THE INDEFATIGUEABLE BELIEF IN THE IDEA THAT EXCHANGING SACRIFICES LEADS TO STRONGER AND MORE FULFILLING RELATIONSHIPS

DISCLAIMER:

What I want everyone to know and understand is I am “chill”.  I have been here before and I know what it feels like and I am really in a good, happy place in my mind and especially in my soul.  Of course, what I am sharing is the sum of my life’s observations and while they may be applied to recent experiences, they are by NO WAY indicative of my state of being or anyone else’s.  So there.

PERSONAL JESUS

I still peek in to see what kind of blather Deborah Cooper is working up over at her blog “Surviving Dating”.  Her title for her post, “Black Women Prefer aRelationship with Jesus than with a Black Man” was sensational enough, but I wanted to check it out to see where she was going with this because I agree with her, to an extent.  Black Women in general have become slightly calloused-hearted towards relationships, but it is often not without good reason.  For sisters seeking love in a balanced relationship, finding that partner has become increasingly rare occurrence and more difficult to find among all the other low quality potential husbands that are out in the dating pool.

Her entry is brief and she doesn’t expound on the topic, saving that for her web radio show (which I missed).  The numbers and statistics she based making her attention-grabbing statement were provided by a Washington Post/Kaiser Foundation survey, and the survey validates her claim.

The survey confirmed something that I had suspected since adolescence, and have begun to verify, much to my chagrin, about women.  In reaction to the disappointment that African-American women have had to experience in relationships, prospects becoming dimmer because of not just the shrinking pool, but increased competition as society becomes multi-cultural without them (because African-American women are the least likely to be in an inter-ethnic marriage), there is a gnawing sense of betrayal felt by African-American women by “their men” that has fermented throughout the African-American experience in the United States. 

What I find reflected in the survey numbers is the lack of willingness of African-American women to pursue a relationship.  It has been devalued to such an extent to where I would say that an African-American woman’s happiness with their life is to be attained at the EXCLUSION of a relationship with a man.  Yet, I am suspicious of the findings, not because they are invalid.  I think that they are an example of “theory and practice” colliding and contradicting each other.

…OR SO THE GERMANS WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE…

Unless current trends are reversed in the African-American community and society at large, then the survey findings will eventually become a verifiable fact of life, where African-American women make the decision to do without African-American men and still enjoy a super great quality of life.  Those old sci-fi movies that depicted planets of “warrior women” living in a utopian paradise without men will become snapshots of the consequence of the fall of our present social hierarchy.  Anywho, that is for more intelligent sociologic study than you are going to find in this blog (although, you never can say never because you know you just might!!), my point being that women are increasingly becoming more independent of men not only materially but emotionally as well.  What I fear is that where African-American men are struggling in a general fashion, sisters are struggling in a SPECIFIC fashion that I am finding detrimental to MY relationship opportunities.

I have spoken before how as margined teenager I had predicted the sort of crisis in not just my ethnicity but in the country at large.  Narrowing my focus, I was able to act as “that cat”, the one you warn you daughter about because even though I am standing on the porch, a smart parent will recognize a “rake” when it is out of the garage!  And though some who were reading my journal at that time may have thought I was being taken advantage of when I was with Mookie Dee, that was just my karma coming back and being visited upon me.  Still, dontcha know, I have a lot more GOOD karma working with and for me!

When Ken was here in October of last year, he was able to verify my “ability in the field” if you will.  It is not that I simply “think” that I got it like that, but it is more that I DO have it JUST like that!  For all of the folks out there who struggle with finding dates and building the connections that lead to hopeful relationships, you just got to know that there are those who are the TOTAL OPPOSITE of you.  Life simply works that way and as far as my ability to find and participate in quality relationships, well, that is my gift… and it is at once my curse!!

Maybe one day I will elaborate on the “curse” aspect of being able to attract people, but for now, I am not going to worry about meeting someone.  I don’t talk about every interaction where my “hypersenses” are triggered because that would really be feeding into my own ego and boring as well!  So I expect that when I make the decision to be with someone, then someone will be there for me!

HEY, BUT WHAT ABOUT AND…

…Nebraska, you ask?  We still communicate but right now our schedules with classes don’t mesh.  For instance, I am currently on a two-week break and I think she is getting ready for finals or something serious like that.  When I go back, she will be on break and I am sure she will be with her daughters and family.  So that is that with that and you can keep hope alive!  I am still attracted to her and think highly of her so the possibility remains that she thinks the same of me.

BUT… a comment that I received on my previous entry touched on a topic that went unsaid but is in the spirit of this post.  It was unsaid because I was saving it for a more “me-centric” entry!  And that is what will post here next, pinky-promise!