The Last Black Unicorn - Tiffany Haddish Page 0,45

“Tiffany, you need to just smile and don’t say shit. Look at the dude. Smile and then look away. If they like you, they going to come for you. You’re a beautiful girl. You should never say, ‘Damn, you look beefy’ or ‘You’re handsome.’ You don’t need to do that.”

For most guys, I think he is right. For most guys, if a woman approaches them, they don’t know how to process it.

If you’re a woman and you compliment a guy, even something simple like, “Oh, nice shoes,” and you don’t work with them every day, you’re not seeing them every day, it’s just some guy you meet and you compliment them—they think something is wrong with your pussy. They think, even subconsciously, that your pussy must be broke.

That’s why so many guys tell me, “You be acting thirsty.” Comedy Buddy always says this:

Comedy Buddy: “You act like you’re an ugly girl. You’re like an ugly girl inside of you, but a pretty girl on the outside. Did you know that?”

It’s like fat people who lose weight, in their head, they’re still that fat person they used to be.

The other day, I was thinking about why I am like this. I think I act like this, and I end up picking jealous and possessive guys, because in some sick, twisted way, I think that means they care. I’m like, “Look at all the energy he’s putting into finding out what I’m doing.”

The reality is, in my life, no man’s ever really cared. As a kid, I didn’t have any man that cared about me.

My dad didn’t care. Stepdad didn’t care. Uncles didn’t care. Nobody cared.

I think that I interpret possessiveness from men as love.

Also, my grandma said to me as a child:

“Every man is going to think of you as property. That’s why they want to put they last name on your name. Then you’re their property. So you want to make sure whoever you end up with knows how to maintain their property. See yourself as a house. You have to view yourself as the house on the highest part of the hill. You can’t let everybody come into your house. They can’t catch no bus to your house. They can’t ride no bike to your house. They got to have a nice car with four-wheel drive to get up to your house.”

Ain’t that some fucked up shit to say to a little girl? Especially a poor girl, who was in and out of foster care?

The reality is, for all of my twenties, I thought of myself as an apartment in the projects. Right in front of the bus stop. “Who wants some? Who wants to come in the apartment, hey! Let’s have a party. Who wants to be in here?”

I just wanted anyone in. I would let anyone in who wanted to guard this property. To protect me. If you understand that about me, you understand why I was with the wrong men so long.

I know I’ve got to stop it, though. I’m single now. I am just going to kick back and see what comes to me. I’m not going to keep repeating these patterns with men. They are not working.

The Ex-Husband

I just got to warn you straight up: this story is bad.

And not bad in a funny way, like the Roscoe story, or the Titus story. Like, this is just flat-out bad. This story is probably going to frustrate you. It might even get you angry.

I almost did not put this in the book. I mean, there isn’t much here that’s funny, to be honest. But I ended up putting it in, because of three reasons:

1. It’s the hard truth about my life. I will always tell the truth, even when it’s not fun.

2. I hope some young girls can learn from my mistakes and avoid what I went through.

3. I believe everything happens for a reason, and as bad as this was, I believe it’s made me better and helped me get where I am.

With that in mind, lemme tell you about my experience with marriage, domestic violence, and self-delusion.

It all started when I went on that cruise with Titus. The one where he brought $50 for the whole cruise? That one.

On the plane, I met this guy who was a cop. I ain’t even going to say his real name, it don’t matter. I’ll just call him Ex-Husband. Me and Ex-Husband talked for a while, and he seemed nice. It turned out he was going