"Single By Choice" - Is That Real Talk?

It is not REAL TALK to say "I'm single by choice"...

By uttering these words, you are confessing that you are, in fact, in a bad spot relationship-wise and might even be in denial about it.

Let's get into some semantics here. (Semantics - a favorite pasttime of Dr. Hak, even though no one usually gets what I'm saying since...you know...its semantics)

There actually are people who are single by choice who exist in this world.

These are "The Beautiful People", The young & rich, The wealthy, and dudes with trump tight game (for the record, Dr Hak has no game, I have what is known as "gravitational pull"). That's it... that's the list. Maybe strippers too. But that's really all.

The reason I'm bringing up semantics is that these people may be Single By Choice, but they'd never really say that outloud because it's already understood. The people who DO say "I'm single by choice" are typically NOT being chased by potential mates of high quality and technique. Yes, those bamas with the gold-teeth and 4 kids may be hollering when you hit the corner bodega and the gas station, but that's not a REALISTIC choice for you, soooooo you can't count that when you say "by choice". Because if you did choose Cletus, your family and homegirls would have you taken in for mental evaluation.

NOBODY is really single by choice. Men or women. 99.9% of the population at least isn't, and you ain't that special (you don't want to be, trust me.)

You may look at your surroundings and circumstances and ACCEPT that being single is OK at this point in your life, but you damn sure don't PREFER to be single. You might prefer to NOT be in an abusive relationship, NOT be dating an overprotective, overbearing, jealous maniac, or NOT be dating the psycho girl from hell who cuts up your clothes everytime your phone rings after 7pm, but that doesn't mean you really like being single or don't desire to one day be in a strong happy committed relationship.

In fact, unless you can sit here and tell me that you in no way shape or form ever plan on being in a long-term relationship with someone wonderful and actually mean it and don't have emotional baggage that is driving that thought, then the fact of the matter is, you CANNOT actually be single by choice. Because in truth, you're waiting for that moment (the happy relationship) to occur. Well who wouldn't choose to be happy right now? Excuses aside.

For men, yes, there is a period of oats-sowing that occurs, but in reality... let Stacey Dash walk through that door and say she wanted to be your wife. You'd see somebody with one of those director things pop into the room and say "THAT'S A WRAP!" Same thing if Shamar Moore or whatever sexy-flexy dude you ladies are into these days (who's that you say? Soulja Boy? Really? To each his/her own...) showed up talking right or whatever.


I don't think its a violation of Man Law to reveal that more often than not, even a man who has a lot of women in his face is hoping one of these chicks turns out to be "The One". Not only that she is "The One", but "The One who plays her hand right so we can just go ahead and do the damn thing without a whole bunch of static".

It's very rare that a man plans on being single for the rest of his life. For one, we want kids and we don't want baby mommas. Notice I didn't even say baby momma drama, I said we don't want baby mommas. Not anything about that situation is appealing.

For two, most men who have a lot of chicks laugh at how dumb they are and how much bullshit comes out of the mouths of babes. At some point, we're just going to have to do a documentary so women can hear themselves talking to us. I nicknamed this chick I dated "Terms and Conditions"... to her face. And she wasn't even that bad. But that's what she was about. It's just too much going on.

Sure, if you're a woman, you may watch some assinine Nightline special and think its great to be a man - especially a Black Man - single and living the life with all these beautiful women to choose from and what not - and yeah ok, FINE it is pretty cool from a VISUAL standpoint to be able to choose 31 baskin robbins flavors of women in all different shapes, styles, colors, or whatever and enjoy ridiculous variety...but that cliche "beauty is only skin-deep" is the realest shit ever said. Yes, there are a ton of beautiful women out there. More than I actually want to admit to myself, because then I'd move to Atlan... ummmm... so yeah there ARE a ton of beautiful women out there and what not, but if you're a woman, jealous of men because we have a lot of beautiful women to choose from, you're COMPLETELY disregarding personality. Which is ironic, and kind of hilarious, considering most of you want to be evaluated on your personality and not your looks. But you evaluate other women on theirs. ("She aint prettier than me, why he leave me for her? HMPH! His loss"... you know, that line of thinking - along with "awww she's pretty, you two make a cute couple I hope it works out"... because you know, being a cute couple is the most important thing right? Riiiiiiiight?)

Look. Men don't play the field because they like variety, its because these chicks are ANNOYING AS HELL. I cannot begin to tell you some of the stories and experiences that men go through dealing with women. The guys who read this will just shake their head and have uncomfortable flashbacks. The women are probably not going to believe me anyway, so I won't. Just believe me when I say, its really not that much fun being a single man... Once you get past the point where having sex is like... special. And by special, I mean, past the point where its a huge surprise that women will have sex with you. Men get to this point at various times in their lives.


My point of that mini-rant is, men want to meet great women and be with them too.

Women, stereotypically speaking of course, want to be in relationships more. So I find it a bit disconcerting that the people who tend to claim to be "Single by Choice" the most, are women.

Let's go to the videotape...

What does "Choice" really mean?

I'll tell you what it doesn't mean.

"I'm in school, work full-time, am a part-time stripper, and I do hair, and don't have time for a relationship right now" DOES NOT COUNT as "single by choice".

"I just finished grad school while working full-time and I'm trying to get my mind right for a while before I get back into dating " also DOES NOT COUNT.

I haven't found the right man also DOES NOT COUNT.

To be single by choice, you are implying that you actually have a CHOICE... A realistic choice. A choice that you might not normally turn down, but you are choosing to do so.

Meaning - for a woman to be single by choice, she has to already know the man of her dreams but simply prefer to not be in a relationship. For whatever reason. Perhaps she has her own business and wants to grow it (*XXXX sound* - nope, if he was the man of your dreams, He'd be the type to support your situation 100% instead of hinder it, so by definition, the guy you are making wait on you isn't The One).

For a man to be single by choice - he has to have said Stacey Dash clone who cooks, has her own stuff together along with a sense of humor and isn't lame, in his face, available and ready to go... and then he'd have to choose to keep dating hood rats.

The problem is, while men typically say things to each other that would indicate we are anti-marriage, most men who see their homeboys about to fuck up a really REALLY good thing will pull him to the side, punch him in the temple and tell him to get his shit together and Man Up. That actually happens. If his boys aren't putting any pressure on him, they don't think you're his One. You can tell when they DO think you are the one for him. They'll do things to indicate they're "on your side" (words, facial expressions) but also won't say hater shit like "if he don't act right I'll take you". You may have experienced this.

The fact of the matter is, even men fully enthralled with their mandingo warrior phase will quickly and suddenly drop out of it when he feels he's met his wife. I've seen some very, very drastic examples. Cold Turkey is Realer than you know.

Anyway, I'm not out here to try to piss people off intentionally, and I realize some of you are sitting there saying "No, dammit, I AM single by choice and you can't tell me otherwise", so I'm going to leave the comments sections open for you to disagree at will. I won't even counter your points (unless you say something really, really, really f-ing stupid).


Just try to understand that the point I'm making is very specific.

Regardless of what you have going on in your life... most of the circumstances you are going to hold off on having a relationship are 1) temporary and 2) not really going to keep you from making it happen if "The One" shows up.

Temporary meaning - too busy, currently in school, trying to save money to buy a house, trying to raise a kid, just got out of school and want some time to myself, just got out of a relationship, etc.

None of those things are permanent, having a kid being the obvious outlier, but does having a kid mean you don't want to be with someone? No. It might mean you have a much higher standard of who you'll date or let into your inner circle, but that still isn't making a "choice" to be single. Its just not - that's not what the terms means. In all of those situations in the previous paragraph, if you met The One (remember, The One is going to be willing to work through said situation) - you'd find time to nourish that relationship.

I'm not saying you drop out of school if you're working and going to grad school. I'm saying you deal with it. Who passes up a wife for a degree he can get later? Who passes up a husband? Come on, let's keep it real...

It's OK to be single because you haven't met anyone (...that wants to put up with you). Really, it is. You ain't gotta go around trying to build it up using cliche terms to make the situation into something its not. Be at peace.

If you were truly single by choice, there are things you would not do. You wouldn't go on dates, ever. You'd never try to get a girls number / give your number to a guy. You'd never smile at strangers at the gym/mall/nasty McDonalds/Home Depot/grocery store. You'd never join a dating site or any organization to "network". You wouldn't wear makeup, deodorant, nice clothes, new shoes or fresh linen. You'd simply stay at home and crochet. Go knit me a sweater.


If there's a real, true reason that supercedes the "if The One was available and willing to make it work through your circumstance" criteria, please, write it down in the comments. I don't mind being proven wrong =)

Keep it Real With Yourselves!