one of the most dependable relationship tenets is the fact that when its blatantly obvious that a man is in a committed relationship, there’s a certain segment of women (read: “all“) who will begin to find him more attractive. from latent self-esteem and “distant daddy” issues to the fact that men in relationships generally aren’t pressed to find new pu**y (an attractive quality in the eyes of most women), there are myriad possible reasons for this phenomenon, but, for the most part, it all comes down to one general rule:

women are lemmings (ie: “sheep”, “followers”, “the borg”, “republicans”)

“how so, exceedingly omnipotent and virile champ?“, you ask…well

…its all about the wagon. the bandwagon

bandwagon attraction is a general thought process that many women possess, a way of thinking that allows peer-pressure to influence how attractive they might find someone. they practice this everywhere, from the nightclub dynamic where one expertly timed “i think he’s funny looking” can influence an entire flock of chicks into thinking that an relatively unfunny looking guy is, in fact, funny looking, to the entire mystic surrounding the wedding ring:

“well…there must be something great about him since someone actually wanted to marry him. i wonder if he wants some head?”

in equation form:

x (a man’s base score)

+

y(1/10)  (the number of women who’ve professed attraction to him with her earshot)

equals

z (his adjusted score)

for instance, if a woman thinks a guy might be a 5 (x), but she hears 20 different women say that he’s attractive (y)*(1/10), his score raises to a 7 (z)

***for a negative remark, the equation stays the same, sans the “1/10th” changing to a “negative 1/10th”***

in no other avenue is this phenomenon more prevalent than when thinking about pop cultural figures. from michael jordan (who, more than any other public figure, made it socially acceptable again to admit attraction to dark-skinned black males) to the mystery surrounding the confusing infatuation black women had with mos def from 2001 to 2004, theres a long and varied history of men becoming “attractive” basically overnight just because a few fickle women deemed them such and their opinions began to pick up steam like, ummm, a thing that picks up lots of steam very quickly.

the patron saint...for now

currently, the 2008 patron saint of bandwagon attraction seems to be hill harper, a man who in less than 30 months has gone from “what kind of f*cking name is hill??” to the de facto ideal mentioned when black women profess an affinity for nerdy n*ggas. in fact, if you google “i need me a hill harper type of n*gga“, over two billion results pop up, with over 500 million of them coming directly from lizburr.com (***editors note: the champ is lying***)

what does this all mean? why are women so easily influenced when it comes to what they find attractive? why did mos def shack up with an nba groupie? who knows. all i know is that i need to start rocking a wedding ring.

on second thought, maybe not. wagons give me motion sickness. i think i’ll pass

–the champ

panama and i are both aware that the url we chose, verysmartbrothas.com, is about as nuance-less as a typical tyler perry movie title. we chose it because we figured it would be easy to remember, and also because we’re, ummmm, two very smart-ass brothas. duh. thing is, despite the “brothas” part and the fact that the majority of our regulars are black, neither of us have written anything race-specific yet. sh*t, if you look at our entry topics, this site could have been created by worldlywittywhitemen.com and nothing would be any different.

this is not an accident. i don’t know about p, but for me personally, entries written from a “man who happens to be black” instead of from a “black man” allows for a bit more creative freedom and overall resonance. at the same time, i’m not so naive as to think that my experience as a black man hasn’t uniquely influenced my perception of everything i’ve seen and done, it’s just that i feel like i bring more to the proverbial table from the “man who happens to be black” angle

with that being said, i’m still not planning on writing any race-specific entries (ie “a smart brothas perspective on interracial dating“), plus, the people over at racialicious have probably covered it better than i would, but if i ever decided to put the “black mans hat” on and write a smart brothas perspective on interracial dating, i’d want to bring a couple new points to the table, points such as…

1. it seems as if black women occasionally forget one very important factor when thinking about black men: the fact that we’re, ummm, men, and, for the most part, we’re more loyal to the man part than to the black part.

***don’t believe me? okay, lets do a little exercise. imagine that there’s a gun to you head, and the only thing stopping the trigger from being pulled is a choice you’re told to make: you must either change your gender or your race. (ie, a black woman would have to choose between either becoming a white woman or a black man) without even reading the comments, i bet the majority of black women will keep their race, while most black men will choose to keep their gender. ***

this is paramount in the interracial dating discussion for one reason: men are generally less discerning when it comes to sexual partners than women are, and, since black men are men, physical attractiveness and availability typically trump racial loyalty. this is true for all men, regardless of race. i date black women exclusively because black women are the bangingest women and i’m surrounded by them, but not solely because of any perceived loyalty. sorry.

2. i’ve never bought the claim that white women are less sexually inhibited than other races of women (either i live in a vacuum, or the people who make these statements have just never met any of the women i’ve dated, lol). in my opinion, the basis of this myth all comes down to one factor: ubiquity. easily outnumbering every other demographic group in this country, caucasian women are literally everywhere. you can’t leave the house without tripping over a white woman. sh*t, i think theres one baking a cake in my kitchen right now, and this reality skewers sexual perception.

for instance, lets say theres 5000 incoming freshman at a university. of those 5000, roughly 22-2500 of them will typically be white women, as opposed to maybe 200 sistas. now, lets assume that roughly 10 percent of these incoming freshman women are super freak nasties, willing to do any and everything to any and everybody. this means that while maybe 20 to 25 of the sistas are freaking off every night, as many as 250 freshman white women are budding porn stars, a number which outnumbers the entire black female freshman population, a fact which can easily lead to all types of misconceptions. its not that all white woman are snizzles, its just that theres so many white women that the number of snizzles by themselves outnumbers pretty much everyone else

3. to all the sisters who are deeply ambivalent about stepping out and trying “something old”, its really not that serious. if you’re lucky you’ll be on earth for approximately 80 years, and I’d hate for you to spend a good portion of that time sacrificing your own happiness for some romanticized technicolor loyalty.

do. you.

and don’t worry, you can bring him to the vsb.com barbecue too. we’ll even make him a plate.

i could continue, but this “black man’s hat” is heavy as hell. no wonder i keep it in on the shelf.

—the champ

five reasons why truly platonic friendships can never exist.

1. Unless online or in college (two paradoxical universes where the usual rules and regulations of social discourse are thrown out of the window, like mop water and caustic midgets) men and women don’t actively seek friends of the opposite sex.

2. If given the opportunity, most men who aren’t in a committed and monogamous romantic relationship will sleep with pretty much any reasonably attractive woman. Yes, any. We may not actively want to, but, in the right situation, we happily would. That pesky “would” kind of has a way of always completely contradicting the whole platonic thing.

“Well, what if the guy harbors absolutely no physical attraction at all towards the woman, and vice versa? A platonic friendship can occur then, right” I hear you asking, which leads us to…

3. No unattached man is going to willingly spend a good amount of his free time with a like-aged woman he is completely unattracted to. It will never happen, a fact which actually “fits”, especially when you consider that…

4. …A women (notice I didn’t use any qualifiers such as “most women” or “a typical woman”) would get extremely (read: EXTREMELY) frustrated and annoyed if made to interact regularly with a guy who found her completely unattractive. Don’t argue this. It’s science.

“Well…” the same imaginary anonymous questioner from before asks…
“…what if you have a man and a woman who are both already in romantic relationships? Why can’t a platonic friendship occur then?”

Since I’ve already established that we don’t actively seek opposite sex friends while we’re single, the only way two people in separate romantic relationships can become truly platonic friends would be if they happened to first meet each other after they both were already in the relationship, an impossibility due to the fact that…

5. …No man or woman is going to be okay with their significant other making new close friends of the opposite sex.

Note, I didn’t say you couldn’t have close like-aged friends of the opposite sex, but just don’t call that shit platonic. it’s not, and will never be.

Now, you may disagree with some (or all) of what I’ve said, but, to quote my favorite reptilian drug kingpin, Marlo Stanfield …. “You want it to be one way….but it’s the other way”

**the champ finishes his snicker and slowly climbs into a ford excursion driven by a very unkempt panama, who glares ominously at the imaginary anonymous questioner as they drive away**

–the champ