We read somewhere that there is not one of ‘our’ relationship problems that cannot be solved by a Black woman simply closing her legs. Humph! Could this be the magical solution? Should we just get some self-esteem and pull our panties up? Now while this may make logical sense to some, we began to mull this familiar supposition over and voila, the idea occurred to us that this widely held belief may not at all be the simple solution it appears to be, but rather a BIG part of the problem!
Inherent in this thinking is that women must be the stronger of the two sexes and therefore must be responsible for making the most discerning decisions regarding intimacy. Could this be setting women up to be the perfect scapegoats upon the demise of relationships gone intimate too soon? Are the successes and failures of our relationships a direct result of what we as women do or don’t do? Is it really ALL about our failure to wield our P* Power with authority? And what about the men?!? Well, it seems that under this scenario, they come out scot-free. They are seemingly relegated to the role of children to be rewarded or punished based upon the quality of their behavior. They are not culpable, nor do they bear any of the burden, or so they may think...
When a man engages in a sexual relationship with a woman for whom he has no serious intentions, the outcome of this “hook up” for the woman is that she often becomes emotionally invested. Even when a woman screams from the rooftop, “I’m just out to get mine!”, repeated attachment to men who have no desire to provide her with the love and attention she is really seeking can lead to a change in attitude; she becomes bitter, angry and mistrustful.
As a result, once a man gets to the age where he wants to settle down, he may find that most of the women he encounters are scorned. We have heard many of our male friends say, “Why am I paying the price for what the last man did?!?" and to that, we respond, “Why would you think that you wouldn’t?” After all, we are all suffering in our own mess, why would YOU be any different? Don’t be naïve, your choice to “do you” while ignoring the part you’ve played in mishandling your female counterparts through the years contributes to our collective pain; and at some point, you will be forced to reckon with it.
Look, it comes down to a need for both women and men to alter our thinking about this issue. For a man to hold onto the antiquated belief that “I need you to keep your legs closed in order for me to respect you and understand your worth”, demeans a man’s personal power. Implying that a woman needs to be responsible for a man's behavior is contrary to a man’s natural inclination to lead. At what point can we start to count on our Black men to have our backs, protect our hearts and keep their pants zipped until they are clear that all women are too precious to simply use and discard?
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
SHOW ME YOURS AND I'LL SHOW YOU MINE
Relationships...oh the pain! The misery! The heartbreak! For serial daters, relationships can become a cycle; fun, excitement, challenge, escape, pain, misery, heartbreak. Over and over again until the heart becomes steel and the tongue could pierce armor. For those of us who are “unlucky” in love, we can get to the point where we feel that someone must “earn” our trust before we let our guard down; that we’ve got too much going on to just let some guy use up all of our good stuff and leave us with more emotional baggage than we deny we had before meeting the guy!
Once we get to a “certain age” we can sometimes emit a signal of ‘prove to me that you’re worth my time‘. We can be serious, slow to laugh, quick to accuse and very self-concerned. But when we act like this, is this really us? Are we really showing up to this fresh, clean situation fresh and clean? We fortress our hearts and in the process our soft, feeling center is encased, yet we expect for someone to respond to who we know ourselves to be; warm, loving, generous, thoughtful and interesting...huh?!?
Interaction within a relationship is just like anything else in life; you get what you give. We look for a man to show up and be a perfect representation of himself but oftentimes we aren’t even being our real selves; I mean who is this skeptical, quid pro quo, scorekeeper anyway? It’s funny because we always expect “the one” to be able to see past all of our gar-bage and see us for who we really are, yet we take everyone else we encounter at face value, ha!
When our expectation is that someone will trick us or sell us a dream, we behave in ways that are consistent with that belief. Our behavior, (not being a true reflection of who we know ourselves to be) causes the men in our lives to respond to it, not to us. When we play “show me yours and I’ll show you mine” in a relationship, we lose. If we were honest with ourselves, we would acknowledge that when we take on this attitude, we wouldn’t want to date the person that we are being. Yet, we just justify our behaviors because we know who we really are.
At some point, we have to release...we have to trust that our past experiences and greater understanding will lead us to what is best for us. We have to trust ourselves and know that if things don‘t work out, we will still be ok, we will still be strong, and we will still have our dignity. If we really want to have love in our lives, we have to give ourselves the freedom to let down our guards and trust our own judgment to choose people that will honor us and act accordingly. If our behavior truly is a mirror, we should get back from our partners what we give and if not, we can choose to go elsewhere.
Once we get to a “certain age” we can sometimes emit a signal of ‘prove to me that you’re worth my time‘. We can be serious, slow to laugh, quick to accuse and very self-concerned. But when we act like this, is this really us? Are we really showing up to this fresh, clean situation fresh and clean? We fortress our hearts and in the process our soft, feeling center is encased, yet we expect for someone to respond to who we know ourselves to be; warm, loving, generous, thoughtful and interesting...huh?!?
Interaction within a relationship is just like anything else in life; you get what you give. We look for a man to show up and be a perfect representation of himself but oftentimes we aren’t even being our real selves; I mean who is this skeptical, quid pro quo, scorekeeper anyway? It’s funny because we always expect “the one” to be able to see past all of our gar-bage and see us for who we really are, yet we take everyone else we encounter at face value, ha!
When our expectation is that someone will trick us or sell us a dream, we behave in ways that are consistent with that belief. Our behavior, (not being a true reflection of who we know ourselves to be) causes the men in our lives to respond to it, not to us. When we play “show me yours and I’ll show you mine” in a relationship, we lose. If we were honest with ourselves, we would acknowledge that when we take on this attitude, we wouldn’t want to date the person that we are being. Yet, we just justify our behaviors because we know who we really are.
At some point, we have to release...we have to trust that our past experiences and greater understanding will lead us to what is best for us. We have to trust ourselves and know that if things don‘t work out, we will still be ok, we will still be strong, and we will still have our dignity. If we really want to have love in our lives, we have to give ourselves the freedom to let down our guards and trust our own judgment to choose people that will honor us and act accordingly. If our behavior truly is a mirror, we should get back from our partners what we give and if not, we can choose to go elsewhere.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
IT'S OVER-WHO'S TO BLAME?
Most break ups tend to end in a marathon telephone conversation with at least one of our closest friends or a full out pow-wow with all of our girls. The topic? How wrong he was and how we are better off because basically, we could do better, anyway. He’s the loser and he missed out on all of the wonderfulness that is us.
What we often fail to wonder about, however, is why it NEVER seems to be our fault when a relationship ends. And our friends? Far too often, our well-meaning sisters only help to support us in our delusional thinking that we were faultless and perfect during the relationship. After all, we are ”good” women! But even though we are all beautiful, wonderful, worthy of being treated like queens, and blessed children of God, etc., could it be possible that sometimes WE may have been the pin who let all of the air out of the relationship? For many of us, it isn’t enough to have a broken heart. We have to pile delusion on top of it; as if it will lessen the pain for us if we are not to blame. It’s the man who is broken and needs fixing. Not us.
We like it when women bond. It’s good for the soul. And although it’s great to have friends who will let us cry on their shoulders and/or help to smooth our ruffled feathers, we might want to rethink the practice of running to our sisters to get pumped up after a break up.
Post break up periods are a good time for self-reflection; not necessarily a time to magnify every single perceived flaw that he had in an attempt to make ourselves feel better about no longer being in a relationship. It may very well be true that he wasn’t necessarily “man of the year” material, and yeah, maybe he could have been “wrong” about a lot of things, but how exactly does that help us? It doesn’t. It only allows us to keep our own flaws in tact while we continue to arrogantly wade around in our own messiness. Instead of gathering our friends to watch “Waiting to Exhale”, perhaps we would be best served if we used this time as an opportunity to evaluate who we have been and how we can be better partners as we move forward. Being our best possible selves allows us to attract the mate who desires to be the same. Win-win.
What we often fail to wonder about, however, is why it NEVER seems to be our fault when a relationship ends. And our friends? Far too often, our well-meaning sisters only help to support us in our delusional thinking that we were faultless and perfect during the relationship. After all, we are ”good” women! But even though we are all beautiful, wonderful, worthy of being treated like queens, and blessed children of God, etc., could it be possible that sometimes WE may have been the pin who let all of the air out of the relationship? For many of us, it isn’t enough to have a broken heart. We have to pile delusion on top of it; as if it will lessen the pain for us if we are not to blame. It’s the man who is broken and needs fixing. Not us.
We like it when women bond. It’s good for the soul. And although it’s great to have friends who will let us cry on their shoulders and/or help to smooth our ruffled feathers, we might want to rethink the practice of running to our sisters to get pumped up after a break up.
Post break up periods are a good time for self-reflection; not necessarily a time to magnify every single perceived flaw that he had in an attempt to make ourselves feel better about no longer being in a relationship. It may very well be true that he wasn’t necessarily “man of the year” material, and yeah, maybe he could have been “wrong” about a lot of things, but how exactly does that help us? It doesn’t. It only allows us to keep our own flaws in tact while we continue to arrogantly wade around in our own messiness. Instead of gathering our friends to watch “Waiting to Exhale”, perhaps we would be best served if we used this time as an opportunity to evaluate who we have been and how we can be better partners as we move forward. Being our best possible selves allows us to attract the mate who desires to be the same. Win-win.
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