Category Archives: Dating and Relationships

Not Quite Over You

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I’ve lived entire lifetimes since we last spoke. Written a few dozen blog posts. I’ve had three different bosses at work. I’ve poured all my angst into a poem. Our
skin touched and my insides, they shook. I was a slave to a page in your mind’s
book. I performed that piece, hoping that some public declaration of my feelings would purge the remaining thoughts of us. Yet, my mind’s vacant real estate has once again been sold to you.

I’ve dated. I told another man the secrets of my sordid past and stayed on the phone with him until the wee hours of the morning. I’ve kissed his neck and slept in his bed. Why you are still invading my brain space is a mystery that I simply can’t solve.

I deleted your number in a fit of rage. I also could not trust my own hands with my cell phone, fully aware that the temptation to text you a seemingly innocent “hey, stranger” could result in me stepping on a land mine. Your email address is all that is left in our ashes. We torched everything else. I trust myself with email. Email is too calculated. I would have to sit at my computer and think about what to say. That process alone would cause me to remember the sin it is to contact you.

I can’t listen to without thinking of those last minutes we spent together on the ride to the airport. We pulled apart the Wale lyrics the way two overanalytical minds do, then we hummed Drake’s refrain. My mind keeps returning to you no matter how much I will it to do the opposite.

I do not know why you have this way with me, this way that makes me abandon all poise and logic. Not wanting you, not wondering about you, not craving you is a conscious and exhausting act, the greatest exercise in self-discipline I’ve ever undertaken. I’m forced to collect all of the times you did not call me beautiful and all the times you declared your love for someone else. I’m forced to then multiply those times by the amount of times you mentioned we were “not on the same page” until the sum of that equation leaves me with the jarring memory of everything we were not.

I demand myself to remember how incredibly undone I was during those few months with you. You could ask me if I were watching Scandal, or how my day was or what was I up to that weekend and those simple interrogations became incantations that would cast me under your spell. I was hooked, freebasing what little you had to offer.

I demand myself to remember how erratic I felt digging through another woman’s Facebook page, casually searching for anything in her digital compass that would lead me back to you. I demand myself to recall how much of a complete, full-blown, unhinged idiot I allowed myself to be simply because you were witty and had a body designed by the Yoga Gods. Simply because you guarded my secrets and assured me that I was not crazy because of my shittier-than-shit past. I was not crazy; I simply was. That’s what you told me, sending me into a love drunk tailspin because finally, someone understood.

When you know better, you do better, at least that’s what Maya Angelou said. Sometimes I just wish I didn’t know better so that I could return to you ten times over and not have the good sense to feel the weight of my romantic transgressions.

Xoxo,
Tyece

You Can’t Date Someone’s Potential.

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potential“I can’t give you everything right now. I don’t know how much I could give you, but I know it wouldn’t be everything, and I know you deserve everything.”

I stole those Shakespearean lines from an email I received four months ago. That’s why you can’t give me nice things. Because, I will exploit them on this blog. Shrug.
This morning, in a failed attempt to wake up, I did some blog browsing and stumbled upon something from the archives of Single Black Male entitled “Dating The Right Person: Who They Are Vs. Who They Could Be.” The gist of the article is that it’s important to date/marry someone who shows the potential to grow and change, even if that change is not obvious in the present.
It was one of those posts that I immediately disagreed with, which doesn’t happen often. Perhaps I should explain.
I wholeheartedly agree that you should partner up with someone who shows potential to grow. Yes. Duh. Isn’t the sky blue? But, I think we all have made the fatal mistake of dating someone in hopes of what or who that person could become. And, that often times is a purgatory between what is and what could be that quickly dissipates into full blown hell.
I exited my most recent dating situation/thing/rendezvous because there were things in the here and now that I knew would not work. While I knew the other person had promising potential to change (and likewise, I had potential to change my views about certain things) that potential was not revealing itself immediately. That’s how potential works. It’s a pie-in-the-sky, intangible sort of thing that is a weak catalyst or excuse for a relationship.
I pulled those lines at the beginning of this post from a cryptic email I received this past winter because they represent the same concept. Sure, someone can have the potential to be fully present in a relationship. Someone can possess the potential to give me everything. But, what that email said is that what was transpiring in the present was not the same as the potential. Thus, we were doomed before we began.
Sure, everyone has the capacity to change. But, sticking around and waiting to see those changes materialize is an egregious waste of time if you are not happy in the present. Contrary to what , there is nothing admirable about being someone’s ride-or-die chick. You do not garner other people’s respect by sticking by someone who you know can change while you bathe in a cesspool of your own misery. That’s not honorable; it’s just plain blind.
Xoxo,
Tyece

Finally Following Intuition In My Topsy Turvy Love Life

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intuitionIt was Summer 2011 when I met a guy who for all intents and purposes we will call Hot And Funny Engineer (HAFE). I was instantly drawn to HAFE, but early on, he told me he was still tangled in a pretty tight knot with his ex. I remember sitting on the puffy pink circle couch in my studio apartment and texting him that because of his unresolved case of the ex, I couldn’t see him anymore. I then retracted my statement a few days later. It fizzled a few months later, thanks, of course, to the tangled ex knots.

To date, my gut has never been wrong when it comes to me and the opposite sex.

Aside from HAFE, I can think of several other men that I’ve dated or at least been intertwined with whom I’ve had visceral gut instincts about. And, those visceral gut instincts have always told me to exit stage left. Walk the other way. Leave. Run. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200 dollars. Just get the fuck out while your dignity is still in tact.

Up until now, I’ve rarely listened. I became a master at blatantly ignoring the flashing red lights that said someone isn’t quite right. Instead of gracefully exiting, I’ve waited for storms, blowouts, and tears to do everything short of shoving me out the door. I’ve even sometimes tried to pry my way back through some of those doors once they were long shut. Like many twenty-something women, I haven’t always been resolute and decisive when it comes to my love life or lack thereof. At times, I’ve just let my love life happen, serving as a passive spectator to playing fields brimming with flames. And, that is a perilous and frightening way to live.

I could drop a lot of Carl Jung on you about what intuition is and what it isn’t. But, at least for me, intuition is rarely unfounded. I’m not a psychic and I don’t have premonitions about people simply based on the way the wind blew or how my eye twitched. But, I have learned that people will be honest. They will present you with raw truth. And, to borrow from a popular quote that the beautiful Dr. Maya Angelou once said to Oprah Winfrey, “When people show you who they are, believe them.” The gut sentiments I have gotten always arise when the facts fuse with my feelings.

It’s a sin against self-respect to ignore the palpable perceptions we have about our lives and the people in them. Those perceptions that rise from our bellies and sometimes become strong enough to choke our vocal cords. Those perceptions are so judicious that not even the most convincing slew of explanations or devil’s advocacy will prove them wrong.

I recently had an internal battle about a beautiful and short-lived romance
stemming from my intuition. But, this time, unlike many times before, I decided being a grown up means being resolute about my fucking life for once. As I vacillated between all that was good and not-so-good about the situation, it was the maxim of a friend that served as the catalyst to walk away. “Know what you need to for you and do it. Anything less is not respecting or loving yourself.” Sometimes you walk away from good enough and put blind faith in amazing.

Intuition rarely fails us. We just far too often fail it.

Xoxo,

Tyece

We Really Don’t Want To Hear You Bitch And Moan About Being Single: A Male Perspective

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single male perspWhen I tweeted that someone should write “We Really Don’t Want To Hear You Bitch And Moan About Being Single,” I didn’t think anyone would take the bait. I quickly started mentally jotting down notes for the post I would write based on that title. But, my friend Osi seized the chance to write about his sentiments on the topic as well. Here’s his take on “We Really Don’t Want To Hear You Bitch And Moan About Being Single.” Shout out to the men of Twenties Unscripted.

I get it. You don’t like being single, so you state your relationship status almost every day on the social networks. That’s cool, but that definitely won’t help you change that status. Actually, it does quite the opposite. Keep tweeting #foreveralone, and you might just stay that way for a while. Keep IG’ing those “relationship words of wisdoms” and you may continue to lack one.  The constant reminders of how you’re single get annoying after a while. You might think it’s a joke, but no one really laughs anymore.

Some girls publicly complain so much about being single that I’ve told my friends “it’s not worth it” to try and court them. No guy wants to go on a date with a girl who is hell-bent on getting a boyfriend, or a girl who constantly complains about the quality of men that she’s around. The point of dating is to eventually find a significant other, but I don’t want my friends, or myself, feeling pressured by some chick for a relationship because she can’t just be happy by herself.  The ones who are always complaining sound like a woman scorned, and most guys don’t want to deal with those problems. The girls who are the most desirable are really the ones who don’t mind being single.

To all those who are guilty of constantly complaining about a lack of a man, I have one simple question: Why is being single so damn terrible? Some may not think this right now, but being single is one of the best gifts a person can have. I understand that having a significant other who completely understands you is very appealing, but while you’re single you can be as selfish as you like.  When I use the term “selfish,” I don’t mean that you should take advantage of people for your sake. I mean that you can do what you want to do, when you want and how you want to do it.

Relationships aren’t the end all, be all. They don’t make your life easier, and your inner happiness and peace probably won’t come from one. If anything, a relationship is way more likely to break you for some time, than to make you. If you want a relationship for validation reasons, you’ll never get one. If you think you’re lonely because you’re not in a relationship, then you have some soul searching to do. Don’t be so focused on what you don’t have that you miss appreciating what you do: your friends and your family. If you need validation, look to them. If you need love, look to them, and if you need people to listen, look to them.

A great running back in a movie by the name of Boobie Miles said it best: “Roll with it; don’t fight it. Instead of looking at being single as a solitary confinement sentence, you should look at it as a damn fun time to just be you.

Bio: Osi is not a writer but he’s opinionated and reacts a lot.

We Really Don’t Want to Hear You Bitch And Moan About Being Single One More Time.

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whining about singleIt has come to my attention that a plethora of people, mainly women, like to whine publicly about being single. I have made the executive decision on behalf of everyone exhausted by those lamentations to kindly tell these women to the shut the fuck up.

That really could be my entire blog post. But, I’ll try to pull more than 47 words out of my ass.

There are women who complain about being single verbally. They are always spewing some unnecessary diatribe against the men of every continent. There are women who complain about being single on social media. We all know those girls who have defined their entire online persona as being bent, broken and bitter. We don’t want to say anything because that’s rude, right? Guess it’s a good thing I make up the rules for this blog.

Social media makes it effortless to purge your mind of its miniscule thoughts with a few clicks. I’ve been guilty of it just as much as the next idiot.  A few weeks ago after a particularly vitriolic online rant, my best friend texted me and directed any further cyanide I had to disclose to her text inbox. Sometimes, while we’re tweeting, Facebooking, Instagramming or whatever else we do, we’re in the moment and removed from the fact that if we say something with enough frequency, we brand ourselves a certain way. We are what we tweet; it’s the new diet. People don’t know us but they assume that they do if we tweet about anything one too many times. Maybe we don’t give a shit what people think of us. That’s cool, too.

Whining about being single is an exercise in futility. Your lungs will puff up, you will shake your firsts at the sky, and you will cry “Woe is me.” Once that is all said and done, you will still be single. I can almost promise it.

Misery and happiness are two universal emotions that don’t always translate well. Vent to the people who really give a fuck about you which is probably a number you can count on one hand. Everyone else may offer you a pat on the back or a “That sucks” before offering your complaints the cold shoulder.

And, quit saying you hate men. You don’t hate men. You may vehemently dislike one or two particular guys and you are entitled to healthy doses of antipathy if you so choose. But, please stop saying you hate all men. Every man to ever exist on planet Earth didn’t fuck up your life.

You are single. You did not lose a limb. The world did not come to an unexpected screeching halt. You are simply single. Heartbreak is part of the cosmic experience. Solitude is part of the cosmic experience. Not getting laid sometimes is part of the cosmic experience. Congratulations on being human. Stop complaining and start living.

Xoxo,

Tyece