CONTROL

You didn't ask permission.

At least...

You don't remember asking.

Tune in.

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Transcript

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They say real men don't talk. I say they just haven't been asked the right questions. This ain't about trends. It's about truth. About faith that don't fold, love that costs something, and manhood that still means something. I'm not here to argue. I'm here to build. This is the Always Up Podcast, Season 2, Too Real to Win. For the men, still trying to love right in a world that loves wrong. So Jay gets off work on a Friday and it's his boy's birthday. They got dinner reservations at 9, probably grab a drink somewhere after and call it a night. He's been talking about it all week. He gets home around 7 and jumps in the shower, gets out, and sees a missed call from his girl, so he calls her back while he's getting dressed. What you doing? Getting ready? For what? Dinner. Remember, it's Mike's birthday. Oh, that's tonight? Yeah. I thought we were doing something. What were we supposed to do? I don't know. I just thought we were gonna do something. Okay, what do you want to do? I don't know. Well, I gotta be there at nine. Okay. He keeps getting dressed and 15 minutes later she calls back. Did you leave yet? Nope. Who's going? Same people I told you earlier this week. Who? Mike, Dave, Chris, and a couple other people. Are girls gonna be there? I mean, it's a restaurant. I'm assuming they're gonna let women in. That's not what I'm asking. I don't know who's gonna be there. Okay. So eventually he gets out the house, gets in the car, and the phone rings again. Where are you? Driving. I know you're driving. Where are you? On the highway. Who you with? Nobody. Why do you sound different? Different than what? I don't know. You just sound different. I'm driving. Whatever. Click. He gets to the restaurant and everybody is eating, drinking, talking shit. Regular night, nothing special. His phone is sitting face down on the table and he doesn't realize it's buzzing. He flips it over and realizes he has nine missed calls. Mike sees it and says, Everything good? Yeah, she probably needs something. So he calls her back. What's wrong? What? You called me nine times. No I didn't. He looks at the phone again. Okay. So who are you sitting next to? What? Who are you sitting next to? Dave. Who's on the other side? A wall? Send me a picture. Of what? The table. Now everybody's looking at him laughing. So Dave takes the picture and Jay texts her. They go right back to eating, and a few minutes later the phone rings. Who took the picture? What? Who took the picture? Because you're in it. Dave took it. Dave who? The Dave I just told you I'm sitting next to. Dinner wraps up and Mike is like, let's go grab one drink. He texts her. We're gonna grab one drink. I'll call you when I leave. No response. They are at the next spot and the conversation continues. Twenty minutes in, Chris glances over at the front door. Yo, isn't that your girl Jay? He turns around. Sure enough, there she is. She doesn't come over, doesn't wave, doesn't say shit. She just stands there, looking directly at him for a few seconds, turns around and walks right back out. Now the whole table is quiet. Everybody's kind of looking at each other, trying to figure out what the fuck just happened. Mike said, Did she just do a drive-by on foot? Everyone laughs. Then his phone rings. Hello? I just wanted to see you. You just drove 30 minutes, walked in, looked at me, and then left. Because you wanted to see me? Yes. He sits there for a second, puts the phone back on the table, takes a sip of his drink, and goes right back to acting like nothing happened. All eyes were on Jay like it was his birthday. What? His boy leans over. I didn't know we were gonna meet your probation officer tonight. Mike spit out his drink. Fuck you. Jay takes another sip and his phone buzzes. He looks down. Who are you sitting next to now? I was hanging out with some friends and Rob and Kay were there, married for 12 years and cool as shit together. Not just in love, but you could tell they genuinely liked each other. They were talking about what they did over the weekend. We went to brunch Saturday, then walked around the design district for a little while. Sunday we went to church, hit the gym, came home and watched the game. Then somebody asked Rob, You still play basketball? Yeah. Sometimes, his wife looks at him. When? He laughs. Damn, I guess I don't. Everybody laughs. Then one of the girls mentions an upcoming trip to Mexico. And Kay says, Oh, I would love to go there. Her friend goes, come with us. It's just a girl's trip. She just stares at Rob and he goes, What? Nothing. Her friend says, So come. I gotta see what we're doing. Rob looks confused. What are we doing that weekend? I don't know. So what are you checking? Everybody laughs. She laughs too. Shut up. Then he says, Go, I don't care. And she looks at him. You sure? Yeah. You ain't gonna be acting funny. He starts laughing. Why would I be acting funny? I don't know. Her friend is already pulling out her phone. Okay, I'm sending you the details. They start talking about flights and hotels. Her husband goes back to whatever conversation he was having. And a few minutes later she leans over to him. So what are you gonna do? When? When I'm gone? He looks at her. I don't know. She laughs. No, seriously. I seriously don't know. She thinks about it for a second. I don't know what I'd do either. How long is this trip? Four days. He looks at her. Four days? See? They both start laughing. Her friend looks up from her phone. Wait, when's the last time y'all been apart for four days? They look at each other. Neither one says anything. Damn, I don't know. Her friend goes right back to looking at flights. So Thursday through Sunday. Yeah, that works. Go ahead. I hate go ahead. Especially when I wasn't asking for permission in the first place. And everybody knows there's more than one version of it. There's go ahead. And then there's go ahead. Two completely different experiences. One means have fun, and the other one means I hope wherever the fuck you're going has somewhere for you to sleep. Do whatever you want. Jesus Christ. I don't know if there are six more dangerous words in a relationship. I've been hearing that my whole life, and I still don't know what I'm supposed to do. Because apparently, doing whatever I want is an option, but it's rarely the correct answer. And maybe that's where this gets complicated, because nobody actually told you not to go. You can go, you just know how the movie ends. And maybe that's why do whatever you want fucks with me. Because technically I can. But I've been in situations where I knew doing what I wanted meant we weren't speaking for the rest of the night. Or the affection changed, the energy changed, maybe we're in the same bed, and somehow I'm sleeping by myself. Nobody says that's why. Hell maybe that's not why. But after a while you start noticing timing. I do something you don't like, and suddenly everything feels different. That's a strange kind of freedom, because eventually I'm not deciding whether I want to do something anymore. I'm deciding whether it's worth everything that might come with it. And shit, those are two completely different decisions. We were laughing at old versions of ourselves, the clothes we used to wear, and how much life has changed. She said, I used to be so creative. Used to be? She laughed. You know what I mean? Nope, I don't. I used to always be doing something. Painting, decorating, creating something. I don't do any of that shit anymore. Why not? She kinda shrugged. I don't know. We kept talking, and a few minutes later she came back to it. Damn, when did I stop doing that? She thought about it for a second. I know I was still painting when I first met him because I had those big ass canvases all over my apartment. Now she's laughing. My apartment used to look like I was waiting on somebody from Art Basel to discover me. How many paintings you sell? None. Okay, Pablo, shut up. And we're laughing. But now she's remembering all this shit she hadn't thought about in years. She used to come home, put some music on, and paint. Sometimes she'd be up half the night doing it. Not because she was trying to turn it into anything. She just liked it. She sat there thinking about it. I know I was still painting when we first moved in together. Then I don't know. Life just started moving. There was always something else going on. She took a sip of her drink. He never really liked my paintings anyway. And I looked at her. No, not like that. I didn't say anything. I know what you're thinking. I wasn't thinking shit. Yes, you were. He started laughing. Patrice, I'm sitting here drinking my drink. You brought that shit up. She laughed, but then she got quiet again. He used to joke about them. Okay. And I guess after a while. I don't know. She stopped. Then she said, I don't think he ever told me to stop. I think I just got tired of hearing about it. What you mean? Every time I pulled out my canvas, he'd make a joke. Or ask how long I was gonna be doing it, or I'd feel like I should be doing something else. She paused. After a while, I just stopped painting. You could do stuff so long that eventually you stop trusting yourself. Somebody asks you, What do you want to do? I don't care. No, seriously, what do you want to do? I'm good with whatever, and maybe you really are. But when you've spent years thinking about how somebody else is gonna feel, how they're gonna react, I think that starts becoming part of how you answer. Somebody tells you, go ahead, and instead of just saying, okay, you're looking at them trying to figure out what go ahead means. Are you sure? Yeah, you're not mad. No, and they might really not be mad. But you've been doing this so long, they probably don't even have to say anything anymore. You already know what they would say, or at least you think you do. And that's the part I never thought about with inhibitions. That voice in your head telling you don't do that? Go home. Think about it. I always assumed that voice was yours. Shit, maybe it's not always your voice. Maybe you've just been hearing somebody else's for so long you can't tell the difference anymore. Control probably looks completely different depending on which side of it you're standing on. Because when somebody keeps explaining the same shit over and over trying to change your mind, you know exactly what they're doing, but when you're doing it, you're not trying to change anybody's mind. You're explaining, apparently for three hours. Because obviously they don't understand. If they understood, they'd agree with you. At least that's how the math works in your head. But sometimes they understand perfectly. They just don't agree. And for some reason that's a lot harder for people to accept. But I think there's something even deeper going on with control. Because why are you popping up at somebody's job? Maybe something didn't sound right when you talked to them. Maybe you don't even know exactly what you're looking for. You just know you'll feel better once you see for yourself. But why? Because whatever you're looking for probably started way before you pulled into that parking lot. Maybe somebody did some shit to you before and you told yourself you'd never be caught off guard like that again. So now you want to know, where are you? Who are you with? What time are you coming home? And maybe in your mind, that's not control, that's protection. If I know enough, if I can see enough, if I can keep certain situations from happening, maybe I don't ever have to feel that shit again. Except that's impossible. You can know every password, have somebody's location, know everybody at the damn job, and somebody can still hurt you. That's the fucked up part. Because maybe you're not even trying to control them. Maybe you're trying to control the possibility of what could happen to you, and they're just the person you're asking to change so you can feel safe. But then there's the other side, because why does somebody go along with it? And I'm not even saying that like they're weak, because some of this probably feels pretty good in the beginning. Somebody always wants you around, wants to know where you are, gets a little jealous when somebody else is paying attention to you. And depending on who you are, that might not feel controlling at all. That might feel like, damn, somebody finally cares. And if you're used to somebody always checking on you, always making the decisions, always having an opinion about what you should do, maybe somebody coming along and saying, do whatever you want, doesn't even feel like freedom. It might feel like they don't care. And now this gets really interesting because one person doesn't want to be surprised and the other one doesn't want to feel forgotten. And somehow, those two people can fit together really well, at least for a while, because eventually somebody might want a little more room. And now something that used to feel like, you care about me, starts feeling like, why the fuck do I have to ask you? And the person on the other side might be sitting there thinking, wait a minute, we've always done this. Damn. Everybody says they want honesty, and that sounds good. Just tell me the truth. Tell me who you are. I'd rather know now than find out later. But what happens when somebody actually does that and you don't like the answer? That's where this gets hard. Somebody can be completely honest with you about who they are, and somehow we still hear who they could be, and before long you're in a relationship with two people. The person you're actually with, and the person you're pretty sure they could become with just a few minor adjustments. Because the hardest part about letting somebody be who they are is that sometimes it conflicts with the person you want them to be. And sometimes you can be sitting there thinking, if we could just get past this one thing, except it's been one thing for six years, and at some point they look at you and say, I've been like this since you met me. Fuck. Because they have. You just thought eventually they wouldn't be. And that's a hard person to look at sometimes. The one that's actually there. And maybe that's the part that gets confused. Letting somebody be who they are doesn't mean you have to stay there and watch them do it. And you can still have some decisions to make. And sometimes, one of those decisions leaves you by yourself, single. Thanks for listening. Two Real to Win is for the men still trying to love right in a world that loves wrong. No clout, no gimmicks, just truth. I'm Brian B. Turner, and this is the Always Up Podcast. Until next time, stay focused, stay faithful, and always up.