Texting requires skills and patience that I just don't have. What I don't get about texting is why people want to spend 3 minutes hunting, pecking and struggling to send a text when they could make a 30 second call and be done with it?

I am not alone in my way of thinking! I've found that texting is generally seen as a nuisance for people over the age of 40. For one thing, most of us have fingers that are NOT bony. Those little tiny buttons on the cell phones are ridiculously small. Plus, many of us have to find our reading glasses so we can even SEE the damn keyboard anyway! Women have the extra challenge of long and/or fake fingernails. Glamourous, sexy, make your hands look great. However, they have absolutely no traction on those little tiny plastic buttons on a cell phone keypad.

To read the rest of this article, and find out what the 10 Guidelines for Texting Etiquette are, click the link below.  This article is posted on my new blog, Living The Single Life - Surviving Dating.

Normally I don't have any type of reaction when a "celebrity" dies.  They live, they die, just like we do. But when I heard that Michael Jackson had passed away the other day, I actually had to sit down.  My legs got shaky and my heart felt heavy.  I actually shed a couple of tears I was so sad.  Older than most of my readers, I grew up with the Jackson 5 and Michael. I saw him go from a bright and bubbly 10 year old boy to a reclusive genius, tortured and spiritually battered. On a good note, with Aaliyah, Tupac, James Brown, George Howard, Marvin Gaye and Biggie Smalls in one place, there is a serious party going on somewhere! Anyway, in this column we have a woman that found a condom in her man's car who doesn't want to accept the truth, a cheapskate who writes about a $3 AC bill increase, a male buddy that has suddenly started talking dirty to his female friend, a girl who wonders how hemorrhoids will affect her sex life, a girl who pushes her friends aside for a guy that MIGHT wanna marry her, a broke unmarried 30 yr old with 2 kids living with her Momma wondering what to do about her current pregnancy, and a wide selection of other drama-filled situations. 

Black men, why are we so afraid of the "C" word?  Commitment is a good thing!  As my learned father always said, "a closed mind is much like a closed refrigerator door: There is no light".  Before it's too late we need to shed some light on our relationships with Black woman.  I hear that Black women profess to be not in need of a man because of their independence.  "I don't need a man,” they say, and black men get very defensive and insulted over this comment.

So, how does an independent female get past the stigma that an independent Black woman doesn't "need" a man? After all, even sistahs who are independent like dating. They like the security of being in a relationship just like everyone else! They just don't want a man who thinks he's going to be her knight in shining armor and make life perfect for her. What can make men interested in Black women who some Black men may feel are "too independent?"

Despite what the media says, women don't necessarily look for men with nice, sensitive personalities. Women look for romantic intoxication. They are similar to alcoholics, except that their high is emotional. Women look for excitement whether it is through sex or someone taking them on a romantic getaway. If you break it down this romantic intoxication is nothing more than arousal for women. In plain language women go for men who can turn them on!