Magic Stick Marcus: 8 Ways to Get Unstickmatized

BY DYANNE PEPPER, Staff Writer at The-Afrofuturist.com

Baebaeh, let me tell you about Marcus.

Marcus wasn’t even that fine. I need you to sit with that for a second before I go any further, because it matters. Marcus had a crooked tooth and drove a truck that smelled like fast food and bad decisions, and none of that mattered one single bit at two in the morning when he’d text “you up” and I’d be reaching for my car keys before I even answered him back. Marcus had a magic stick, baebaeh, and that magic stick did more talking in that man’s life than his mouth ever did.

That’s what I mean when I say a man can have you stickmatized. It’s not love, it’s not even really about him half the time — it’s your whole nervous system hijacked by one specific, ridiculous, undeniable thing he does with his body. There’s a whole chemical reason for it too, something about a bonding hormone that don’t care one bit whether he’s good for you, it just does its job and glues you to whoever’s magic stick you were closest to when it went off. Doesn’t matter if it’s love. Doesn’t matter if it’s smart. It just sticks. And once you’ve been stickmatized, you are not thinking clearly about a single other aspect of that man. Not his crooked tooth. Not his truck. Not the fact that he still owes his cousin money.

But here’s the good news, and I promise you it’s true: every woman who’s ever been stickmatized by a magic stick has eventually gotten unstickmatized. Every last one. I’ve watched it happen more times than I can count, and I lived it myself with my own personal Marcus. So let’s talk about how it actually happens, because it’s rarely just one thing.

Time Does More Than the Magic Stick Ever Did A magic stick can only

hold a woman hostage for so long, and the first thing that breaks the hold, and the most reliable, is just plain old time. Not therapy, not revenge, not a glow-up, though those all help. Just time and distance. The fewer times “you up” pops up on your screen, the quieter that pull gets. It’s not romantic, it’s not deep, it’s just your body settling back down like a pot coming off a boil. A mild case fades in a matter of weeks. A real deep one, where there was a whole situationship and some chemistry that didn’t make a lick of sense, can take the better part of a year. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you it’s quick. But it always comes down eventually, magic stick or not.

Sometimes, though, it’s the very last midnight rendezvous that does it — and that one’s funny to me because nobody talks about it. You go back one more time, tell yourself it’s closure, tell yourself it’s just because, and it’s still good, still got you seeing stars. And then twenty minutes later you’re lying there in the quiet and something in you just goes, why am I even here. There’s a little crash that happens right after, some chemical comedown, and I think that crash is exactly what lets you finally see straight for a minute. Like your body finally got what it was chasing and clocked out of the job. I had a girlfriend tell me that exact thing happened to her in a Waffle House parking lot at one in the morning after her own Marcus situation. One minute she’s giddy, next minute she’s doing math about the gas money.

When the Pedestal Finally Cracks

Other times it’s not an ending at all, it’s just finally seeing him plain. The pedestal only survives in the dark, and the second you start seeing a man clearly — not through the fog of what he does in that truck, but as an actual person who forgets your birthday and still owes his cousin money — something in you goes quiet. Not sad-quiet. Done-quiet. I’ve read that putting a man on a pedestal like that is a real documented thing women do, not just a saying, and once the pedestal cracks it don’t ever hold weight again. My Marcus lost his pedestal the night I found out he was giving another woman that same magic stick and the same “you up” text, word for word, and she took twenty minutes to respond. Twenty minutes! Meanwhile I used to drop everything mid-sentence. Nothing takes a man off a pedestal faster than watching him be ordinary with somebody else who isn’t even that impressed.And then there’s the one nobody warns you about, which is somebody treating you decent wrecking you in the best way possible. You go out with somebody kind, somebody who texts back and shows up on time and isn’t a mystery you have to keep solving, and it feels almost boring at first. Almost too easy, like it can’t be real. And then one day you realize boring was never the problem. Chaos just felt like passion because you didn’t know the difference yet. Once you’ve had a taste of a man who makes you feel safe, the Marcuses of the world and their magic sticks start looking a lot more exhausting than exciting.

I’d be lying to you if I didn’t mention fear, too, because fear is a good teacher even when it’s an ugly one. I’ve known women who didn’t get unstickmatized from a feeling — they got unstickmatized from a scare. A late period. A phone call from a doctor’s office. Nothing snaps a woman out of a fog faster than her own survival instinct kicking the door in, magic stick be damned. It’s not a pretty part of the story, but it’s real.

Getting Older Beats a Magic Stick Every Time

Then there’s just plain getting older, which does more work than people give it credit for. I’ve had more than one woman my age tell me the same man who had her sprung at twenty-three did absolutely nothing for her by thirty. Same face, same truck, same magic stick, and her body just didn’t answer the call anymore. Something shifts as you get older. Your tolerance for foolishness gets a whole lot shorter, and so does your patience for a man who’s all sizzle and no supper.

Sometimes what finally does it is just getting everything said. Whether you actually said it to him or just said it to yourself in the mirror at six in the morning with your coffee going cold, once it’s out, it’s out. There’s a peace that comes after that. Quiet. Real quiet. I’ve seen women hold onto a Marcus for two extra years just because they had one conversation left in them they hadn’t had the nerve to finish.

And sometimes, you don’t have to do a single thing, because the fantasy falls apart all on its own. He lets himself go. He gets insecure and needy where he used to be confident. Turns out he’s thirty-five and still sleeping in his mama’s guest room with a PlayStation and a grudge. You find out the swagger was a costume the whole time, and once you see behind it, you can’t unsee it. My Marcus, bless him, eventually got real clingy real fast, and clingy did what nothing else could, magic stick and all.

The Spell Always Breaks

But however it happens, it happens the same way in the end. No big moment, no dramatic goodbye. You just realize one morning that you haven’t thought about “you up” texts in weeks, and when his name does cross your mind, you feel about as much as you’d feel about a stranger in a grocery store line. That’s when you know. Magic stick or not, that’s the whole spell, broken.

I think about my bees sometimes when I think about all this. I’ve wanted a hive in my yard for forty-four years and the county still won’t let me have one, some old ordinance nobody’s bothered to update since before I was born. I used to be so worked up about it I’d bring it up to strangers in the grocery line. Now? I still want the bees. That hasn’t changed one bit. But it doesn’t run my whole day anymore. It’s just a true thing sitting quiet in my life, not eating me alive.

That’s what getting unstickmatized looks like too. You don’t necessarily stop remembering what you wanted. You just stop letting a magic stick drive the car. So if you’ve got your own Magic Stick Marcus— give it time. It comes off. It always comes off. Some women take a season, some take a couple of years, and every once in a blue moon it takes one single moment that changes everything overnight. But I have never once met a woman who stayed stuck forever. Not one. The spell breaks. It just does it on its own clock, not yours. Lol I aint gonna say anything about that magic lick….

DyAnne Pepper is a writer and gardener from the Gulf Coast. Originally from Poplarville, Mississippi. She takes care of her 88 year old mama, argues about bees with anyone who will listen, and has very specific feelings about Pierce Brosnan as James Bond. She writes about life, culture, and whatever she saw last week that gave her something to say.