If you're black and male, and you're a halfway decent human being, then you become instantly invisible to black women. As a university-educated and church-going brother, it used to happen to me. Until I began dating a white chick named Emily Dedham, and black girls suddenly noticed that I existed. My name is Steven Guillaume and I'm a young brother of Haitian descent living in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. I work as a security guard to pay the bills, and I study criminology at Carleton University because I dream of working in law enforcement someday.
Emily Dedham, my girlfriend of two years, is simply heaven-sent, ladies and gentlemen. A lot of guys say that about their ladies, but I mean it. I think I got a good one in my hands. Lord knows what I had to go through before finding her. Before I met Emily, my life was in a downward spiral. If a man lets a bad woman into his life, she can fuck things up in ways the poor shmuck couldn't imagine. A while ago, a hurricane called Annie Andrade blew me into my life, and wrecked things for a bit. Fortunately, like all bad things, it came to an end.
Annie and I met at the Silver City movie theater in the east end of Ottawa, the day the movie The Dictator opened in theaters. I was standing in line at the box office and spotted this tall, curvaceous and downright sexy young black woman standing there by herself. Typically, pretty sisters like her don't venture nowhere without their girlfriends or some male friend with them. Yet here she was. In an uncharacteristically bold move, I approached her and asked her what movie she was seeing.
The young woman looked at me, smiled and told me she was here to watch the dude from Borat. I smiled and told her I was thinking of seeing the same movie. Grinning, she asked me if I wanted to sit together. Thus Annie and I went into the movie theater, two perfect strangers, and sat next to each other, talking like old friends about Hollywood actor Sasha Baron Cohen's movies, much to the annoyance of other moviegoers, whom we casually ignored. You have to understand that things like that don't typically happen to me.
I've always been painfully shy with the ladies, even though I've been told time and again that I'm a good-looking guy. I'm six-foot-one, with a cute face, or so I've been told, but a somewhat chubby body. I weigh two hundred and seventy pounds. Like all of us, I've got my insecurities. For me, my weight and shyness are what have always held me back from living life to the fullest. I get noticed by the ladies but then I start talking to them and they see right through me, and tend to go for the nearest jerk. Annie wasn't like the others, or so I thought. I mean, here was a gorgeous black chick who definitely could have any man she wanted, and this gal wanted me.
From the get go, Annie didn't hide her interest in me. I thanked my lucky stars for meeting her. The gal was studying police foundations at La Cite Collegiale, and worked at Pizza Hut to make some extra cash. Oh, and she also loved comic books and action movies. I thought Annie had just dropped out of the sky. I read Marvel and DC Comics religiously and collect them the way old ladies collect cats. I didn't think there were women out there who shared my passions. Annie and I liked a lot of the same things.
For a black nerd like myself, meeting a gorgeous black female nerd with whom I could argue about whether Blade or Wolverine would fare better against zombies, that's the definition of love right there. For a while, Annie and I were happy together. We became inseparable, hanging out in malls, restaurants and movie theaters. I proudly introduced her to my friends, and I must say, we looked good together.
Things change in a man's life when he's got a lady on his arm. Your friends, co-workers and colleagues look at you different. I walked through the hallways of Carleton University while holding Annie's hand, and a lot of people looked at us, for we cut an impressive figure. A tall, well-dressed and intelligent brother holding hands with a gorgeous sister. Now that's definitely not something you see every day in Ottawa, that's for damn sure.