To All Forlorn Heterosexual Single Successful Black Women

I’m using this piece as an excerpt; but you should read everything dopegirlfresh has to say about the “marriage crisis.”

& really, if marrying someone is about loving them until your last breath exits your body, can we consider one thing: the purported crisis of unmarried black women suggests that there is not enough love for us. that we are not lovable. that there is scarcity in the black community, so we must either take what we can get from black men or marry white men if we want to be married at all. this is wrong. love is infinite. there is no reason to think, for one minute, that any one of us is not lovable. that we are not desirable — to anyone, whether they be white, asian, latino, man, woman, gender non-conforming, cisgender, transgender, disabled, blue collar, white collar, no collar, or anything fucking else. if we marry because we want to spend the rest of our lives surrounded by the love, care, and support of another person then why on earth would we let fear run us off our paths?

I have to admit that I let this mode of thinking completely cloud my perceptions of love, partnership, and relationships. Dwelling on how love should happen, what factors I should be considering, and how to manifest desire for companionship within a very limited paradigm led to an eventual inability to just relate to people I respected. It wasn’t about the formation, or sitting back and enjoying whatever unfolds, or even listening to the person I desired. It was pairing an unrealistic ideal of perfect love with a vehicle who happened to be a living, breathing person. (A quite attractive living, breathing person. But I digress.)

The problem I encountered is this: I would prefer a lifelong, childfree monogamous partnership independent of marriage. These debates about black love and black marriage flew over my head for a while because (as dopegirlfresh points out in the rest of that post you should read) I wasn’t included in that paradigm. I thought I understood and entertained the other options thoughtfully before I met this man. I completely second-guessed my desire because I wanted him. And the things he wanted were the near-direct opposite of what I wanted.

Instead of doing what smart people do and saying, “okay, let’s keep it moving,” I pushed myself hard into a space where I simply will never fit and created a tempest of regrettable, embarrassing and avoidable situations. Other events in my life shot down careful plans in other, equally important arenas of my dreams — my financial security, my career path, my relationships with family. And I literally unraveled in front of this man because I couldn’t even remember where square one was, let alone return to it.

After taking some time to stop, reflect, and return to dynamics where I felt most comfortable, I realized what dopegirlfresh identifies: love is infinite, transformative, and dynamic. Love is not a blueprint; it is a finished product in itself. So when I approached something as fundamentally easy as relationship formation with a bundle of rules and expectations from who-knows-where, I set myself up for a pretty huge okey-doke. I learned to see what was in front of me by relaxing my eyes and looking, not forcing myself to squint and invent what wasn’t there. And I’m asking you, all of you, to relax that grip on Perfect Black Love and Perfect Black Family.

Think on this: a perfect and ideal Black anything exists where you are a content, healthy, affirmed and engaged part of it — whether it’s a romantic relationship, a friendship, a career, a family, a body politic or a spiritual path. The level of respect and care you receive and generate will be better than your dreams, if you keep that perspective in mind.

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