I was downtown with a couple of buddies of mine discussing the previous weekend's events. Being the wallflower that I am outside of working I really did not do much of anything. But my two friends, Del and Glenn, had been to one of the more popular night clubs downtown with an out-of-town acquaintance of theirs -- for our purposes, we'll call him Fabio (!). According to Del, Fabio had his game on and was macking all the honeys; the girlies were just swamping all over him. Del was glad to be there with him because Fabio was "hooking him up" (with leftovers, I guess), so Del was getting some carry-over action. While Del was relating this evening of tomcatting to me, Glenn stood there grunting, not really corroborating anything Del told me. Finally, Glenn spoke up, "Del, you know all this shit is whack! Fabio ain't all that!"

That is when I interjected. "Well, tell me, Glenn. Is what Del telling me true." Glenn couldn't dispute with Del's retelling of the weekend's events. "Then I think you are missing the point, Glenn. It doesn't really matter whether you or I or Del think he's all that. Fabio isn't trying to get with us. He's trying to get with the honeys. And if the honeys were falling all over themselves to get next to him, then they think he's all that. Therefore, he's all that!"

This story is worth retelling because a few days later I was at the mall with a girlfriend. Part of the fun of being with an intimate in public is people-watching. You know, just idly joking about people -- bystanders, pedestrians and passers-by really -- whom you've never seen before and will never see again. It's not meant to be insulting to anyone, it's just harmless fun with a friend -- as long as it remains between you and a friend and nobody overhears you, especially the target of your quips. (There are a lot of people out there that don't understand people-watching. They think you are being insulting, insensitive, and cruel about people you don't know. They don't realize that it is a comical way to while away idle time in public)

Anyway, Renee', the Nubian princess I was with, is as much into people-watching as I am, which makes for a great repartee as we're going through the mall. More of a guy-watcher, Renee' likes men -- what she sees in me I'll never know -- but when she is checking out the guys, unlike most women she is none too subtle. Men generally know when she is scoping them out, and she makes no bones about the fact that she is eyeing them, even if she is with somebody (if it's me I just have to grin and bear it). She can look at a man and tell you what he does, where he works, why he's here (wherever here is), what's on his mind, and of course if he's "all that."

But as a people-watcher, Renee' also watches the women, and if she spots a potential female target of her ascerbic tongue, she usually prefaces what she is about to say with the sobriquet we've all become familiar with: "She think she cute..."

Comedian Tommy Davidson once joked: "Black women are clairvoyant. They know what other black women are thinking. They can look at another black woman and immediately tell you what they're thinking: 'She think she cute...'"

As a fellow people-watcher, I shouldn't take this line too seriously, but even when I'm not engaging in this little pastime of mine I hear this a lot -- and not just from black women as Mr. Davidson asserts. I've been told, by other women no less (and I must admit that I love it when women give me insight into their personal idiosyncrasies), that all women are in constant personal competition with each other at all times. I can't really say whether this is true or not, but I do find it rather instructive that the female of the species is the only gender that will not be caught dead in public either wearing the same thing as another female or wearing the same dress twice. Another woman once told me this is because women are "fighting" to attract possible "mates" from the same pool of males, and since what a man sees is his first impression, how a woman dresses distinguishes her from other females. This would make sense from a male standpoint when you consider that not only do males place a lot of importance on looks and beauty (and don't let any man tell you otherwise) but heterosexual males tend to think of all females as potential sexual partners.

Maybe there is something to this female competition thing. God knows men are always competing with each other, we just manifest it differently. Men either engage in friendly competition (some form of sports, the nicest/fastest/biggest car, the best-looking girlfriend/wife, holding our Johnson's, etc.) or friendly violent competition (football, boxing, martial arts, demolition derby, wargames, etc.) or violent competition (gangbangers, organized crime, actual wars, etc.). Women are just a different gender; they are the same species. So maybe its just human nature to be competitive. Whose to say that scoping out what other women are wearing and endeavoring not to duplicate them is not the healthiest of competitions?

As for the "she think she cute" line, I can only guess that any woman who says this must think that she herself is cute. As with Fabio above, it doesn't matter what another women think; unless she is gay, women are not the pool from which she is trying to attract a partner. Women don't dress for other women in the sense that they want other women to think they look good. Women dress for men and for themselves. A woman wants men to think she's cute and women to think that she thinks she cute. A woman accomplishes both these objectives and not only is the competition on but it is won. Believe me, whether women think a woman looks good or not is inconsequential; no other woman is going to dress like her regardless.

You go girl.

David Kennedy has been making noises and finding the evidence of things not seen for most of his thirty-five years. This would be less of a problem for him if he could just find someplace that sells Motrin and Prozac over-the-counter -- cheap!