Love's In Need of Love Today!

I was sitting inside on Sunday night just musing about life and thinking about what was most important to me. Of course, the answer is love. In thinking about love especially in the Black community, I wanted to focus on 3 specific areas, love in terms of family, relationships, and religion. So this is like part one of a three part series, if I get to it. Please comment and tell me if you like it!


Relationships
First off, are we really even having relationships anymore? I know I haven’t been in one in years. Secondly, even those of us who are in them, how many of us really know how to be in them? ‘Cuz if you’re looking to popular culture as an example of how you should behave and how relationships should be, then you are looking in the wrong place. It’s not all about supersoaking hos, getting her/him wet, getting them to hit that falsetto, or a sexual eruption. It’s about intimacy, opening up, and really connecting, not just from a penis to a vagina or an anus, whatever floats your boat. I don’t know what it is about music today but it seems like the more explicit the song is the more popular it is. That’s one of my favorite things about old school music. It was sexual but it wasn’t vulgar. Teddy Pendergrass told you to turn off the lights. What did you do? YOU TURNED OFF THE DAMN LIGHTS! That’s all there was to it. I’m waiting for the new hot single, “My Dick in Your Pussy” to come out so we can just get it all out there on the table. Sometimes you’ve just got to be classy enough to hold back. Leave some surprise, some mystery. I won’t be mad at you.

P.S. There is nothing wrong with friends with benefits or a cut buddy or a get down partna...But when you don't make your intentions clear from jump. You mess it up for everybody. There is nothing worse than leading someone on.

We seem to have lost the distinction between love and lust. Just because two people choose to sleep together, is not the basis for establishing a relationship. Just because we are really close friends and I’m single and you’re single, is not the basis for a relationship. As human beings, we naturally feel the need for companionship, but we cannot force titles upon someone that doesn’t want to hold it. At one point recently, I was in a situation with a female where we were enjoying each other company, “kickin’ it,” as it were, and after awhile of becoming comfortable with me, she basically started “clocking” me. “Clocking” is defined as being overly concerned with forcing something to progress without regard for external input. She basically had set a timetable for our relationship, even though we weren’t technically dating. Obviously, I became uncomfortable with this and promptly ended our situation. I am not saying this is typical behavior of females; but it is part of a collective sentiment that I have heard a considerable number of men express. Often women, especially Black women, are looking to settle down too early and are less willing to simply go with the flow; but again, I’ve also heard a smaller group of women express the same sentiment about men. I’ve also heard women complain that men are too indecisive about what they want and are unable to effectively communicate. I think all of these issues go back to an overall inability, especially in the Black community, for us to express what it is that we want, openly and honestly. How can we expect to create lasting relationships that aren’t built on the truth? Most relationships crumble because we are not realistic in our expectations or in our communication of our desired outcome.

One thing that always warms my heart is seeing an elderly black couple. If we were to look through our own personal catalogs of all the relationships that we’ve seen come and go, how many of them have really lasted? And among those, how many were African-American? I can only think of a few examples offhand, a 3 married couples at my church, Will & Jada, Angela Bassett & Courtney Vance, Lawrence Fishburne and Gina Torres, most recently Jermaine Dupri and Janet Jackson and the quintessentially Black marriage Bill and Camille Cosby. And in making this list, I am reminded of posthumous couples Martin Luther King, Jr. & Coretta Scott King, Malcolm X & Betty Shabazz, and Ozzie Davis and Ruby Dee, and a little tear comes to my eye. The idea of commitment has been lost in society overall not just the Black community, but if we are to overcome our social woes, we must rebuild the Black family and that starts with relationships. The neglect of the emotional ties between Black men and women has left our community ultimately crippled.

Another issue of note to me is that we really don’t get out and meet people anymore. The internet has ruined the ability to make interpersonal connections beyond typing and texting. We are too internet-reliant. People are more than a screenname and a profile and that‘s difficult to ascertain via the net. Now that we can pretty much research anyone we want via myspace, facebook, and google, there is no mystery in getting to know someone, nothing to be unveiled with time; but, simultaneously, and most interestingly to me, people seem more committed to being dishonest. The internet is a way to be connected impersonally and without any sense of commitment or emotional investment, which are pivotal to creating realistic relationships.

Blaming homosexuality for the destruction of the Black family is so completely ignorant. It is also just as ignorant to blame interracial dating. For most Black women, once they achieve a certain level of professional success they have made themselves unavailable to most Black men, especially if that woman is looking for a man of equal or greater economic value and education. So Black women are ultimately forced to settle for something lesser, look even harder, or look for alternative options. I feel that it is up to us as Black men to reclaim our women by educating ourselves, emotionally, culturally and intellectually, and increasing our earning potential. But even beyond that, we can’t be prejudicial in terms of deciding who we want to date. It is my opinion that love is colorblind; but as with everything, that’s not necessarily true.