get out when you're done, when we're done, and you're gonna leave. So times have definitely changed, but I would say for me, when I was in the game and I had my commitment issues, for me it was more, it wasn't so much that, you know, it's just oh, I'm a sex addict, or oh, I like having sex and this and that. It was, it was just, for lack of a better word, it was just a fear of commitment. But that also came with uh, you know, and it wasn't a big deal for me to the chase or all that, the hunt or whatever. Yeah, I liked, I liked being uh women noticed me as uh attractive or whatever, you know, because like I said, and I may have mentioned the book, but I've heard it, heard it all, you know. I've had chicks say, oh girl, he ug or he aye, he look aye, or he's fine, you know. I've heard it all. And I always equated that to if I like what I see when I look in the mirror, then I'm okay with it. I can I can handle it when somebody says he ugly. So as long as I felt good about myself, didn't really bother me. And I guess having that alpha Aries attitude, I never really tripped off other people's opinion of me. So that didn't bother me much either. But coming up, just kind of feeling myself, getting out there and doing a lot of dating. I saw it more as a physical thing, like attraction, you know, and my my level of attraction, it was all over the board, you know. I like, you know, like I had my my I guess I I guess you could say my my main attractions were either extremely dark black women, like like straight African, because I talked about this back in the day as a kid, you know, I my first loves on TV were not the the Joan Collins or am I saying her name right? I don't know, the lady, the the white lady from Dynasty or whatever, or Liz Taylor. All those people, those were not my first loves on television. Before I even knew that that existed, I used to sit at home and my mom would let me watch National Geographic on the black and white TV in the kitchen. I would sit in front of this thing and watch these African women with these baskets on their head walk into a river to get water with their breasts out, no shirts. And that is my first example of beauty. And I saw it so like when Grace Jones came out, man. Your boy was like, okay, there it is right there. So I had a different, you know. Now that's not to say that I didn't find, you know, because later on, as I started to see other women, but uh the African woman was always my first, you know, like, oh, you know, I'm getting you prettier than that. For me, I was like, I'm marrying one of those as a kid, you know, because that's what I saw. And I saw it as beautiful. Still is to this day. But I also gained an attraction for when it came to white women, I like the real pale or redheads. You know, if they were real pale with black hair or real pale with red hair, super attractive to me. You know, huge fan of uh Queen Elizabeth I, all that. I don't know if that's how she really looked, but I would imagine milky skin, red hair, or whatever. But I know the lady that played her, Kate Blanchett. Hubba Hub. I was like fascinated with her. You know, she was my wife, Grace Jones. But so for me it was more the like, and then I like the in-betweens too, you know, because in the, you know, you came out with the, you know, you got the light-skinned women, the holly berries, the sinal lathers, the all of uh the in-betweens. And my level of attraction was always a little different from other people or what uh what society or I guess the majority would say, oh, she's fine, because like I think Christina Richie is fine, and some people don't. Like most people I talk to, like, really? But, you know, that's me. So anyway, that's what it was more about for me. If I saw it and I liked it, I was like, ooh, okay, try to talk to her, you know, see what's up. And I never really went into it like, oh, I am going to marry her or date her. I knew after watching those African videos that what I wanted to marry when I was ready to marry, but I wasn't jumping into the date game like I want to marry somebody. And growing up with my mom and my three sisters, it taught me a lot about women and your different attitudes, the different intricacies of how to navigate you. And for me, it taught me a lot about what you guys needed to hear, or what you gals needed to hear to take off your clothes. And my sisters taught me well not to call my woman ever, never used the B word, never call her a bitch, you know, never hit your woman, and that was all great. You know what I'm saying? Because I held that true to heart to this day. And but they also unknowingly taught me the softer side of women that, you know, you guys want to be loved. And oh, so if I behave this way, I'm probably gonna get the draws a lot quicker than if I behave the other way or that way. You know, you had to find that mix, that balance. And I had just enough of that, you know, I wasn't a square, but I wasn't prison hook, I wasn't abusive, I held doors open, I did, I did all the nice stuff. And truth is, that is me. That is who I am because it it was who I was taught to be, but I learned that I could use it for evil, so to speak. And that's when it got, you know, a little dark because now it's like, ooh, I can be myself and still just run through girls, you know, just like, okay. That gets them, you know, charged up. They they like me or whatever. But I was that nice guy. I was still that guy. He was that was part of who I was. I just was not about to commit. So I was okay. I found a I found a point in my life where I was okay with doing those things and not committing. And just kind of numbing myself to the fact that you're gonna hurt somebody when you do this because they think, oh, I met this nice guy, you know, things are gonna go well, they're gonna be great, they're gonna be blah, blah, blah. And I wasn't really ready for a commitment at that time. Now, I've had some of the women that I dated that, you know, hindsight or during that moment, like, hmm, I could have married her, could have seen myself, but this was later in my dating time when I was in what I considered my prime. And the prime years came, man, when online dating came about, because online dating made you very lazy. You didn't even have to do anything. You just go out there and just start scrolling through pictures. And when I find something that I like, you send that wave or hey there or whatever. If you was paying for it, it was a pay site, you know, you reach out, like, hey, how you doing? Whatever. Just make sure you got a decent picture. And, you know, 99% of the time, I would get somebody to buy. You know, some chicks probably look at the picture and be like, oh yeah, he's not, he's not my type. He's not attracted, wouldn't have, wouldn't have applied, wouldn't have replied back. But the ones that did, it was like, okay, let the games begin. And most of the time, I would just start out being myself and see how far they got me. And then once I got to know them more, it's like, okay, I'm gonna have to alter this a little bit because she likes this, she likes that. And back in my dating game, dating dating days, a lot of women used to always say this lame shit, like, oh, I want a guy that's uh thug, got a little thug in him, and all that shit. And to me, ladies, I I ain't trying to knock y'all, but that's the lamest shit that I've ever heard because I would meet women and I always got this impression that, okay, so you want a guy that's gonna go to work, corporate job by day, then come home and put on some timberlands and sell dope on the street by night. That shit ain't happening. All right? You get one or the other. Take your pick. You know, because now you may get a nigga that's doing some white collar crime that's going to corporate America, that's doing uh got a corporate America job, but when people get up to a certain, because at that point, if you got a good corporate America job, you making good money. Either you making more than the drug dealer, that street guy, or you making as much as, or you're not that far behind. So you ain't gonna throw all that away just to so she can be like, ooh, now that's the type of guy I want. Because that don't mean anything being able to go out and do that, as far as whether or not this dude with the suit and tie on can protect you or defend you. You know, you just may not see his thug until it's time when somebody gets the trippin'. But I used to hear that, and I used to think it was so lame. And in my mind, the first thing I would be like, all right, I'm about to just plow through this chick and be up. So I would adjust a little bit, just to give them just a little bit of what they thought they wanted. But I was still that nice guy, and I took care of my son, you know, and like I said, all that part of me, that was that was me. Taking care of my kids, super close relationship with my mom and my three sisters, not abusive, not a child molester, none of that. All that was me. It's just I adjusted that other side because, you know, I lived it, I was around it, I've been in that violent life growing up, but it was that was never really me. You know what I'm saying? I'm truly a nerd by, for lack of better words, by heart. You know, I'm a calm guy, you know, but I know how to handle business if I have to. And, you know, it ain't a thing about being, oh, he's soft or whatever, because I had my stages like I talked about last week. I was, I got picked on, and you know, I didn't realize I could fight or whatever until that time came because I was so used to not having to because of my sisters, but none of that really mattered at that point. You know, I would just see it as, okay, she looked good. I want to sleep with her. And that was pretty much it for me. And when I would start playing the game, so to speak, you know, the whole love never crept into the equation because I had to look back and think, like, have I had had I ever been in love? And in love, I would say no. In those days when I was out there playing a game or whatever, I wouldn't say I was in love. I would say I I did love some people. Like my when I first came home for the military, uh, my son's mom was the first person that I was she. Yeah, I think she was the first person I dated. Like, seriously dated when I first came home. And yes, I loved her. But was I in love? I I don't think I ever like fell in love with her because by the time we had my son, we were on the outs. We weren't even together. And, you know, she got pregnant on our last hookup. And yes, he is my son, so I don't want to hear any of that. At the end, they says yes. But anyway, yeah, so I wasn't in love, but I had love for her. And I had a another friend that I met that I had a lot of love for, that it was kind of in between the time. I think I think it was after, it was towards the end with me and my son's mom, but I don't think my son was born yet. I don't know. I'm old, man. I can't remember the quite the dates, but she has passed on tragically, you know, God rest her soul. But I had love for her, like crazy amount of love. And, you know, so I had that, I knew what it was. But falling in love and like, okay, let me get married. If I would have told somebody that, yeah, I'm in love with you, I would have been lying. And if I would have gotten married at that age, it would have ended in disaster. And I was sometimes I would just numb myself, and I probably would have if one of them would have asked me, hey, let's get married. But anyway, it would have just been bad. So I I would navigate. In that realm of let me try to avoid this as best I can. So I didn't have to answer these questions. And I was just numbing. I would just push it out of my head. And for a long time that worked. You know, nobody ever brought it up because I didn't. And you know, I was like, okay, if I don't think about it, I ain't gotta worry about it. So, but how did I know when I fell in love? I would say the well, first, let me think, how many times have I ever do I feel like I've been in love? I would say maybe twice before my parent wife. And I didn't even know I was in love with the two before her until I fell in love with my wife. If that makes sense. And what found out about myself, and I don't know if this is true for all men, is that when for me, I found out I knew that I was in love when I was actively able to turn down other advances. And it didn't, you know what I'm saying? It didn't happen overnight, or it wasn't like you build Rome in a day, but as you grow and you go through trials and tribulations with your mate, because me and my wife, and we we're gonna talk about that. I think we did a podcast anyway, but anyway, our story is crazy. But anyway, we had a lot going on. And as we got through all of that, I started to learn that I was a different person. And at the time, I didn't immediately, because I used to tell my wife all the time, like, yeah, I wasn't in love with you when I first met you, but I fell in love with you over time. But I kind of think I maybe was. You know, it's it's some gray area there because you start to do things differently. Like the old me allowed a lot of stuff to happen in my relationships that would open me up to situations that I shouldn't be in. As I got deeper and deeper into my relationship with my wife, I found myself, I found it easier to say no to those situations. And, you know, you're just like, ah, nah, I don't want to do that. I probably shouldn't do that. That wouldn't make sense. You know, if I do that, something might happen. And but here's the key to that. Excuse me. Because you can still get yourself in that situation and think, you know, because men, we think, oh, I'm strong enough. I avoid, I would I would say no if it ever got too close. But keeping yourself out of that situation, it it doesn't let it let it even get to that situation. But the reason is what really made me think like, hmm, I think I may have fallen in love because I started thinking of the reasons that I would not. And one of the reasons is, well, I don't want to hurt her. And in the past, that never, that never came up in my mind because number one, I didn't think I would get caught. And secondly, I knew if I had got caught, this is how I rationalized it. Well, because I'm not in love with her and I don't love her, she shouldn't be hurt. And let that sink in for a minute, because that is how I justified what I do. So if I got caught cheating, well, I didn't tell you I was in love with you or that I love you, so why are you upset? You know what I'm saying? Because you shouldn't, but you know, you don't stop to think that this chick may have fallen in love with you, with me, or she may love me. And that is how I rationalize it. And that was kind of when I was like, okay, so is this in love? And I started thinking back to other people that I dated, and I was like, oh, I may have been falling in love there. And I got it like maybe twice. Like, oh, I may have been fallen in love there. You know, the jury is still out, you know, there's gotta be more research on it. But I think there could have been some, you know, oh, I don't want to hurt this person there. And when I got further into it with my wife, it was like, man, if you do this, it's gonna hurt her. And because, you know, eventually, you know, it's like it's like eating a bag. What's that lage? You can't eat just one. Like, guys, when you start cheating, you don't stop. Like, ooh, I got away with that one time. Nobody knows. I'm gonna stop. Every man out there probably thinks that, oh, I get away with it again. You know, I just gotta follow the same pattern. Yeah, it may work for quite some time, but you eventually gonna get caught. And that's when you have to ask yourself, okay, is it worth it? And that's the second question. It's like, okay, is it worth it? Is it worth losing this person over? And I can tell you guys right now, as you get older, like in your 20s or whatever, it's like, hell yeah, it's worth it. You know what I'm saying? Fuck it, let's do this. Boom boom. Because you young and you think I'm gonna find, you know, I can, I can move on, I'll find somebody else. As at least I, that's the way I thought as a man. But as I got older, you know, I'm not saying I'm broken down, I'm beat up or whatever, but you, I, my wife tolerates me. You know what I'm saying? For lack of better words, you know, it's it would be hard for me to like just be like, okay, me and my wife divorced, let me find somebody else that's going to put up with my bullshit. Just vibe with me the way we vibe, you know what I'm saying? Get all my jokes, you know. Okay with me farting in the bed at night, you know, like I somebody be like, man, this dude gross. I, you know, it may cause an argument with somebody else. You know what I mean? If I got a fart, I ain't finna jump up and run to the bathroom every damn time. You know what I'm saying? So it's gonna be some farts. And she don't trip off that shit. She just be like, ugh. She's like, dude, really? You know, she may laugh, cover her nose, and I'll be like, ooh, I hope it don't smell too bad. I don't want to like blow up her nose, but you know, it's just a lot of stuff, man. That's just, that's just a little basic surface stuff, but it's so much that comes with that whole starting over when you get to a certain age and you've been with somebody for so long. Like uh shoot, me and my wife just had our 10-year wedding anniversary, but shoot, we we were dating some years before that. Like 12, like 12 years or so. Let me see, I do the math here. Five, 13 years. Is it 13? My math sucks. Well, maybe 14 now because my daughter's 19. I met her when she was five. So 14 years. And married for 10 of those. So yeah, I mean, it's and they weren't. It was, man. It was rough. Some of those years, like we be trying to do the math. Like, how many good years have we had? I would say we have not, our good years haven't quite caught up with the bad years yet, but they will. You know, so out of those 10 years, I think probably six were bad. And I don't know, she'll she'll correct me when she listens to this, but I feel like we were on a well, because we had something, and I won't say that it was all bad because of the stuff that we did, but we we lost my daughter, like the year we got married, a few months after that, my daughter passed. And so that just all that anger and that I had, I started taking out on my new wife. So that started a lot of our stuff. So, but she was a trooper, she stuck through it. Anyway, so yeah, we got off to a bad start. But yeah, that is how I started. No, so those two things, not wanting to hurt that person, and you know, just that that whole, do I want to start over? And try to train somebody else or hope that somebody else puts up with a lot of the stuff that I do. And the things like I can I make a joke, me and my wife joke all the time. Like, usually, like, shoot, when we somewhere and like let's say I'm ready to go, I can look at her and she like, yep, I was ready five minutes ago, bruh. I was wondering when you was gonna get on board. And then it's like, let's get out of here. You know, that type of stuff. You start to, you know, appreciate that. And to start over, it's like, nah, man, I ain't doing that. And I ain't saying that, you know, oh, well, we just stand together because we don't want to start over and up. There's love there. You know what I'm saying? There is in love there. So, you know, but all that other stuff is just part of it. Part of the reason why. So this is just the tip of the iceberg. I just wanted to get out my, a little bit of my reason, why how I first started, but I'll go more in depth about my relationship, but I think I'm gonna try to get, maybe I'll get my wife, because we used to do podcasts together. Maybe I'll get her involved so I can get a female perspective on that whole, that whole daily thing. Because I know when I first met my wife online, I was not out of my it's whatever faith. And I have to think, you know, I wasn't fully out of it. I was, I knew I wanted something, but I was still messing up because I was with someone prior to my wife that when I look back, you know, there was some in love there. I just, you know, it was long distance, and I'm not the smartest guy, so I found the next best thing. I found somebody with her personality and all that. And I told my wife this, so you know, you know, it ain't this ain't gonna be a culture shock to her, but you know, because she is who she is now, but I knew what I was looking for personality-wise. And it's a shame that I hurt this other person to for me to realize that, okay, this is what I need personality-wise. If I can find this, but only where I live, I'll be good. But people got hurt. And, you know, so I was still kind of all over the place when I met her. And I was coming out of a relationship with somebody that, you know, it that wasn't gonna last. It wasn't gonna work when I met my wife. But I was drinking the Kool-Aid and telling myself I wasn't drinking her Kool-Aid because she didn't do anything to lead me to believe they would. But, you know, I was like so in this, oh, it's time to get married. You need to, you know. So I was trying to force something that wasn't there with the lady I was with before my wife. And I probably shouldn't have did that, but you know, good thing for her that she was smart enough to not go down that road with all of my talk about marriage and all that, because she saw the writing on the wall, like, oh, I ain't trying to be married to this dude. And I am appreciative of that because it will stop me from a blessing. So, anyway, I want to end it here. We'll get further into it. So, just yeah, that's how it started for me. Just knowing that, you know, when you when you with that person and you're like, okay, I don't want to hurt them. That kind of started me, maybe I'm in love, you know, because I'm doing things differently and not like I used to do then. And I'm not so quick to run from having somebody to talk to after work or having somebody to discuss things if I'm having a bad day at work or whatever the case may be. You know, helping have somebody to bounce things off of, you know, hey, trying to raise kids, and you know, just having somebody there when I lost my daughter, because that is not something that I would wish on anybody or you would hope that anybody would have to go through. Because I'm still not the same. I I always consider myself, I was a Mike Jr. when Gabby was alive, and I'm a totally different Mike Jr. now that she's gone, because you have no idea how that changes you, but it does, unless you're listening to this and you have lost a child. But anyway, I don't want to get this dark trying to keep it about love and all that good stuff. So next week, like I said, it'll either be a part two to this or I may intervene and have one with the fellas. I may try to get the fellas to do a little talk about this. That's not a bad idea. I might try to do that, guys. We'll see if the fellas, you know, but uh sometimes they be leery of this type of stuff, but we'll see. But anyway, you guys have a great week and join us next week for something good. Don't know yet, but something good. Check out the website, thefreeagentfans.com, if you listen to this on Apple or whatever. If you go into the website, then you don't need to check it out. Just send us a message. Tell us what you think. We're gonna keep growing. I'm gonna keep doing this. We're gonna try to keep it going. Y'all stay blessed.