Swarms of black people, dressed to impress and ready to groove, piled into a room barely large enough to hold them all. They were there for an SWV concert. I too was in the crowd. At 5’1.5 it’s extremely difficult to find good real estate in a standing room only concert. But I managed to find a spot where I was able to peer over shoulders and in between bodies to make out disconnected portions of the stage. As I maneuvered, I overheard a woman’s conversation. In a venue where women dominated she took time not to bash the black men in the room but to compliment them.

“It’s so nice to see real, grown men. Dressed up, shirts tucked in.”

How refreshing. I can’t say I noticed anyone in particular but it was nice that she took notice of the grown and sexay fellas.

But with every group of decent people, there’s always a fool who’s bound to show his true colors. Not even two minutes after the sista made her observation, I overheard another, very different conversation between a man and his friend. Both of the men were exactly the type of men the woman had described just seconds ago. Dressed nicely, shirts tucked in. One of them, a bit incensed, was expressing his frustrations about the women he was seeing…yes plural. I can’t remember his exact words but basically he was irritated because one of the women wanted more time and attention from him. He went on to proclaim how babygirl needed to chill out because he wasn’t tied down to either one of them, that he was going to be “out here” doing his thing.  At this proclamation, his partner shook up with him, letting him know he cosigned the mindset.

Now, I can’t judge this man too harshly. I don’t know his life, the arrangement he has with those women or what he meant by being “out here.” All of that being said, his comments still made me skeptical because we’ve all had friends who’ve dated men (and/or we ourselves have dated men) that left us with the impression that we were on some exclusive ish, but the whole time he was “out here.”

Overhearing those two comments made me think. I had a revelation. And when I have a revelation and there’s no one around to share it with, I take to Twitter. So I tweeted, “Just cuz these dudes are dressed nice, with their shirts tucked in, doesn’t mean they’re on some grown man ish. Just boys playing dress up.”

I’m brilliant, I know.

But on the real, we need to remember this message because some of us fall for the suit and tie, loafer-wearing brothas with a quickness simply because we think his manish attire is indicative of a mature, honest and respectable character. But darlings, this is not always the case. A man can have a taste for more refined clothing and still have every intention of unbuttoning and throwing his designer shirts on a different woman’s floor every night. Conversely, a man who still “collects” Jordans isn’t necessarily destined to a career behind the cash register at McDonalds. Clothes, like money, and the car he drives are not tell-tale signs of a man’s true character. Just because his shirt is tucked in doesn’t mean his mindset isn’t a hot mess.

More on Madame Noire!

• Where Are They Now? Flavor of Love, Reader’s Request Edition
• The Blackest Eye: Tales of the Light Skinned Girl Who Wanted to Be Darker
• Cute Kid Alert: Fantasia Debuts Her Son, Dallas, Lil Wayne’s Son With Nivea, And A Lot More
• Choose Your Battles: Why Do Some Black Folks Snap On Customer Service Workers Over Petty Things?
• My Life: Taught To Have Brains In The “Absence” of Beauty
• When Keeping It Real Goes Right & Wrong: Celebs Who We Like More And Less After Doing Reality TV
• Single Black Male: 7 Reasons Black Men Take Longer to Put a Ring On It