sagaciously is...

pre-epiphany context:: I had a date, which the jury is still out on whether it did/didn't go well. However, since I refuse to blog about the mundane, I won't share the gory details of said date until, well...until they become gory.

However, a friend of mine asked me how it went, and since I couldn't answer, I wanted to capture why I couldn't tell whether it went well. And in doing that - had the epiphany. And the epiphany is my application of the Low Hanging Fruit Theory.

the theory:: ...isn't originally mine, and if you Google it, you'll find all kinds of analogies and uses, that vary from the application of the Theory to Application Development, all the way to social behavior and advance immunization methods. However I'll spare you the search, and provide (IMHO) a decent analogy (cribbed from the IT Toolbox):

The example that my teacher used was the giraffe. Giraffes came in all sizes, short and tall. The short ones competed with each other and other similar sized animals for the low hanging food. The taller giraffes could eat both the low hanging food and also the higher hanging food where there wasn't any competition. Over the course of time, the smaller giraffes died out while the taller giraffes were the only ones left to breed. My apologies in advance for any over-simplification of the Darwinian theory, they are mine and do not reflect my 9th grade teacher. But that brings me back to any concept that encourages focusing on "low hanging fruit" to gain momentum suggest that there isn't a long term thoughts around how to eat the higher hanging fruit.

The quick & dirty version: some fruit is really easy to eat, and sometimes that's the fruit you want to focus on. Conversely, since you know that fruit is easily picked, and soon to be gone, you may (at some point) want to figure out a way to get to the harder to reach fruit. And here again, chances are that low hanging fruit isn't as sweet, juicy or colorful as the higher hanging fruit, but...it's easy.

geek philosophy:: epiphany, thy name is yeOryios. Remember a WHILE back, I blogged about a certain geek I was going out with? Let's call him yeOryios. Well, yeOryios shared some insight with me about the whole "quest to find a decent guy" experience. Paraphrasing: "dogs will bark at EVERYTHING: good, bad, cute, ugly etc. So, chances are - they'll be the first thing to holla at a woman. And from a woman's perspective, there will be a whole bunch of dogs trying to talk to her. aside: like Sara's saying "it's hard to see the forest for the sleaze..." And go rent Hitch, while you're at it - but back to yeOryios: Meanwhile, the decent guy - not the player who thinks he's the shiznit, and is trying to date models, but the really decent, good guy - is chillin, waiting for her to fend those dogs off, so he can find his opening. He won't approach her while she's fending off dogs, because he doesn't want to get shooed off with the rest of the losers. Hell, chances are - he may wait for her to approach him instead, just so he doesn't get lumped in with the rest of the bunch. And in the meantime, those good guys, are alone as well.

the desperate housewife theory:: Did I mention most of my closest friends are male? Well one of them, who shall remain nameless, provided me with this dating philospophy, the desperate housewife theory: "Men are aesthetic creatures, we all know this. However, some men, 'specially guys who ain't really trying to commit, want to expend the least amount of $ and energy to get the goodies. So, this really handsome kid hipped me to what he looks for in a woman. It boils down to two things: low-self-esteem, and/or fat/ugly chicks. He calls 'em 'desperate housewives', because a) they're looking to settle down and b) they don't ask for much in return, beyond some attention. Chances are - they're an easy target. That's what I look for - the desperate housewife."

jezebel said what?:: You heard there's a man-shortage, right? Oh girl - it was in: Essence, Ebony, Mademoiselle, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, jane...heck, I think they talked about the impact for working mothers in Ms.Magazine. And there was a related story in Newsweek that the bloggers picked up and ran with. Mm-hm, they talked about it this morning on Today. Matter of fact I just got an email, that included a link to Rev. Wilhelm Wilson's sermon about it, that Jill Johnson wrote about in the Washington Post. Oh yeah, I know you saw her on Opraah, it was Wednesday, just two days after D.L. King was on there. Mm-hm, yeah - I heard he's got a play about it, starring Malic Yeoba. No not that one, that one was written by Teyeler Perry, and Malic ain't in that. But I did hear they were going to talk about that one tomorrow on Micheael Baasden. Girl, you know I'm going to tune in, I can't miss a day without my Micheael Baasden.

<sigh> don't email. misspellings intentional.

It's amazing that all women aren't out here, dangling at the bottom of the tree, considering. Okokokokok, I'm getting to the pernt now.

the low hanging fruit theory:: I've been selling myself short, based on the behavior of the dogs barking at the bottom of that fruit tree. And, I think a lot of women do. We settle, we work with a brother, we make lists of exactly what we want knowing full well we are so gonna concede items, as we're writing that list. And sometimes, we put up with behavior that we wouldn't wish on our worst enemy.

And we start looking at ourselves differently, allowing our view to be colored by the dogs barking a the bottom of that tree (oh, that analogy is painful, even if it's accurate). I think about S & F, and the whole Fabulous Incident, and yeah - only a sistah whose head is really f***'ed up would actually allow her escort to hit on other women in front of her, during their "non-date" date. And that would never be me, right?

Wrong. In my head, I've allowed the barking dogs change my view. I don't think I'm low hanging fruit, but I think that the average brother will probably think I'm low hanging fruit. The average brother (in my subconscious) is a barking dog. The average brother (in my head) will think that because of _______ (fill in the blank: hair, size, stature, day of the week, last night's basketball game, weather), that I've got low hanging fruit potential, and will try and take a swab at me, to see if I'll fall off the tree.

The problem is that it didn't matter whether I think I'm low hanging fruit, or I think that he thinks I'm low hanging fruit, as long as I act like it, I'll get treated like it.

back to the date:: He's a nice guy. He approached me like a gentleman, we've had some interesting phone conversations, he's witty, a snappy dresser, financially stable, and good company. We had lunch, had good conversation, ended the date weel, and have chatted briefly since.

However, I pointed some negative things about myself that he probably never would've noticed had I not told him. They were minor, but still unnecessary. And at the end of the day, because he acted like a perfect gentleman, I didn't know how to react. Still don't. So, was it a good date? Yes, I had a good time. Does he actually like me? I think he did, before I inserted foot in said mouth. Will anything come of this? da hell if I know.

I learned a valuable lesson from this: that I'm only a peach at the top of the tree if I put enough confidence in that to convince someone else the same thing. And if I talk to him again, I'll be sure to show him that.

aside: someone told me that I'm complex. I just hope that I'm not as hard to pick and eat as a pom.