A few weeks back, I was invited to be a “panelist” on a radio talk show addressing relationships – primarily Black relationships (specific title for the show was “Where are the Brothers?”). The discussion ran the gamut – why Black women are “angry”, why we don’t appear to be the choice for many Black men today, what can we as Black people do, what it is that Black women are looking for, etc. It was an interesting discussion – one that left me both wired…and tired.

One of the trains of thought that came up had to do with how we are raised. Specifically, cases where you have a male being raised by a single mother who caters to him to some degree for whatever reason. To Mama, he can do no wrong and so he never really learns responsibility. You know that whole adage, “Mamas love their sons and raise their daughters”. So, according to my co-panelists, the guy goes out into the world not really understanding or wanting to take on responsibility. He goes out into the world looking for a woman who will “mother” him – a replacement for his mom. (Ironic huh? Women supposedly are looking for their “daddy”, men are supposedly looking for their “momma”. No wonder we can’t “find” each other – we don’t know who it is we’re looking for.)

I didn’t delve too much into part of the discussion – didn’t wanna get caught out there talking about anybody’s momma – directly or indirectly. Actually, I didn’t delve into for one perfectly good reason: WE NEED TO GROW THE F*CK UP.

What I mean is this: if you are an adult – regardless of how you were raised - two parent home, single parent, raised by grandparents, adoption, foster care, raised by wolves…the bottom line is YOU ARE GROWN. You are responsible for YOU from this point forward. What you do or don’t do to help yourself is all on you.

At what point do you stop to take a good, hard look at yourself and say, “I need to make some changes. This isn’t working for me”? And I mean that for ANY adult, not just men. Seriously. We all have some level of dysfunction in our families, some issues from how we were raised. It happens. That’s on whoever was perpetrating the situation when you were a child – whoever was the adult in the situation. If it’s happening now, Baby that’s all on you.

You can’t heal what you won’t acknowledge.

I know how hard it can be growing up with all kinds of baggage-creating stuff pre-stacked in your relationship closet. Trust me. I’m still working through issues of my own. But I can’t do the work, get down to the real nitty gritty in order to let it go if I keep glossing over it or using it as a excuse. I had to learn to let a whole lot of stuff go, to work through it, to forgive and move on. Otherwise, that stuff would cripple me mentally, spiritually, emotionally.

I’d like to think that what Maya Angelou says is true, “People do the best they know how. When they know better, they do better.” I believe in giving people of the benefit of the doubt and say they did the best they could in the situation. Regardless, YOU are grown, YOU are wherever it is YOU are in terms of life, love and relationships. What are YOU going to do?

If you are grown – I don’t care if you’re still living IN your Mama’s house – decide today that you want to do something different, to be different – that you are ready, willing and able to put in the work to get to a place where YOU are responsible for YOU and take responsibility for moving yourself forward.

Regardless of whether you grew up without your father, whether your mother was mean to you, whether you grew up poor, on welfare, had to live in a group home, came from a dysfunctional family, etc….YOU GREW UP. You are not your circumstances.

It’s time to lay down that crutch of a rough childhood and walk on your own.

~ QUOTABLE ~

“And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~ Anais Nin

“From this moment forward, I will accept responsibility for my past. I understand that the beginning of wisdom is to accept the responsibility for my own problems and that by accepting responsibility for my past, I free myself to move into a bigger, brighter future of my own choosing.” ~ Andy Andrews

“It takes courage to grow up and be who you really are.” ~ e.e. cummings

“Anything in life that we don’t accept will simply make trouble for us until we make peace with it.” ~ Shakti Gawain

If you’ve been to my blog before, you know that Love is often a theme. I’m pro-love. I’m a champion for Love – good love, real love, authentic love, unconditional love. I’m not talking about the fluffy, skimming-the-surface emotion that many of us call “love”. I’m talking bone-marrow deep, sticky, this-ain’t-for-the-faint-at-heart kind of love. The kind of love people SAY they’re looking for but the one they often push away because they don’t recognize it, didn’t realize that it required that level of work and commitment…or, as much as they want it, they don’t think they’re worthy of it.

Recently, a friend & I were talking about love, the things we do & say in the name of love, and how we get in the way of the very thing we profess to want more than anything in life. He suggested I write a post about our conversations. Ironically, I started such a post last September but it was much too long, even for me and ya’ll know my penchant for long posts. So I put it on the back burner though I may have touched on some of the subjects here and there. The idea of “Love Scripts” came to me and I decided to break the topic down in bite-size chunks that I’ll post once a week. I decided then to just put some stuff out there, see what folks thought and so, here we are.

I have a running list of topics that I’ll post, one at a time, over the next few weeks. I really do want to hear your thoughts so share as much or as little as you like. If you have a question or comment but don’t want to float it out there attached to your name, you can send it to me via the “Contact” link on my website or email me directly. And yes, I can keep a secret. Let’s stick to the topic of the week as much as possible. If you wonder if a certain topic is on my running list, ask me. Got a quote? Share. Wanna recommend a book? Do it. Bring what you got and we’ll add it to the gumbo we stir up here. Share your thoughts & questions freely but as always, please respect my space and those who congregate here. We’re not all going to agree but let’s give folks space to say what they think. Cool? A’ight then.

I use the term “Love Script” to identify any belief or behavior that people may have or exhibit when it comes to love, and relationships. Your script can involve conscious or unconscious thought that guides your actions. It can be something you say – even if it’s only to yourself. It can be something that you DO, sometimes not even realizing it It can be a positive message or more than likely, a negative one. Let me say from the outset – I am not a therapist or a counselor. I’m just a sister with more questions and thoughts about love/relationships than she has answers. What I share here will be my perspective – as a woman, as a Black woman, single, not jaded but sometimes weary who believes in love, LOVES Black men yet recognizes everyone’s right to whatever their choice might be. It does not make me right. (I’m not trying to be “right”, just trying to be “loved”.) Actually, for purposes of moving us farther ahead in this conversation, let’s suspend the notion of right/wrong so that people feel free to share, to ask questions…to really open a dialogue. That’s my goal. I believe the solution is in the dialogue. So…let’s talk, shall we?

Welcome to LOVE SCRIPT #1 – “MEN DON’T STAY”

I grew up without my father. Specifically, I grew up not knowing my father. I can’t say I’m angry about that but I have on occasion wondered “why” or “what if”. This hole where my father was supposed to reside in my life created what I consider to be my very first NEGATIVE Love Script: Men don’t stay. More specifically, Black men don’t stay. Even more specifically, they don’t stay with me. Some will say that this script ties into the whole “fear of abandonment” theory. I could have just as easily have called this “Nobody’s choice” because I do know men who have the same script…that the women in their lives won’t stay.

This script is at the very root of something that I used to pride myself on not doing. I used to pride myself on the fact that when a guy told me that our relationship was over, I wasn’t the “Baby, baby please don’t go!” type. I wasn’t going to beg anybody to stay with me who didn’t want to. I wasn’t going to try to change his mind because I told myself he’d thought about it and made the best choice for himself. I tried to convince myself of that fact.

Truth is, I wouldn’t ask him to stay or change his mind simply because I.NEVER.EXPECTED.THEM.TO.STAY.

That was a hard revelation to come to terms with but it was true. I lived through many of my earlier relationships holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to fall. Subconsciously, I told myself that, if the man who fathered me didn’t “choose” me in terms of being in my life, why would some other man choose me? It didn’t help that I saw a lot of “leaving” in my childhood which further entrenched this script in my psyche.

If this is one of your scripts, you recognize that, sometimes you do things speed up the leaving process. Either way, you’re not really “surprised” by the person’s leaving. You may even tell yourself that you’re not in pain or that it doesn’t matter. It does. Of course it matters. Even if that person wasn’t right for you - it matters because, even though you were “right” about them not staying, deep down the thing that you want more than anything is…for them to prove you wrong. To stay. To choose you. Maybe that’s just me. I know this was the case the last time I had one of these episodes - as much as I cared about him (and trust me, I was in deeper than I’d even been before), it hurt more because I really thought this time someone was going to prove me wrong….

You can’t be fully present in a relationship, can’t nurture it if it you’re “loving” someone from the “leaving” perspective. How could you? You’re always expecting them to leave so why would you invest your full emotions, give your full self to something you feel is temporary?

How do you combat that? Wish I knew. I think recognizing the issue is key. I know that it’s there and yes, it still tries to push its way into my conscious when a brother says, “this isn’t working for me”. I recognize it, I acknowledge it but I don’t let it take root anymore. I realize that life and love are rarely about you finding that one person the first time out. Relationships are where you grow, stretch, refine, define and so, I let the thought float into my mind, focus on what I learned this time around and then? I keep it moving. I remind myself that I’m still here, still breathing, still ready to love…still learning and getting better.

What say you?

Live DELICIOUSLY!
Love DEEPLY!

You know, there’s a lot of dating/relationship information out in the universe. Seriously. And honestly? A lot of it is BAD. Really, really BAD. Some of it is silly, bordering on stupid. Some of it is so very obviously bad. Some of it isn’t as obvious. Nope, I’m not a ‘relationship expert’ but do I need to be in this case? Judge for yourself as we delve into what I think is “bad” advice.

It was related to INDIFFERENCE. Specifically, how indifference can help a guy attract women. For example, a guy is in a bar having a drink with his friends. A woman walks up and wants to have a drink so he asks if she’s buying. Shocked, she says no so he goes back to talking/drinking with his friends – no skin off his nose, he simply strategically ignores her. A few minutes later, she’s tapping him on his shoulder offering to buy him the drink after all and sputtering on about how she’s never done this kind of thing before. (NOTE: while this could be construed as a case of no skin off his nose for real, the article specifically set it up as a situation where Dude was feigning indifference.)

According to this article, allegedly, indifference on his part exudes confidence, gives the impression that he is the prize and is being sought after.

Um. Ok. Is it his “indifference” that has her tapping him on the shoulder or is it her “desperation”? Now, depending on what he’s really looking for, it may not make a difference to him.

Personally, I don’t think indifference attracts women. Not a woman of any substance, not one who knows who she is and isn’t caught up in all the statistics she hears about women and marriage. Specifically? It doesn’t attract me. Indifference to me translates to a lack of interest and possibly a lack of respect. And why in the world would I want to deal with that for however short the time period might be? Naw. It doesn’t work for me. There are times when this so-called indifference is more cockiness or arrogance than confidence. Arrogance isn’t attractive to me. At all. Confidence? Now that’s something else. It’s like a really good smelling cologne – days later you’re still thinking about it, still recalling it.

Maybe I’m overly cautious (translation: hella suspicious) but I’d be leery of someone who finds indifference attractive. Basically, I’m treating you as if I could care less that you’re around, that I don’t think you’re worth my time or energy but yet, you keep showing up. See, all kinds of alarms would be going off in my head. For real.

Indifference on his part breeds indifference and “NEXT!” on my part. It may attract a “female” but it doesn’t do anything to attract a grown a** woman. And that part about indifference giving the impression that he’s the prize? Um, to me it reads as “he thinks he’s the shyt and can’t be bothered.” See, if he KNOWS he’s a prize, that he’s worth her time, he wouldn’t need to play these games.

This might be truly laughable if it weren’t for the fact that generally speaking, women are *accused* of playing these little games. It might also be laughable if it wasn’t for the fact that somebody out there is truly buying into this - men and women.

You know what’s the saddest part of all of this? The fact that people play these games all while they shout all loud and in a crowd about how they’re “keeping it real” and “looking for something real”. Oh well, play on Playa/Playette…play on.

(NOTE: My little musing could very well apply to women; it’s written from this slant based on the original article.)