- So I literally would talk to Republicans every day.
- Yes.
- During the summer, and just talk bad
about Bill Clinton so they could give us money.
That's what I did.
- Ooh. I'm looking for a friend!
Honesty,
Openness,
being able to laugh a lot.
As long as I know who I'm dealing with,
the honesty part, then we can develop,
you know, moving forward.
I don't like the mask, fascade, you know
you meet someone and it's, "Oh, you know,"
"it's so perfect."
And then later on, you get the other person.
I wanna meet that person first.
- What people get wrong about me is that
I am unapproachable. I love talking to people.
I love talking to new people.
I'll be sitting at the bar by myself,
and I'll just spark a conversation up
with any and everybody sittin' at the bar.
That's what I do.
But a lot of people, you know, they tell like, "Oh man,"
"You know." I could even tell in their engagement
with me that they're a little...
Let me not say intimidated
they're just a little nervous and I'm just like,
"What do you gotto be nervous for, I'm not God."
So your name is Jenine.
And this is your story:
You are 30 years old.
For work, you are a startup entrepreneur.
You grew up in The South.
And, your cultural or ethnic background is black.
So, my name is Bernice.
I'm 34 years old. I'm a car salesman.
I do a lot of stuff. I think you was right about that.
I grew up in New Orleans, and yes I am black.
- Figured that was safe.
- Your name is Terrance, and this is your story:
You're 35, you work as a musician,
you grew up here, and your ethnic background
is African American.
- My name is actually Geronimo.
I'm 36, so you were close.
- Okay.
- I'm actually a barback and a digital content creator.
- Okay.
- And, I grew up in the D.C. area.
- My ethnic background is African American.
There's a little Trini in there.
You looked surprised when I said that was from D.C.
- Yeah!
- Because we come a little certain down here.
And your mannerisms, you know, you have confidence,
so you know I thought that you was just from here,
'cause that's how we kinda grew up.
- Okay, I mean we got that confidence, too.
- Yeah. Y'all got your go-go music and stuff.
- Oh! You know about go-go! Okay, all right!
- We have similar music down here.
Second line band is very similar to go-go music.
- Now, what made you think that I was a musician?
- The creativity with your pins.
Either you're a activist
or you're a free, spirited person.
And musicians are, you know, people that are free-spirited.
- Okay, I'd go with that. I'd go with that.
- At this stage in the game, what I'm looking
for in a partner is someone who's supportive.
But, when I say supportive, that doesn't mean
I want you to put everything that you love
and are passionate aside.
You know, because I want to be able to
be supportive of my partner, as well.
Something else that's very important for me
is that they are passionate,
because passion is one of the precursors to drive
and want to get up and do something.
You know, so whether that's fighting the good fight,
or whether that is starting a business,
or whether that is being one hell of a mom,
I don't know, but you know, just passionate about something.
You know, so support and passion.
- So, in the black community, there are levels on the color.
So, I'm yellow. So I'm like almost the last of the...
But I've always been a tomboy,
so I would be in the midst of the boys playing football,
you know, being dirty, that definitely was like,
"She don't supposed to be here." You know?
So, yeah, it was weird, but I love it,
because as I grew older, I got modeling jobs
from how I look and stuff like that,
so the weird girl wound up making money
off being weird, so that was awesome.
- Your first job was at a neighborhood store.
It's not important that your date always pays for dinner.
And your life motto is, "Your word is your bond."
- Interesting enough.
So, that was actually my second job.
- Okay.
- My first job was at the Republican National Committee.
- Oh!
- I was 15, it was my first job.
My best friend's dad, his girlfriend at the time,
worked for them.
She was like, "I can get them jobs as fundraisers."
So I literally would talk to Republicans every day
during the summer and just talk bad about Bill Clinton
so they could give us money.
So that's what I did.
It is not important that my date always pay for dinner,
and my life motto actually is, "You only live once."
- Yes!
- All right. So, for you, your first job
was at a restaurant.
It is not important that your date always pay for dinner,
and your life motto is, "Live and let live."
- Hmm. I like that one, though.
- My first job was at this community activist center-
- Okay.
- Inside my neighborhood. It's not important
for my date always pay for dinner,
and my life motto is, "Find a way or make one."
- Hmm. I like that. I like that a lot.
I don't know, I always tend to take thing traditionally,
I was like, "I'mma go with it is important for her date"
"to always pay for dinner."
I was like, "Na, na, na. We going to be a little"
"more progressive."
- Okay.
- We goin' be a little more progressive than that.
You know what I mean?
- I mean, it better not be important
for me to always pay.
- I mean, I pay for dates, y
as often, you know, as I can.
You know what I mean? I would like for us to have
that understanding that I'm not a wealthy guy-
- Yeah.
- But, I'm pretty creative with dates,
so it's not my first instinct like, "Let me go with"
"the $200 date."
- Yeah, yeah.
- You know what I mean? I can make $20 seem
like a hell of a time.
- I like picnics and going fishin', so you know,
it doesn't cost that much.
- I probably can fish real good.
- Yes.
- I've never gone fishing before.
- Oh, yeah, I can fish really good.
I make anybody look bad.
- Okay.
- Don't let the look fool you.
- Okay, all right.
- I just went on a feeling. You know, I was ready
to leave D.C., and I didn't want to move
back up to New York,
so I said, "Well, let me give the South a try."
And a lot of signs just pointed to New Orleans.
Okay, so I do this thing.
When it comes to relocating, I'm notorious
for just relocating with half a plan.
It hasn't been an easy relocation for me,
and I told myself that I'm going to see this through.
Just overcoming the challenges that I've experienced
the past few months, that has most certainly added
to my confidence.
Even before that, I'd say I became sure of myself
as an adult, once I turned 30.
I'm okay with that, because I have it now,
and I've had some unique lived experiences,
that I can bring to the table,
and just use as great advice and things like that.
As a way to inform my actions now,
with that self awareness.
- Ah, my grandmother was a very humble, soft spoken woman.
My mama, she was an aggressive woman.
She was six feet, 340 pounds,
so she wasn't scared of anything,
and she taught me how to not be fearful about anything.
In any situation that I feel the human nature of fear,
I hear my mom say, "You scared?"
And it's like a...
"No!" You know, even if I am,
and it cleans it off!
It cleans it out of my system.
The fear goes, so that's my mom and my grandmother.
Two sides, and I took that goodness,
and made it me.
- You do not think sexuality defines you as a person.
The two most important things you need
in a relationship are intimacy and honesty.
Your deal breakers in a relationship are lying.
- Sexuality do not define me.
Two important things is honesty and friendship,
which is like what you said.
And the deal breaker is cheating, which is lying.
And all of that.
- Okay.
- Sexuality do not define you.
Two important things you need
in a relationship is communication and friendship,
and the deal breaker is your mama not liking your spouse.
- Okay. So, all right, so my biggest...
I can't wait to get to that part.
I don't think sexuality defines a person.
Two most important things that I need
in a relationship are support and honesty,
and my deal breaker is if a person is willfully ignorant
aka they cool being basic,
and just that's it.
It's like, why work for someone else,
they workin' for me.
- Yes.
- Um, my mother did not like my significant other.
That's cool, my mother is okay knowing
that I have never really paid too much attention
to what she thought, anyway.
Okay, so, she's just like, "Well, he's just gonna do-"
- "Just do what he wants."
- "Don't bring her around me."
- How do you identify as far as your sexual orientation?
- Free.
- Free?
- Yeah.
- I like free.
- I don't have a particular, "I'm not goin' do this,"
"I'm not goin' do that." You know? I'm free and open.
- Okay.
- What do you define yourself as?
- So, I am a transgender male.
- Okay.
- I'm also bisexual.
- Yes.
- And, um, my pronouns are he, him, his.
- Okay.
- I just got into the pronoun thing.
- Yeah.
- But I think it's cool to ask people nowadays,
because there's so many people who are falling
outside of the binary, the gender binary,
so they don't use the pronouns
that we're accustomed to hearing.
- Yeah.
- So, extend that courtesy to people.
- Okay, well, I'm learning something new
every day, you know.
- Good, good, good.
- "What's your pronoun?" Cause, we're free
down here in New Orleans, you know,
so we love everybody, you know, as long as
you're a good person.
- I appreciate that about New Orleans.
- Yes, very much. We love everyone.
- Yeah.
- Yep.
- Okay.
- Yeah...
- So, when I first saw you, I said I would date you.
- Okay!
- So now that I've gotten to know you,
I would still date you.
- So, when I first saw you,
I said I would not date you,
because I didn't have any information on you,
so I couldn't determine a date or anything,
because I don't know who I'm dealing with,
once you're sitting in front of me.
And now that I've gotten to know you,
I said I would .
- All right. Good to know I made a good impression.
- I got some places for us to eat.
I'm from here.
- Okay, well I got some places that we could
you know, just kick it-
- Yes.
- I've found in my travels in the short time
that I've been in New Orleans.
- Yes, there's a lot of stuff going on down here,
so there's always something to get into.
- All right, so let's go.
- All right!
♪ SoulPancake ♪
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