Relationships 102: Women Aren’t Messing Over Themselves

It has come to my attention that I haven’t been writing about issues that are controversial enough in nature. I’m sure everyone has an opinion about nearly everything under the sun, with sex and relationships among the top ten on the list of taboo topics.
Personally, topics of a sexual or personal nature tend to be discussed over a girl’s night in, or during midnight conversations with trusted advisors in the forms of a seasoned relationship guru (my mama) and valued friends. It isn’t something that I talk about all willy-nilly just to make a point, or to earn a crown as a controversial person.
However, after speaking with, and reading some of Mr. Hunter’s opinions on women and relationships, I felt it necessary to speak on this issue, and the bottom line of the story is this: women aren’t messing over themselves.
Let me first say that there is nothing I love more than my Black men when it comes to relationships. I will support you, help you in anyway I can, and keep my end of the girlfriend bargain up in any capacity I know how. I am not one of these stereotypical depictions of a black woman; I am not about to raise my voice unless I need to, and even then, it will be done in a contained way. I’m not a neck popping, finger snapping, eye rolling female that automatically assumes that, because of the Y chromosome, a man is evil and not to be trusted. I’m not Mya: I’m not yelling out, “Oh HELL no!” every time something doesn’t go my way. I’m not going to blame every new man in my life for mistakes or errors that a former beau made, or I will try my best not to. Besides, if a man had a crazy tire slashing ex, I don’t want him to think that that’s how I’ll be, so I try to give him the same courtesy.
This doesn’t mean that when I meet a man, that I am automatically going to be smitten with everything he says and does. There will be a guard up. I will need time to adjust to a new person and their personalities. They need to adjust to me.
When I’m approached, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt-but only if you come correct. Once introductions have been made and a mutual attraction established, it’s natural that a friendship forms. It isn’t a test to want to get to know someone that wants to get to know you better as well. It isn’t a sick mind game to want to spend time that isn’t sexual with the opposite sex. I want to assess how you are with me around your friends and alone. Have you changed your demeanor? Stopped holding my hand? Introducing me as ‘a friend,’ but wants to become my ‘man’ at night?
I’m asking you questions, and feeling you out, because that’s how relationships are. I can’t be anymore cliché than saying, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” The same goes for relationships.
To say that after a sexual conquest is reached, all interest is gone, you, as a man, have let your end of the bargain go. A good man, a real man, isn’t putting all his stock in a woman just because of what she can do for him sexually. Yeah, fine, you were willing to spend time with me, and get to know me, go on dates and the whole nine, but as soon as you learn that sex isn’t apart of the bargain, I become everything but a child of God. Sex isn’t a woman’s way of punishing a man. It’s a gift. Put it like this: would your birthday be special if it was everyday? Would Homecoming be worth waiting for if it was every week? Christmas? Thanksgiving?
I’m sure no man tells any woman, “Yeah, girl, once I get your number, I’m going to fill your head with the things I know you want to hear, talk you past your insecurities, and then, after we have sex, I’m bouncing.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the five most deadly words any man can say, “I would never hurt you,” only to be hurt by the very person who spoke those very words.
If the only factor a man is using in any relationship is a sexual one, no matter how good looking a man is, how sincere you are, how unfailingly accommodating in the beginning of a relationship you are, you aren’t a good man. You aren’t a ‘real’ man-unless, when you meet a woman, the first and only thing you said was, “I’m Man, and I’m only putting in work to have sex with you.”
Women and men can and do horrible things to each other in relationships sometimes. And, granted, sometimes, a woman is in the wrong. But, in the case of a woman making a man become sexually promiscuous because she withheld sex and as a result, was dumped in a relationship, the woman clearly isn’t messing over herself.
It’s someone else’s train of weird relationship rules and thoughts that are messed up.