I had dinner with one of my best female friends a few weeks ago and we caught up on each other’s lives.

Unfortunately, some of our girlfriends were going through it with their men.  I was particularly disappointed in one of my girlfriend’s situations because I had known her man for years and was appalled at his recent actions.  I can admit that I’m sure there are two sides to that story but it got me thinking about what side I’d take.

Across the board, I have female friends who have been wronged by men that even I (in my super FBI agent type personality studies) had thought were genuinely good men.  HOWEVER, across the board, I also have female friends who have, at some point in time, done things outside of a relationship that I thought were questionable.

I know quite a few of “other women”.  Meaning that they are consistently doing things with men that are already in supposedly committed relationships.

So, who do I hate? 

Do I hate the chick that slept with my friend’s man?  Is she the hoe?  Or do I look down on some of my friends for their less than honorable decisions?

I have a friend who took my other friend’s man.  Now they’re a happy couple, might even get married and have babies soon.  I’m happy that she has found love.  But I feel guilty for supporting her relationship while my other friend watches the man that she started with, walking off into the sunset with a chick that she thought was her friend.

Whew.  I’m getting dizzy.

Once, I was at work and I got a phone call from an unfamiliar number.  The conversation went like this:

Her: Hey, how ya doin?

Me: Uhh… I’m doing good.  Who is this?

Her: This is - - - - - -’s girlfriend.

Me: Ahh.

Her: You didn’t know he had a girlfriend?

Me: Haha no, I didn’t know that.

Her: Ok.  Well… did you sleep with him?  Woman to woman.  I just wanna know.

Me: I never slept with him.  And I don’t care to fight over him.

Her: Oh ok.  Well… did you know that he’s married?

Me: O_O uhhh… naw

Her: He’s married to some hoe and got two kids by her.  And I’m 8 months pregnant.  I don’t care tho, he gon’ pay child support cause he think he slick!

Me: True.  Welp.  I gotta go back to work so I hope everything works out for y’all.

—click—

Essentially, I was dating a married man, whose pregnant girlfriend called me.   I’m not going to recount the lies that this guy told me but I can admit that I liked him. 

So here it is: I was the other woman this time.  I wasn’t aware that I was in that category until I received that phone call.  But as soon as I hung up the phone, I thought that I had the option.  In that moment, I could decide what type of woman I wanted to be.

The guy called me, crying.  Left me long voice mails stating that the “girlfriend” was crazy and that he had been divorced for years.  I was never angry with him.  But I had decided that it didn’t matter who was lying.  He had placed me into a position where I could no longer defend my interactions with him.  Even if I could accept that she was crazy, he had put me in crazy’s path.  Crazy had my phone number!

Surprisingly, this woman never raised her voice at me or even conveyed a disrespectful tone.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that she was concerned that I was going to take her side-jawn spot and so she felt compelled to step in and protect it.

Woman to woman, I was honest with her.  I hadn’t slept with “her” man.  I had only went on three or four dates with him.  They were really good dates too.  I wonder if, in her mind, I was a hoe.  Plotting on her man.

I never spoke to him after that.  I feel no anger towards him at all and if I passed him on the street tomorrow, I’d smile and nod. (I’m no good at holding grudges.  I associate bitterness with ugliness)

I’m starting to think, we’re all hoes.  Men and women.  Across the board. 

I can’t tell my friends how to live or to stop being hoes.  I’ll go crazy!  We all come to crossroads in our interactions with the opposite sex where we can ask, “What would a hoe do?”.  And sometimes, whatever that hoe would do sounds too appealing to pass up.

Be strong and choose wisely folks. 

#Nowplaying Hoe - Jhene Aiko

I be on my bold shit, I be on some bold shit
I be on my own shit, but I ain’t on that bullshit
He know he be needin’ it, & he know that I want it
he know that i want it, but I ain’t on that hoe shit.