Settling...Is that what you call it?

My book of choice for the summer has been a “Belle in Brooklyn” By Demetria Lucus. It literally took me two months to read it, not because I’m a slow reader, or worst illiterate but because I knew that the book was a work of genius, from the first page when she exclaims:

“The plot was always the same: a single black woman from a densely populated city clinging to a flavored martini, a Louis Vuitton speedy, and/or a perfectly coiffed girlfriend wondering where all the good men had gone (go to answers: dead, gay, unemployed, on the down low, in jail or with a white woman)”

Was she really talking about me? Was she talking about my friends? Was she talking about every black woman who is single and wondering where all the great men were? Whoever she was talking about I was hooked.

Well finally on this interesting day when I was sent back home as soon as I got to “work” I decided I would go home and finish this book. I turned on my Boyz II Men video collection DVD and slowly turned the last 40 pages of Belle.

The themes:

·  The Title

·      They all come back

Now these are two issues I’ve been dealing with since I was 19 years old. Now at 22, I am able to reflect on my past wrongs and work on not making the same mistakes with the next guy that I actually take seriously. But back to Belle, Demetria was dating a guy nicknamed TLA (short for teenage love affair). Everything was great until she interviewed Steve Harvey and he proposed, if a man really likes you he does three things:

ü  Protect

ü  Provide

ü  Profess

TLA and Demetria’s relationship was going great; he was a protector and he was the provider however the only thing he did not do was profess. Professing his love for her to the world, as in giving her the title. When she finally gained the courage to ask why, he said financially he was not where he needed to be. I’ve heard this excuse before and it sucks. Demetria goes on to write:

“ The intent is honorable. It’s noble. It’s totally old-fashioned and I’m totally in love with the idea. (who doesn’t just want the good life handed to them?) but frankly I’m looking for someone to build with, not someone who offers me the keys to the mini kingdom he’s already built. A man wants to give me all? Really, I just want him to do like Mary J Blige and ‘give me you’”

Eureka! I knew Demetria and I were on the same page. What most guys fail to understand is that a woman, if she is your woman, can be right by your side and be willing to provide. If and when you need her she can be there, sometimes financially, sometimes just to listen to your rant and rave about your day or sometimes as that companion that you can sit back and watch the game with. The beauty about relationships is that you have someone to grow with. Most guys’ feel like the world is against them and they have to suffer through the harsh realities of it alone; but that’s not the case if you have the right woman by your side. To men the title might seem like a shackle around their neck that holds them back but for a woman the title means everything. It shows that her man is claiming it. That he wants his woman all to himself and would rather loose all his privileges of freedom than risk another man snagging what’s already his. When I was denied the title a year ago, I nearly went nuts. I started doubting myself to the utmost extent. My once secure self became extremely insecure and I became obsessed with trying to prove to him I was worth the commitment. After a while this behavior became exhausting and I hated the desperate woman I was becoming. No man is ever worth altering your personality so he could like you more. I had to come into terms with the fact that maybe he just wasn’t that into me and after a two-year run I had to let him go, while I still had an ounce of dignity left. I was settling in this quasi relationship because although we had tons of great memories, amazing conversations and I knew he generally cared about me, he didn’t care enough to give me the title and that’s essentially what I was looking for. The title! If you want it then your worth it and shouldn’t ever settle for less. If he doesn’t want it move on.  But sometimes I wonder, is there really too much emphasis on the title?