Wesley Snipes

In this bonus episode, Sam Bailey performs a character analysis on Wesley Snipes from the 1995 Classic Waiting to Exhale. His character makes us root for him and question him simultaneously . What would you do if you were in this situation? When should one use the L word? What constitutes "emotional cheating." Join in as Once I Knew a Girl keeps the conversation going. 

Transcript

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Hello, welcome back to Once I Knew a Girl, a podcast that explores... navigating the complexities of relationships. Putting some insight, also sharing some experiences, some of it's first person, second person, some of it's facts, some of it's fiction, but I intend to give a subjective point of view on what I believe are some of the challenges as well as concerns as well as And that will bring you up to speed on where we are. And it is my hope and my intention to Each week, drop an episode for you to check out, for you to discuss, for you to share. Now, if you check out the past few episodes, the first one was about just how to navigate the complexities of relationships. The second one was about once I knew a girl who was hiding something. And then the last episode about high maintenance. So somebody saying, what is this next one about? Well, I'm going to take a huge detour. A huge detour. And sometimes you got to go with the flow. You got to let it happen. And I like discussing concepts. And sometimes when we see things in Hollywood, we see things in movies, we say, well, if that happened in real life, I would do A, B and C and D. Like we got a lot of Monday morning quarterbacks out there, right? It's easy to say what your quarterback would do on Monday morning, but you're not the one. out there who has to deal with six foot six, 275 pounds of defensive end coming at you with arms extended, seven foot wingspan and guys in the back ready to intercept you and take it the other way to the house. So many things going on in your mind. So it's easy to say what you would and would not do if you were in that person's position, which the fact of the matter is, is you aren't. Because sometimes we don't know what we would do until we're actually placed in that position. Well, I think I can irritate people at times because though I am a very principled person, I have my thoughts, I have my morals, I have my values, standards, all that. I tend to stay open in conversation. It bothers people, especially people who have fixed thoughts and say, this is just the way that it goes. Life has taught me otherwise, that there are things that are just rarely black and white. And even when you think they're black and white, they can shift on you. They can alternate and adjust. There's a movie called Waiting to Exhale came out in the 90s. I wish I had the correct date. It might have been 92, 94. My fact checkers will figure it out and get the exact date. But this movie was about four African-American women. I think it was Lila Rashan, Angela Bassett. I forgot the other two in the movie. I got their names. See, I got to come more prepared to this. But in the movie, I do know Angela Bassett and Wesley Snipes. It's a scene in the movie. Long story short. Angela Bassett was divorced, went through a divorce in the movie. Her husband cheated on her and they pointed it out and make sure, you know, that it was with a white woman, which was a double whammy for her. And there's a scene after the divorce court where her husband kind of got over on her a little bit. She's at a bar and Wesley Snipes. This is not the Wesley Snipes from Blade or the Wesley Snipes from Demolition Man or something. Wesley Snipes from Art of War or The Expendables. This was smooth Wesley Snipes, you know, not New Jack City Wesley Snipes. He kind of slid up to the table. They were smoking. They were talking. They were drinking. And Wesley opens up a conversation. And if you watch it on the surface, you would think that Wesley was hitting on her. He was very smooth with his tone and he commenting on her appearance, which most people interpret today as hitting on. Now, let me stop right here and say, you can't really comment on another person's appearance nowadays without it being interpreted as you're trying to hit on me. You can say, hey, you look nice. Well, what does that mean? Everything nowadays always has to mean something more. What happened to the days where you could say, hey, you look nice in that dress or that fits you or that color matches your skin tone or whatever you want to say, but it's hard to do that now because just the way everybody I'll say love is love. Love doesn't need sex to be love. And that's what we're dealing with now. Everybody thinks that feelings automatically lead into something physical, which is not true. Just like sex doesn't need love to be sex. People can have sex all the time without having love. And you can love somebody without having sex. Anyway, so as this scene is going on, Classic scene I've seen a lot of times before, but I was having an argument with someone, which I love to do. I love intelligent debate. And you can form your own opinion on what you think in the scene. You got to go back and watch it on Wait and Exhale. And Wesley slid up to Angela and they begin to talk and converse. And he was saying all these things and she began to tell him that she was going through divorce almost a ways if to counter him to say like, hey, stop hitting on me. You know, I'm going through divorce. And Wesley had to check her. He was like, no, no, it's not that. I understand your trauma. And some people argue at this point, were they trauma bonded? You know, were they being bonded over their trauma, which that's really a fragile way to start a relationship. But he said, no, I have a wife. She's dying. And he tried to relate to her. He said, I have a wife that's dying and my wife is sick and it's hard for me to watch her go through what she's going through. It's hard for me to watch her struggle this way. And she has cancer and she's dying. And they begin to talk. And have conversation. I love her deeply. I've never loved a woman the way I love her. And you could almost see Angela Bassett's face drop as if to say, oh, I thought this guy was coming on to me. But in Angela's defense, I could see how she might have interpreted that way because of how the actual conversation began. And so it goes on. And I guess they. have a scene and they talk about a lot of different things. And then there's a scene where they end up at one of them's hotel room. I guess they were at a hotel. He talked to, told her about how he was a civil rights attorney and they talked and, So they were like, what are you going to do tonight? I remember when I first saw this years ago, I didn't understand it as a teenager. But the natural assumption is they're about to go in there and get it on. Could have been a beautiful moment. Maybe she needed something from him. He needed something from her. Probably people do it all the time. They go their separate ways. We'll never see this person again. So we'll just proceed from there. And it just happens, right? She seems like at this point, Angela's kind of suggesting what should they do. And Wesley begins talking about his wife again. And he said, whatever we do, and this is a quote from the movie, just make it beautiful. And then next thing you know, they close the door. They go to another scene. Then they cut back into that same scene again. a little bit later. And what we find is that when they cut back into the next scene, again, they're fully clothed in the bed, laying down, cuddling all night long. They slept in, in their clothes. Now I didn't realize this when I was younger, but they were spooning the entire night. That's a strike. I give you that, you know, you know, they were cuddling, you know, how they've been laying a different way, but, but she needed to be held. Maybe he needed to hold. He talked about how his wife wasn't able to do things and that had affected him. So the argument that I'm making today is, is that possible? I mean, when we saw that years ago when we were young, all of the ladies were cheering for Wesley. He talked about his wife, and some of you may not even know how to feel about that. I think the average person is torn because you're like, wow, Wesley– talked about his wife. He didn't play any games. He said he would never leave his wife. He's there for his wife. He loves his wife. Well, then a lot of women say, well, why would you be sharing these thoughts with another woman? Well, I think it's all about timing. Maybe in another space and time, Wesley wouldn't. We don't know what Wesley had to deal with. We don't know how lonely he's been. We His wife died slowly, has affected him. He was up front. He wasn't playing games. He wasn't using his sickness to try to take advantage of Angela. Maybe it was just a moment. I think a lot of women are guilty of that. The same thing they accuse men of doing, of believing that there's always some ill intention. You can't put a blanket statement over any group of all men are dogs. No, just maybe the ones you've been dealing with are all women are like this. No, just the ones that you are associated with. And so for that night, they may have had ill intentions because it did look like that. Angela expected for there to be something to pop off. And in this instance, Turn of events. We would always think, well, it's the man that wants that. Right. But it was really Angela and Wesley walked away from it and she walked away from it as well. You can see there was no pressure there. But I think that that women would say that a man is or when a man is emotionally involved or emotionally crosses the line. with Angela or with the woman that he's cheating. Everybody has different definitions of cheating. Some people, you can't look at another man or woman and you're cheating. Some people, if you have feelings for them, you're cheating. For other people, it actually involves intercourse. I think there's different levels for it. You know, look up what it means. It means different things to different people. Now, when this story really gets interesting is at the end of the movie, she receives a letter from him and he begins to say Bernadette or whatever name was in the movie. He was like, you know, I really feel embarrassed saying this, but I believe I fell in love with you one night. And one night I fell in love with you. And this is where it starts to confuse us. And the love I feel for you has nothing to do with what I feel for my wife. And that makes women everywhere mad. How can he love his wife and then catch feelings for her? Bernadette, isn't that how everything begins, right? That even shouldn't be. You catch feelings. It's what you do with those feelings. I think what gets a lot of people in trouble is they want to be in denial that they've even caught feelings. And I mean, you got to applaud Wesley in that case. He was open. He was honest. He wasn't playing games. And he just told her, I fell for you. But it's a weird dynamic, right? You know, I wish I could talk back to people right now and have you talk to me and hear what you say. It's a weird dynamic to find yourself in a place where you're saying, I feel for another person, yet I'm not supposed to feel for another person. Because sometimes it's just the wrong time. I got a chapter coming up, episode coming up, called Right Girl, Wrong Time. The right girl, oh, I see everything that... I would want in a woman, but it's just the wrong time. The timings don't match up. It's not in our cards right now. And he never said, I'm going to leave my wife. He never said, as soon as she dies, I'm going to come be with you. He just said, that's exactly how I felt. Maybe he fell in love with the innocence. Maybe he fell in love because finally, you know, it wasn't about sex. I think sometimes sex distorts things because you can think that you're in love with somebody and you're not. Because again, love is not a bandage to cover a wound. Just because you're in love with somebody doesn't mean you have to be in a relationship with them. And I'm talking about relationship, even friendships are relationships. I'm talking about romantically. What does that mean? We don't know how to handle emotions. We don't know how to handle feelings. We don't know how to process them. Matter of fact, we don't even write letters anymore. As I saw her reading that letter, I was like, wow, everybody sends an email or text or text or chats, but we don't, it's something about pinning a good old fashioned letter and dating it. This is what I'm feeling. And this is where I'm at. And it's funny how we applaud a man for expressing how he feels, but then we speak down upon him saying it to a woman when he is married. Somebody says, Sam, what are you thinking? I ain't saying nothing. I'm just talking. So don't try to interpret what I'm thinking or what I'm keeping the conversation open. It's really not a conversation, but I know you're talking back to me. I know you're thinking at least, what would you do if you were Wesley fellas? What would you do? And would you You fell in love with a woman one night and probably maybe you could argue maybe it wasn't love. Maybe you just interpreted it as love. I heard a quote one time that says being listened to and being in love are so closely related that it's hard to tell the difference. Sometimes if you're listening to someone, they may fall for you because they don't have anybody to listen to them. And maybe that could have been it. Maybe not. she was engaged in what he had to say because he was engaged with what she had to say. And maybe they found a commonality in that. Maybe they bonded over their brokenness. Maybe she gave him hope. And that's what he said. If I never see you again, if this letter never finds you, I want you to know that you have changed me. What, what a What a climax. You changed me. That's what I wanted you to know. You changed me. Love liberates, as Maya Angelou says. Love says I love you, whether you're in China or Asia or Europe. Love doesn't know how to fail. Love brings hope and optimism and encouragement. Maybe it's the wording. There's a difference between saying I love you, Bernadette, and I am in love with you. He said, I fell in love with you. And that made all the ladies go crazy. And he was smooth and he was talking good, but don't express his feelings, especially being a married man. Don't express your feelings. And I guess, I don't know. I guess that That's one of those things easier said than done. Somebody said, well, Sam, what would you say? What's your experience? I'm not telling you. No, I think things are complicated. I think we in maturity at times have had to walk away from situations and things that were difficult. There's head knowledge and then there's heart knowledge. There's some things that you know in your head and your heart will tell you different. But ignoring your head and listening to your heart can get you in trouble as well. Some people don't. Some people say, forget what I know. Forget what the consequences will be. I'll go on and follow my heart. Sometimes it's successful. Sometimes it's not. But he says, you changed me. And that's the bottom of the line. And I like how The movie left it hanging, right? I like movies that the guy doesn't always get the girl. There's not a happy ending. We don't know how it worked out because the cliffhanger leaves us with suspense, leaves us to have conversations like these. What do you think is going to happen? Well, my assumption is just say his wife passes and at some point in time, he reaches back out to the familiar, back to somebody who in one night impacted his life in such a way. that he said he fell in love. And that's another conversation. What is the difference between being in love and falling in love? Because again, semantics is big with most of us. It's how we define things. What's your definition? What's your definition of emotionally involved? What's your definition of inappropriate line being crossed? What's your definition of celebrating a man who praises you His love for his wife yet tells another lady that he loves her while saying that the love he feels for her is nothing like the love he feels for his wife. Now, some of you would have been mad because you would have said, forget that. You can't love me and your wife. He didn't say he loves the same. It's like, I don't love my wife the same way I love my mom. Those are different ways. I don't love my daughters the same way I love my mom. take shapes in different forms and different levels and different types, right? So we know that there are different types of love and it's not a one size fits all. So we would also have to know what he meant by love. Maybe he meant something different. We're always so quick to jump to definitions and we're always so quick to try to box in things that That can't be boxed in. You can't box in love. I'm sorry. I know we tried. And then, too, we got to be careful not to project our experiences on everybody else. There are some people who have been hurt by relationships, by situations. And so they can't and won't say love. Won't say love because saying love is... is to say hurt. But let me tell you something. If you've ever been in love, you cannot ever have really truly been in love without experiencing hurt. Love, it hurt. kind of join together because I have to love you so much that you can hurt me at times. But I'm okay with that. It may not be intentional, but I know if you were to die or if you were to walk out of my life or leave me or abandon me, it would hurt. That's how you know. That's the difference between caring and being indifferent. I tell my couples all the time, if you see your spouse being indifferent, then you need to be Because the fact that I'm still emoting is the fact that I'm still getting emotional about what you're saying and what you are doing. That lets or should let you know that I care a little bit. But when I get to the point where I don't say nothing, I don't respond. I can look at you, go the other way, not act any act any different than than any other person. Then I know there is a problem. The Wesley Snipes story. Syndrome. Maybe I ought to call it that. Can I coin a phrase? The Wesley Snipes Syndrome is can you love two people, two women, fellas, or ladies, two men, and love them, but yet love them differently? Can you? The answer to some may be yes. The answer to some may be no. But I think the key component is, If you do, should you say it out loud? Everybody can't handle that. Now, as I was watching Angela read the letter, she seemed to be feeling it and sensing it. But everybody couldn't handle that because there were some women who would make Wesley do something. What are you going to do? Are you going to leave her? Are you going to be with me? Or are you going to receive it as it is? This is beautiful. This took a lot of courage. This took a lot of thoughts. Tell me more about what you mean in love. I want to talk about this, but I get it. You could have took advantage of me that night. You didn't. We stayed up and talked all night. You were there for me in this moment. And for that, I love you. Where we go from here, I don't know. But I do know that you have changed me. You have impacted my life. You've impacted my life. And maybe again, we tend to view the world differently. Through our own experiences and we tend to view the world through what we want it to be sometimes rather than the lens of what we want it to be versus what it actually is. So that's left for you all to debate. You can throw that out there with somebody else. Ask them, you know, and I'm telling you, the ladies were screaming for Wesley and all when he said he he loved his wife and he would never leave her. But then they didn't know how to feel about the letter. You know, I didn't know how to feel about the spooning, but. You know what? It makes for great cinema and it makes for even better conversation. So I had to interject this special episode within here and I'm going to do it often as topics come to me and things come to my memory. And, you know, as you go back and start certain stuff you used to look at when you were 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, it hits differently when you're in your 40s or especially in your 50s. You may be listening to me today and you may be finding that Your situations aren't like you thought they would be. They aren't as black and white. They aren't as clear cut. That's why I have another podcast you can check out on all the podcast platforms called The Gray, where I talk about gray matters and things that are in the gray. Well, I want to thank y'all for stopping in on today. Whatever day this is, whether it's Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, whatever day you're listening and keep on hanging in there and keep on keeping the conversations open. And navigating relationships is a very challenging thing, but it's something that we all have to do. If you've not come out of a relationship, you're in one or you're going into one. It's so important that we understand that we are as men and women different, but we can find some ground in the middle to meet. So If you can, please subscribe to this podcast. We're on Apple. I'm on Apple Podcast. I'm on Spotify, iHeart Music, Audible, Amazon, anywhere where you can find podcasts, you can find it. Also, I'm going to post this link on my social media and you can check it out. And each week we will try to drop a new episode, tell somebody else about it, share it with your friends, listen and join in. And I hope to at some point, create an avenue where we can generate feedback and have some live shows that we do. And I really, really look forward to doing that as well, especially through YouTube and other avenues. Well, it's been a pleasure. It's been fun. Love stirring up some emotion, stirring up some thought. My objective and aim is not to get you to greet, but to get you to think. I appreciate you joining and we'll see you Right here next time on Once I Knew a Girl.