i’m dating someone new and i like them. there are the firsts: the kiss, the hug you feel in your toes, the “waking up to the sun when you intended to greet yesterday’s moonlight” sleepover. and as exciting as it is, there’s this fear i have with dating as an adult which is if i show too much of who i am too soon: i won’t be exciting/interesting/enough for long. i have trouble giving myself credit. you see? i don’t believe in “the one.” multiple people can be your person and you don’t have to fuck them or date them to know it. mine are two of my closest friends. another is my ex-husband, who is also a dear friend. i’ve shown myself to my “people,” and yet, they’re still here. loving me. showing up for me. why can’t i put that same faith in people i like and date?

i have swam through the sticky molasses of disappointment because i chose someone. that’s love isn’t it? choosing a person because they belong to themselves first and even when they are yours, they’ll never belong to you. still. what they add to your life matters. your loving them for who stands before you matters. and what you’ve built and what has fallen into place has to be tended to and swept of its weeds. honoring that agreement takes courage, and grace, and compassion, and trust, and time.

i haven’t needed a lot of time, for instance, to know i can trust my partner. on our second date i had a panic attack and they started talking to me about colors and our names and how my feet felt on the carpet to bring me back. that was a first effort in the chipping away of my fear. the second? introducing him to the men that made me laugh as a kid and the comedians that we mutually enjoy now. the uncles and older cousins (in my head) that gathered me ’round them to share a story. roy wood jr.’s keen observation about black folks, music, and patriotism. ali siddiq and his murderous plot against a power hungry corrections officer and their ego. dave chappelle to remind ourselves the greatness in him that had us rooting for his freedom is mired by his transphobia. kat williams who’s short on jokes but whose pockets are long with gems that make you laugh. then there is bernie, cedric, d.l., and steve wearing suit jackets longer than a starbucks line near an interstate.

showing someone who is both funnier than me and a musician the tunes and comedians that i love (or once loved) is intimidating. i hold my breath waiting for the laugh, the stank face, or the “o! that’s good.” mmm … maybe waiting for the reactions of others about what i enjoy prepared me to anticipate every person i date will reveal themselves as scooby doo villains.

i hadn’t watched the kings of comedy in at least a decade when i showed it to my partner. i didn’t recoil when explaining the references they didn’t get. or even having to acknowledge to him and myself that like the adults that raised me, these comedians didn’t have the answers, even if they had a stage and a mic. it doesn’t mean that they’re right to toss out points of respectability as if their loose dollar bills; or to disguise their classist views by roasting and judging their younger nieces and nephews. just because they’re older or that they could. nonetheless, they’re still family.

i introduced my partner to them. d.l. is the uncle whose understanding of politics and reproductive organs has not changed since 2000. and then there’s uncle cedric who can easily man the grill and cut a two-step with his wife at the cookout. their point of reference for steve harvey was family feud, which i’ve only seen clips of on youtube. i laughed at that. because steve had a morning radio show in california that was the soundtrack to school drop off. but i knew, as they were raised catholic, they might get a good laugh at hearing steve’s story about sister odelle’s cussin’ and her theme song laced devotional. bernie, the anchor, is my favorite. bernie tells jokes that are reminiscent of those family stories you’ve heard before and they still make you laugh until you cry, piss yourself from laughing, or both. it was nice to hear my partner laugh with him. i don’t know if bernie would have had considered why some of his jokes were hurtful. but the version of him i hope he’d be, if he were here, is that he’d understand that he was fucking funny; and he didn’t have to call someone a slur to be who and what he was.

relationships aren’t always fun; and they shouldn’t be. but i watch stand-up to have a good time and when i don’t? i’m out. my partner hasn’t loved every bit of stand up i’ve shown them, which is fine. but at least we’re on the same page that we don’t enjoy comedians who’s jokes about their partners makes us wish their significant others had a better partner. and if there was nothing else to know about bernie, one thing was certain: he loved his rhonda. maybe they could love me that way someday. maybe i could not take it as a fault in me if they don’t.