Black Man's Handbook to Dating: Rule #666 Monday, August 25, 2008

I hear a lot of dating exploits via my circle of friends, and I can't help but think certain situations can be avoided if you develop a set of personal 'don't do this' rules and just never break them. One rule that I have (and I didn't even realize how firm I stood by this rule until fairly recently) has always done right by me, so I present to you:

Black Man's Handbook to Dating: Rule No. 666 - Never get involved with a chick that goes by solely a nickname.

Now at face value this may seem a bit harsh to all of the sisters (and there are a lot of you) out there with nicknames. But follow me for a second.

First of all, nicknames are best used sparingly. A person should only know your nickname if they are cool with you like that. Everyone has a nickname (myself included), but a red flag for dating is when a woman (also known as chick/shorty/slim/lil mama/broad/[insert sexist term here]) introduces herself by her nickname. Sometimes women have those long ass hood names i.e. De'neshirita, in which case everyone benefits by simply shorting her name to 'Dee'. But if a woman introduces herself by her nickname, and never even mentions her real name, then chances are she either: A. has multiple baby-daddies and the different nicknames they call her is how she remembers who fathered which B. is in a gang and will shoot you or C. she and her baby-daddies are all in the same gang, and are setting you up to get robbed because you went to college, which clearly means you own lots of nice things (only in the hood do people think graduating college guarantees you six-figures).

Now it could be a case in which maybe she doesn't like her real name, and she says something to the effect of 'I think my real name is ugly/dumb sounding/doesn't fit what I look like'. To most people, all of these sound understandable; but to me it is another red flag. There's legal procedures you must go through before you just up and decide to change your damn name. If she has no respect for the law, then I'm willing to bet she's broken the law a few times (breaking the law is for black guys only; can't we have anything anymore?). As a rule of thumb, never get involved with a chick with a criminal history; you'll only pay for it in the long run (bail money is reserved for when grandma decides to throw beer bottles at cop cars again).

So what are other reasons a woman would go by a nickname exclusively? Well there's really no nice way to say it; she may be a hoe. I've witnessed three different scenarios in my lifetime in which two dudes were talking about the same chick under a different nickname, and not even realizing it was the same chick (hilarity almost never ensued).

So before my comment section is blown up with hateful remarks, I would like to take this time to apologize to the all the 'Lil Mamas', 'Baby Girls', 'Preciouses', 'Pumpkins', and 'LaLas'... you're different.