Every now and then you meet an intriguing individual who you just may throw all your rules out the door for.

One of those rules should be an unspoken code for us women: never date or even consider dating a man that has a girlfriend. And a man who is married is definitely off limits. Unfortunately, we live in such an immoral society where everyone possesses an individualistic attitude of ‘I’m just trying to get mines.’ Whether you equate ‘getting yours’ by materialistic values, sex, companionship, a cuddle buddy or a man to wine and dine you, if he has a girlfriend should you just say so what?

Recently I found myself in this situation unexpectedly.

Call it my selfishness as an only child, my sense of some sort of obligation to another sistah-even if I don’t know her or my beliefs, but I’ve never been one to want or feel the need to share a man. Yes, I understand the horrid statistics that claims about 70% of black women have never been married in comparison to only 37% of white women. But that has never resonated enough fear in me to settle for some other chick’s man.

This dude was different than the typical guys I am attracted to. Normally the guy that catches my eye is wearing some type of “urban”(I hate that word by the way) or polo shirt, nice jeans that are not sagging, but definitely not skinny jeans either, some fresh J’s or Nikes, with a clean cut fade. To be frank, I like the hood swagger. This dude was everything but.

I first spotted him at a mutual friend’s house. First thought was, ‘who’s that, I ain’t ever seen him before.’ Second thought, ‘I’m get him,’ a phrase coined by my girl who would say this when she saw a brother that was looking nice. And sure enough, every time she said it she pulled him.

Now I’ve never been the type to approach a dude, so even though I said, ‘I’m get him,’ if he had not approached me we would have never talked.

To make a long story short, he approached me later that night at a party, bought me and my girl a drink, we exchanged numbers and saw each other the next day.

Come to find out he was younger than me, very successful, educated, nice, ambitious, had a great upbringing and had a good head on his shoulders. Again, totally different than the type of men I was usually into. What he did not know was that my girl had already given me the rundown about him having a girlfriend, who she was, the state she lived in and how long they had been together, the whole nine yards. I was just waiting until this fool told me he had a girl.

I specifically asked him prior to him leaving town, whether or not he was in a relationship. His response was, “No.”After he returned home we continued texting all throughout the day and talking damn near every night. But I had already told myself I was going to play him to the left because of his situation.

After about five days by tongue hurt from biting it so long. I sent him a text saying I already knew he had a girlfriend and was waiting on him to tell me.

He gave me this long story about their long distance situation yada yada yah. So we came to the conclusion we could be cool, but that was all it could ever be. As weeks go on this man continued texting me all damn day and calling me at night. I even asked him, “When do you talk to your girl?”

What I didn’t expect to happen was to end up liking him. But sometimes it just goes down like that.

One night he tells me they broke up. Not for me thank God, because I didn’t like the dude that much for him to be making those kinds of decisions based on me. We arranged a weekend for him to visit; and even though they had broken up technically, I always looked at it as if they really weren’t broken up.

So I’m asking my homegirls, “Am I wrong for conversing with this man like this?  What should I do?” The overwhelming response was: his girlfriend is irrelevant; and some even said to get what I can get out of the situation. Really? For real?

At the end of the day I did like the dude; and clearly he liked me if he invested his time and money without receiving anything in return if you catch my drift. However, the facts were that he was still emotionally invested to this girl. Whether or not they had the title anymore he was tied to her in some kind of way.

Although I often gripe about being a single woman, I am not so desperate to continue investing my time into a person that could not reciprocate what I can equally.  He thought because he was a quote unquote “a catch” because females come a dime a dozen for him. LOL. Well I’m just a struggling graduate student; and dudes come a dime a dozen to me too.

In my case the decision was obvious. But I have to ask the ladies and gents, if he or she has a girlfriend do you really just say so what?

He has a girlfriend: so what. Should we care if he doesn’t care?