12/3/09

Or rather lack thereof.  Right now I have decided I am in the Twilight Zone.  The life and the world I am in is not real.  It can’t be.  None of this makes any sense and therefore I must be dreaming.  I am just waiting for the day I wake up.  My latest conversation with a potential partner brought to light what could be the problem.

TRUST!!

There is no trust in the world for most people when it comes to business and I simply don’t operate in that paradigm.  I am not instantly suspicious nor do I assume you are “out to get me.”  So when I approach a potential business partner  I don’t start off in the negative (On the other hand, I do need to trust my gut and cut people loose if they start acting crazy instead of “trying to work things out.”  ).  On the other hand, it seems most people are coming from a space of distrust.  Their conversation is coming from a place of what are you after or what is your “angle” how are you trying to “get me” or “get over on me.”

12/7/09

What is funny is that while I will approach a business relationship with openess and trust I am the exact opposite when it comes to dating.  I am not as extreme to think that men are out to get me, but I see dating as the time to determine if they are a person who I will trust enough to be intimate with (as well as to see if we have anything in common).   Unless I get an initial red flag when we meet I will trust you enough to give you a chance, also known as the opportunity to go on a date with me.

When I look at what is going on around me, people met online at a club or in the street and fall into these insta-relationships.  They claim “I’m in love,” start having sex and “being together” with people they just met, yet these same people WILL NOT DO BUSINESS WITH OTHERS!  This totally supports my Twilight Zone theory.   I will quickly jump into a business relationship because I figure the most we could lose is some money, but I take my time with dating because the worst thing that could happen is that I could have my heart-broken, catch a disease, or end up dead (inviting a psycho to your home is not a good look). I am doing the opposite of the majority of my community, thus why I am soooo frustrated!

I got this insight over this weekend as I was in the Tantra Nova Divine Feminine Workshop.  The faciliator Dr. Elsbeth Mueth pointed out that when it comes to relationships (non-business) I don’t trust!  I had started this post before attending the workshop and when she said that I had an AHA moment.  This was a HUGE Breakthrough for me.

I am going to start approaching business relationships like I approach dating.  I have been very successful at avoiding betrayal and heartache b/c of my approach to dating.  The good thing is that all of my boyfriends have been great , the bad thing is that there have not been than many of them   In reality I would prefer to have had a few business partnerships that were awesome vs  all of the foolishness I have experienced.

As for dating, I’m not really looking to make a major change.  Entering into personal/intimate relationships without a proper foundation is foolhardy.  When people don’t take the time to date/court and establish a basis of trust you get the kind of scenarios people write about on Twitter and Facebook all the time.  Out of not really trusting, yet being in a “relationship” people do things like go through their phone, check their email, and test them on sites like Facebook to see if they are “cheating.”  I see crazy questions on Twitter and Facebook all day like “If you looked in your man’s phone and saw naked pictures of other women and kinky text messages, do you say anything or do you remain silent because you shouldn’t have been in their phone anyway?”

With the few relationships I have had, there has been trust for me, such that even though I have had the pleasure of dating attractive men, I have never walked around fearful that they were cheating on me.  In the instances that I was afraid that they were cheating, I took action to nip it in the bud (turns out it was my own unresolved trust issues with my Dad from childhood vs them really being cheaters, but that’s another post topic).    I have no regrets about that, I just want to know where I can meet some more phenomenal men like my ex’s!

So thank you universe for having me learn this lesson this weekend.  To think, in my depression, I almost didn’t go because I just wanted to  stay home and mope.  So in applying this lesson to businesses, I see some immediate changes that need to be made, it will take longer to get things done, but until there is a shift in my people’s approach business, I have to accept how things are and spend more time “courting” potential partners so that we can establish a trust-based relationship.  I have to be willing to cut people loose when then don’t deliver and have faith that someone else will be sent along to replace them.

You have to check out my blog on spice vs. drama and read the comments on facebook to get the background for this post.

He wrote :Women don’t want to risk sharing their sexuality with an undeserving man

For women, at least me and others like me who I am deeming “quality women”, we want to be sexually involved with men that we trust, love and feel respected and cherished by. What is missing is an understanding of what it means to be trustworthy, love, respect, and cherish a quality woman, how one earns that distinction and thus gets to be sexual with a quality woman, or the desire to put in the effort to do it.

So lets start with how one gets to be considered a trustworthy, loving, respectful, man who cherishes the women he is attempting to sex.

The first issue is that many mens primary motive for talking to or even being around women is to have sex.

He wrote:“A man is less likely to want to spend time with a woman if he doesn’t feel like he has a shot at some kind of sexual contact UNLESS he had already established a strong platonic connection with her and realizes her value as a true friend.”

If I accept that as true, it is no wonder that me and my friends remain without male companionship.  I only have sex with men that I would have as a friend. As a matter of fact one of the main questions I ask myself when considering when or if to have a relationship or relations with any man is

“If I did not find him physically attractive, would I REALLY be friends with him?”

If the answer to that question is no, I don’t go there.  Here is the thing, the ONLY WAY to be able to answer that question is to spend time with the guy NOT HAVING SEX (hence the concept of DATING).  So if while I am trying to find out if a man is a person of integrity (someone I can trust), of compassion (someone who will love & support me), respectful, and who demonstrates love in a way that I like to receive it (Check out the book The Five Love Languages for more information about this crucial component), he is busy trying to figure out how to convince me to have sex, the answer is typically “No.”  The reason its no is because everything he is doing is about trying to get in my pants so most of the time I can’t get a sense of who he really is and he comes off as inauthentic and sleazy.

I get that men like sex, no men love sex, and men love sex with women. YAY!!!  We like sex too AND  I need men to understand that great sex alone is not ever going to create an awesome relationship.  Now if you are not interested in having awesome relationships (defined as a relationship that lights you up everyday and inspires you) please keep selecting women based on how easy it is to have sex with them.  Stop reading this now, there is nothing of value here for you.

If you are ready to be a grown up and have a relationship with a quality woman that will meet ALL your needs, keep reading and take notes (soon I’ll be charging for this good sh*t)

Quality women value ourselves for more than just the fact that we happen to have been born with a vagina.   More than that, we do not want to be with a man whose primary interest is Sex.  While we certainly want our men to be attracted to us AND we want to have lots of hot passionate sex, we understand that sex is not the key to having an awesome relationship.  Great sex is the key to having orgasms and since there is more to life than orgasms and because we can achieve orgasm with or without a man, we are basing our choices in partners on more than sex.  Quality women are looking for quality relationships.

The concept of being a sex object (sought after primarily for sex) is objectionable to quality women because every woman has a vagina and can provide sex. While there are some things women can and should do to make sex with them phenomenal (that’s what my Vixen Training is about),sex alone will never result in a quality relationship.  If sex is a man’s primary reason for dealing with women and wanting to have special woman in his life,  it may not be possible for him to have a quality woman.  He needs to stay focused on women who don’t have very high standards when it comes to who they  have sex with.

The Friend Zone

He also wrote:  men don’t want to risk making a fool of themselves and opening up their heart, reputation and wallet only to find out that they’ve landed in the friend zone.

The problem with this thinking is that, we want to be intimate with men who we consider friend quality.

In effect, most quality women don’t sleep with men that we wouldn’t want to be friends with.

If men would start seeing the value in platonic female friendships, in having women as friends and stopped seeing the title “friend” as some sort of badge of death I think the world would turn up-side-down!   Unless you happen to be a look alike for Will Smith, Morris Chestnut, Brad Pitt, or some other ridiculously handsome man, most quality women are not going to sleep with you because of how you look.   Its going to take some effort.

What’s good to know, is that it doesn’t have to cost you a lot of money, but it will require you to open your heart.  That is what we really want.  If you give your heart, we’ll give you our body.  That’s just the way it is.

Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable.  Trust me, after these past few weeks, I know that being vulnerable will not kill you.  I have tried to avoid it much of my adult life, but now I know that its not the end of the world.  The payoff of having someone in your life that you adore and who adores you is worth the risk!

I am not advocating purely platonic relationships, but more often than not, men are too salacious too soon.   FYI, we know that you want to sleep with us.  Try as you might, you don’t really do a great job of hiding it.  However, lacing your conversation with innuendo and suggestive comments is not going to make sex happen any sooner. If you want to get a woman comfortable enough with you to have sex, befriend her and romance her at the same time!  The key to being a good friend is opening your heart.  So if what he writes is true. You are standing in the way of your dream girl because you refuse to be a friend to her.

As you date her ask yourself: “Am I being a good friend to her? ” and “Am I being romantic?”  If you don’t know what it means to be a good friend or how to be romantic check out the love and relationships section of my reading list, it has awesome books with excellent information.

When men choose to avoid risk or being vulnerable, and ” go after easier targets that they aren’t really interested in anyway so the loss doesn’t mean anything to them,”  they rob themselves and us of the joy of being in  fulfilling relationships.  If you keep making your top mission sexing us, how it occurs is that you don’t care about the rest of us, the parts of us that we think are phenomenal and actually want to be appreciated for and we then lose interest in you.

Consider that woman are people and we actually make excellent friends!  The woman you choose to make part of your life as a girlfriend and especially as your wife should be a friend.  So if you stop making it all about sex and start asking yourself, “If I wasn’t sexually attracted to her, would I want her as a friend?” and can’t answer yes, break it off and move on to the next Diva.

For the record, friends trust each other (she won’t rifle through your phone and personal effects), friends give to each other (she won’t always expect you to pay for everything and will treat you sometimes), friends support you (she will make your dreams and desires a priority and do what it takes to assist you in fulfilling them).  If a woman doesn’t trust, give to, and support you, keep it moving, no matter how beautiful she is or how great the sex is!

I responded to a post on one of my favorite blogs and thought I’d share with you!

What Blaire points to is the one of the things that tends to kill of most long term relationships/marriages (lack of sex). It’s true, most women need attentiveness from their mate in order to feel amorous towards them. It doesn’t mean focusing ALL attention on her ALL the time, but it’s the reason couples are being urged to have “date nights.”

Most of the women I know in LTR’s number 1 complaint is that they never go out anymore and/or that “he” doesn’t do nice things for them anymore.

In turn they stop getting “pretty” for him and he complains that she looks a mess. The only solution to this is communication. Women have a responsibility to keep themselves looking nice (yes I said it and so what!) and men have a responsibility to tend their their woman’s attention needs. For all my mother’s out there, it may mean having your honey watch the kids or pay for a babysitter while you go to the salon, spa, or gym to tend to your beauty regimen and guys it may mean putting “girlfriend or wife time” into your calendar so you don’t forget!

This is the game of how relationships work and if you don’t want to play, stay single!

What do you think?

I read an interesting Blog by a gentleman Darryl E. McCullough and wanted to share my thoughts on this hot topic with you!

He Wrote***

This subject is one that I love to discuss with people. It ranks up there with politics, religion, and abortion! Some people get really hot behind this subject. A while back, I was listening to a syndicated radio talk show, hosted by self proclaimed “The Baddest Man on Radio,” Michael Baisden.

The topic of discussion was “Interracial Dating.” One of the callers, ironically from Detroit, Michigan, made the comment that people who date out of their race are “race traders performing cultural genocide!”

That was a very strong statement and some other callers, who were predominantly black, were not so supportive of this opinion. Despite being rather extreme, I tended to agree with the initial caller, for I am anti-interracial marriage.

To begin, let me make one thing perfectly clear, no one loves white women more than me! I loved the color contrast and have dated them several times, so by far I am not racist! I would rather liken myself to a realist…(read the full original post here>>)

My Comments*****

I took the time to read all the comments here and for me it’s simple. First of all, the “Black” race is a result of Africans, Whites, and/or indigenous peoples mixing it up during the years of slavery and colonialism. So even though people want to claim being bi-racial and all that jazz, they are still black whether they like it or not.

With that said I think Darryl makes a very valid point that most people have chosen to ignore, and that is that most black men who date outside their race are doing so not b/c they love them so much, but b/c of racial stereotypes about black woman and/or women of other races or being “color struck” (buying into the nonsense that lighter, brighter, whiter is better). If that is true, it simply speaks to the fact that we have more healing to do as a nation/world around race.

I am not against interracial dating, but typically prefer black men. If a man of another race stepped to me correctly I would be open to dating them. I will admit that I have some reservations about dating white people in particular b/c of the unique history between our two communities in this country. From my experience when it comes down to it, there are cultural barriers that I do not want to break through in my intimate relationships that I will take on in friendship or business. I just don’t want my man confused about why I only wash my hair once a week or clueless about what I mean by being racially profiled when out shopping.

I am a community activist and racism and racial concerns are a part of my world so part of what I am looking for in my life partner is a man who can empathize and ideally identify with the battles I face in the world so that when I come home I can leave all that at the door and just BE! I’m not saying a white or person of another race could not provide that, but it would really take something to find that guy.

I grew up in a mixed environment and my first best friends were two little white girls who lived down the street. I’m from Detroit a true Chocolate City, but ended up in High School and College in prestigious predominantly white institutions so I have spent a lot of time with non-blacks. What I have found is that I can be friends with ANYONE b/c we are all human beings and have much more in common that we do differences, BUT, as I got older and life got more complex with things like looking getting into college, looking for jobs, driving while black, etc… There were more and more things my white friends would be either clueless about (like why I would use my middle name on my resume vs. my ethnic first name) or rather insensitive about (like claiming I only got into Ivy League schools and/or offered a nice corporate position b/c of affirmative action when my qualifications FAAAAR exceeded theirs). This is real life stuff and if I were to marry or be in a long-term committed relationship with a non-black person, know that he would be one who gets it and gets me, ALL OF ME! I am working towards creating a not a colorblind world b/c not seeing color is to deny all of our wonderful unique histories, but to create a color-accepting world, where we acknowledge and appreciate all people because every color is beautiful not just black!

*******

I am adding that when it comes to black women dating non-blacks, it can be for the same reasons I cited for black men AND as of late, a lot of sistas (like me) are feeling like we need to be more open to dating non-black men because while we may prefer black men, if we truly are committed to finding love and companionship, we may find it outside of our community (check out Sanaa Lathan in “Something New” if you don’t what I’m talking about).

Where do you weigh in?