Tag Team Champs: MY Version of Finding out she's "The One"

As I sit here, days away from my 4-year anniversary, I think about what a wild ride it’s been. Once I decided that Mrs. G was the right one, I haven’t doubted it since.

It’s my belief that anyone who feels this way has gone through a moment that put everything into perspective, and lets you know—OK, she’s the one. Dudes are given zero incentive to marry young in society, so this moment has to be something real and life changing. I don’t think these moments are storybook or even romantic most of the time. I, more often than not, don’t really process love in that way.

But, that moment is incredibly important, because it gives you that “us against the world” feeling that tells you this thing is built to last.

Before I was a prim and proper newspaper writer in Southwest Virginia and long before I got the crazy idea to move to Los Angeles, I spent my coming of age years in good ol’ Norfolk, Va. Back in the day, when Mrs. G was just a fun girl who understood my story, we would go to Virginia Beach all the time to walk the sand and look at the stars. At this time, we were also in one of those weird positions where neither of us wanted a relationship, but the bond was there. I now think back to that summer we met as “A Long Hot Summer”, because we did fun things every single day and fell in love in the process.  

HOWEVER, until I had my moment, I couldn’t say with 100 percent conviction that she was it. She was a star pupil in my university, and was progressing rather quickly in her “Down Ass Chick 101” Freshman courses. But there’s a difference between acing your courses and actually showing the potential to amount to something once you walk across that stage and the real world hits you.

We went on a double date with my roommate and his girlfriend to Virginia Beach to star gaze. Once we got there, my friend knew about a secluded spot that we could go to, so that we could just chill out and enjoy the peace of the water and stars, without the BS that goes on at the strip.

“What if the moon started bleeding?” I asked the future Mrs. G.

I was referring to apocalyptic prophecies laid out in the book of Revelations. Why did I bring pestilence, famine and the rise of the Anti-Christ into a beautiful, peaceful date? Who knows, I’m weird like that. But without missing a beat, she went off on even weirder tangents, letting me know she had an imagination on her.

OK, I can work with this one.

We had split up from my friend and his girl, and were separately enjoying some bonding time. Once we had our fill of the beach, we thought we’d head back to downtown Norfolk and hit IHOP.

Dinner/Breakfast was great, and we paid the tab, ready to head back to the apartment. But while we were paying the tab, we could barely hear ourselves think, because there was a huge group of 15 to 20 dudes waiting to be seated, and being loud for no reason.

We walked out, frolicking along the sidewalk, when our happy bubble of double date bliss, was interrupted by someone yelling something from behind.

“Hey, pass that!” some dude said.

My friend turned around. The thing he wanted us to "pass" was my friend’s girlfriend, who was wearing a nice skirt, which was also pretty short. My friend brushed him off at first, until another dude also came out of the woodwork, and they said something that went too far.

After letting a deep sigh, my friend had enough.

“Hold my shirt, Rone,” he said.

He took off his Polo (brand new) and handed it to me. The girls went crazy.

“No, lets go!  They’re not worth it.”

My friend went over to the first guy and squared up.

“Get your boy, Rone,” future Mrs. G said.

At that moment, time slowed down and the camera panned over to me. Me and the future Mrs. G locked eyes, and my face said it all. I wasn’t letting my boy go out like that, and shouldn’t exactly be relied upon to be the voice of reason right now.

“Oh, Lord”, she said.

I handed HER my friend’s shirt. I had lived enough life to know that these soft lames don’t fight fair these days.

I was ready.

I went over to my friend, and all of a sudden, somebody tossed me a mic. I caught it, and something just came over me.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, CHILDREN of all ages…” I began.

“Newport News, Virginia, PROUDLY brings to you, it’s undisputed, TAG TEAM CHAAAAMPIONS OF THE WOOOOOOOOOOORLD!!!!!”

Alright, that didn’t really happen, but I was ready.

Before anything went any further, I felt my front collar choke my neck. I guess the girls had to be the grownups. My date started pulling me away, and so did my friend’s date. We were resisting them at first, UNTIL…

Remember the group of 15 or 20 dudes that were making all of that noise when we were checking out? Yeah, they were all together. And ALL 15 to 20 of them walked out to confront us. I also saw that the security guard was standing there doing absolutely nothing. Thanks, guy.

Since we were ready for a tag team match and not a death sentence Royal Rumble, we chalked up the L and walked back to the car. They followed behind us to the car.

Now, anybody that has grown up in certain places, or been to certain places, knows that the go-to move for dudes with low self-esteem is to say or do something disrespectful toward your date when they outnumber you. It’s a lame move that I’ve come across before, but not to THIS extent.

I looked in their eyes and saw they were a bunch of clowns and didn’t really have any intention of doing anything. They were actually giggling like a bunch of girls. BUT if we would have swung, there is no doubt in my mind that they would have easily stomped us out, and you might see a few people walking around with “RIP Rone” t-shirts and tattoos.

They were lined up in front of the car, and I have this thing about not liking to be afraid of things, or not letting people think that I am. That’s probably why I get up in front of strangers to tell jokes, and why I sold most of my belongings and drove out to LA with no guarantees. The way my head works, if I succumb to fear, I’m going to die a slow death inside.

So just so THEY knew that I knew they weren’t about that life, I walked along the front of the car, past all 15 to 20 of them and opened Mrs. G’s door to let her in, and crossed in front of them again to go back to my side and let myself in.

I thought I made my point, but my friend apparently wanted to make a point of his own. While we were pulling off, he told me to stop the car. I stopped it, and he rolled his window down from the backseat.

“On some REAL shit,” he yelled toward the group.

“NONE of ya’ll niggas could fuck with me one on one,” he said.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the weakest looking dude out of the crew (you know the one that looks like he does things to get points) take off running in slow motion. From outside of the car, he hit my friend with a half-hearted jump punch to the side of the head, which made me mad, but was also impressive, because I’ve never seen anybody do a jump punch before.

Alright, so that didn’t work out so well.

“You wanna go now, or are you trying to catch a jumping head butt too?” I asked.

OK, I didn’t really ask him that, but it’d be funny if I did.

We drove off, plotting death upon anyone who has ever been to IHOP. When we got back to the apartment, I was going off about what had happened. I don’t remember what I was saying, but this is probably how it played out:

So how was this our moment?

I learned that she could be calm under crisis. I learned that she wasn’t the type that would elevate the situation. I learned that in the rare case that I lose control, she’s level headed and ready to take care of business.

I learned that when it comes down to it, she’s a soldier.

She later said that while she helped diffuse the situation, if anyone would have laid a hand on us (outside of the comical jump punch), she and the other girl would have grabbed a shoe, a brick or anything they could find and clock someone before getting stomped out with us. Now I would neeeeeeeeeever want that to happen, but I guess that’s good to know.

I already had the warm and fuzzies for her, but facing the threat of being put in the hospital is a raw and honest way to let you know who you can trust. From that moment on, I knew it was me and her.

Winning and Writing: My Daily Life and Why This Month Might Kill Me

These days, I'm busier than ever, but my life has gotten simpler. My life is simple because I separate my days ... scratch that, I separate my MOMENTS into two categories.

Those categories are wins and losses.

Rather than looking ahead with a "five year plan" or setting New Year's resolutions that I'm not going to do, I instead, choose to go about my days refusing to take losses with my work, my relationship, my TV writing aspirations and anything else that is important to me. If I do what I'm supposed to do, and more importantly, if I do what I said I was going to do, I won that moment. If I get lazy or for any reason, fail to hold up my end of the deal ... with myself, then that's a big fat, L baby. 

Here's an example of a routine day for me. 

Get up at 6:30 a.m., without hitting snooze. W

Go for a walk, grab a coffee, get a workout in or anything else that involves me seeing that beautiful California sunshine, since I'm going to be indoors for some hours. W

[For the sake of this scenario, let's say that I went to grab that cup of coffee]

Make small talk with the cute girl at the checkout counter, and watch her face twist in disgust. Realize that I forgot to brush my teeth. L x3

Go home, and knock out some writing work for my day job, making sure I meet a certain quota. W

Flirt with Mrs. G, because foreplay is a 24-hour job. W

Lose all my momentum by smacking her on the butt too hard, or complimenting telling her that she could have a great career as a video hoe. L

Maintain the good day I'm having by not begging for forgiveness or allowing that last L to define me W x3

Finish up my work for the day. W

Work on a script, write some jokes, hit an open mic, call my parents, explore Los Angeles or do something else productive with the rest of my evening. W

Drink a sleepy time tea and relax. W

Make sweet love down by the fireplace *W or L (Even Jordan had off nights...)

Wash, rinse and repeat. In terms of what is going on with me lately, I have a tall task in front of me. Last month, I tightened up a pilot script I was working on to submit to the CBS Writers Mentorship Program. I have two more TV writing fellowships to apply for this year, NBC Writers on the Verge and Warner Bros. Writer's Workshop.

Last year, I made it to the Top 5% in the WB Program, which carried me into the new year with a crazy amount of motivation. I'm hoping to get over the hump and get into the program this year, or any of the other 5 or so I've applied to.

Anyway, the tall task of applying to Warner Bros. requires me to write a brand new spec script. I wrote a House of Lies spec script earlier in the year, but I e-mailed the program and they said that House of Lies is not on the list of acceptable shows. I got into the show Suburgatory recently, and plan to write and complete a script in the next few weeks to submit to the program.

Now what my mind wants me to do is sit on the ground and cry and complain about not having enough time, OR go ahead and chalk this one up to an L, but apply with a sloppily thrown together script just to say I did it.

Neither one of those are going to happen.

I'm going to use these next few weeks to kill myself at the keys, probably waive my priviliges to a social life and knock out the best Suburgatory script that I'm capable of writing. And if it doesn't blow them away, then it won't be because I didn't put my blood and sweat into it. 

I don't walk around with the "Oh my God, I'm in Hollywood!" eyes anymore. I have the talent and I'm going to make this happen.

Why?

Because I refuse to take losses.

Why Must You Test Me, Woman?!

Mrs. G and I have made many road trips in our time together, and on these road trips we tend to have the best conversations of our life.  When it’s nothing but nothing but us, miles of highway and Bluetooth audio blaring out of the speakers of my favorite car, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world at that moment.

I get the impression she takes advantage of my warm and fuzzy feelings in these moments, because during one road trip in particular, she used her cunning in an attempt to assassinate the personality of the man she fell in love with.

As we’re cruising along, the focus of the conversation turned to me.

Mrs. G: You know, sometimes I kind of wish you were one of those guys that was like  “Oh, man. My wife is going to kill me.”

Rone: What do you mean?

Mrs. G: I don’t know. I love the way you are, but always being philosophical instead of just letting me win or worrying about what I might say or do kind of takes the fun out of it.

             I didn’t know what to say.

             Not because what she said didn’t make any sense, but because the guy she was trying to mold me into in this conversation seemed shockingly similar to a pussy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but Mrs. G is a bit of a firecracker, and she’d eat me alive if I was the guy she describes.

             Caught up in the peaceful beauty of the road trip, I actually found myself EXPLAINING that she’s got me all wrong and I do get concerned about her wrath. It only lasted about 10 seconds, but it was the most shameful 10 seconds of pandering that you’d ever want to see. Picture the scene in Friday where Deebo had kept Red’s bike waaaay after the amount of time he was supposed to borrow it, and Red tip toed around it with his “It’s kinda like it’s both of ours” attitude.

             I snapped out of it.

Rone: So basically you want to control me?

Mrs. G: (pause) Kinda! *laugh*

             Momma said there’d be days like this. At this moment, I realized that women were inherently evil and never to be trusted complicated. As I glanced over to my bride sitting in the passenger seat, this is all I saw.

             She was trying to get me. This is when I realized I could neeeever change. I knew that was so opposite of what she wanted, because one of my go-to jokes to annoy her is me following behind her saying “Yes, my Queen” like a battered dominatrix client.

             So why would she test me like that?

             I think it boils down to this, and I touched on it in another post. No matter how educated, powerful or capable a woman is, she does NOT want to have the duty of getting killed first. Not only does she want to not get killed first, she wants to know that the guy she’s with can be a protector when the shizer hits the fan. Without even thinking about it, and she’s far from the first to do this, they will pick away at a guy’s manhood or whatever makes him THE “dude”, to see if he’s still got it. If you pass the test, it’s like Goku getting off that spirit bomb—all is right with the world and you live to fight another day. If you fail it, well, I’m not saying she’ll become abusive, but just get used to being her shopping trip purse carrier.

             The sentiment behind this completely unconscious act is this, “If he folds up against this, or is afraid of me, how can he protect me from anything?”

             Since we’ve evolved past fighting grizzly bears to win a woman’s hand, the parameters have changed a little, but the thought process is still there.

             Don’t believe me? Do some research of your own. Lifetheroughdraft.com is all about field research, so don’t take my word for it.

            Think about the most outspoken, my way or the highway lady relative, friend, co-worker or acquaintance you can imagine. Now think about her relationship. If she’s happy, there’s a good chance that the man she’s with is also outspoken, my way or the highway OR has the type of personality that can easily deflect it when necessary. And if he doesn’t happen to have that type of personality, does she look happy? Probably not.

             A lot of successful women have the biggest problem with this. Since they’re used to being the head honcho in one realm, they tend to pick easy prey in relationships, and wind up with guys that they can control, but that don’t make them happy.

             I’m not saying the “Yes, my Queen” dynamic can’t work in a relationship, but I’m not willing to risk my marriage on trying it either. To further illustrate Mrs. G’s disgust for that character I play to get on her nerves, she always jokes that if I was really like that, she’d cheat on me. Now she’s the most down to earth, loyal person I know, but a lot of truth is said in jest…

            And I don’t want to have to wonder why my baby has different colored eyes than me, just because I didn’t pass the test.

Women Don't Want to Win, They want a Winner

My First Domestic Violence Incident

From the age of 2 until about 9^th grade, I had a cycle of interactions with girls. I’d apparently become someone’s boyfriend, but then we would never interact in school. If I liked you maaaaybe we would talk on the phone or online, but in my younger years, it was pretty much just a title and a reason to be part of the gossip cycle.

I found myself in some “relationships” that I didn’t even choose to be in. In about second grade, I remember standing by the coat closet with a group of people, waiting for the bell to ring, so that we could walk out to the buses. Two girls were standing near me, when one of them asked, “Who is that?” referring to me.

“That’s my man,” the other girl replied.

Being the shy kid I was, I didn’t object or even say anything. They went into giggle fits, and apparently I had a girlfriend. I guess I wasn’t too opposed to that, it just woulda been cool if we had actually spoken before.

I remember being in the backseat of the car when my mom and aunt were talking, probably about men and relationships. I wanted to feel like I was part of the conversation, so I decided in my head that I’d actually claim her as my girlfriend. That’s what you’re supposed to do, right?

“Can we go to Food Lion? I want to buy my girlfriend a Ring Pop for Valentine’s Day,” I said.

After a bunch of “awww’s” and “that’s so sweet’s”, my mom said that she taught me well. I think advertising taught me well also. In the Ring Pop commercial, these cool looking white kids with skateboards and backwards hats would get all the girls by pulling out a Ring Pop. I mean, these little harlots would just come out of the woodwork if he had all seven flavors of those Ring Pops. If I wanted to be cool and get all the girls, this is what I had to do.

Sadly, that day never came. Our relationship never lasted that long.

One day on the playground, I was walking a few laps, when her loudmouthed friend came out of nowhere and got in my face. The universe broke me in early, because I’d learn that the loudmouth friend you don’t like is a common theme in relationships.

“Who is that girl you were talking to?!”,  her friend yelled.

Having no clue what they were talking about, I kept walking. When I was done with my laps, I went over to the jungle gym, where they followed me.

“Are you cheating on me? I saw you talking to some girl!”, my “girlfriend” said.

“Back up off me, you goofy hoes!”, I replied.

*Editor’s note: When recounting some stories from years ago, the author might paraphrase certain portions of dialogue.

Next thing I know, it got physical.

I felt claws all over my neck and face, and my shirt and jacket were going in two different directions.

These chicks were trying to fight me!

When I realized they weren’t about to let up, I grabbed my girlfriend by the arms, used her momentum against her and swung her into wooden jungle gym. She cried like I had stabbed her.

I waited in class for the call to the principal’s office, or from a teacher, but it never happened.

I took two things from this. One, little girls are ready for serious things much sooner than little boys. Two, kids pick up on cues from grownups, including relationships, so make sure they see good things.

I can’t say I’ve been attacked by a girlfriend since then, and that’s probably a good thing.