'Love Is__' Showed Me What Love Is Not
I fell in love with the show Love Is__ as soon as I heard Nuri, half of the show's couple, ask, "Why can't a woman expect her partner to match her efforts and what she brings to the table... " or something to that effect. I was hooked. I immediately sent the 60-sec video clip to all of my independent but single homies and let them know that there was a new show to add to the roster while Black Love was on hiatus.
I was hyped to finally see a show that spoke to my own feelings about dating in this day and age. You know how it goes, the cycle where you're over-qualified for the position, put in work to heal and find a man but in the midst of his situation, asks you to pause all the ish you have going on to wait for him to get it together. It's not like I had been showing up to the table empty-handed or anything. I arrive drama-free, baggage-free, with my toolbelt in tow, my own business(es), and a renewed heart and mind. I worked on that list and I'm proud of it. Reciprocity, I've learned, is something that I'm just not willing to budge on when it comes to love, relationships, and more importantly, intimate relationships. However, a few episodes in Love Is__, I realized that in true OWN fashion, the show was never created to define love. It was created to begin a dialogue. Sure, Webster has a definition but it looks and feels differently to us all.
To be quite honest - we've all dated a few Yasirs and chile, my series would have been titled Love Is__Not.
OWN network
So, full transparency, I was dating a Yasir throughout the course of the first season: Good-looking, kind, caring, and under construction. As an emotional, way too understanding Pisces, it was easy for me to overlook the time we went to eat when he told me the ATM didn't accept his card for some unknown reason on the third date. 'What's $20 that I had laying around in my purse anyway?', I thought. I have trust issues, so I don't leave home unless I have coins for my food and a way home anyway, so it really was no biggie. Another time I overlooked, was when my Yasir showered me with designer perfumes for my birthday, knowing full well that I had seen them in his closet months before in some old bag.
It's safe to say my situation definitely contributed to my obsession with the show. I was curious as to how this young professional could possibly be content long-term with a man whose current place of residence was his ex-girlfriend's house. However, I mentally checked out when Nuri called Yasir's ex to speak with him because that was where he lived at the time. 'Wait, what?' was My exact reaction. While I appreciate that this story is the recreation of Mara Brock Akil's love story and that things worked out in the end - it's important that we understand that Love is not a one size fits all kind of thing.
Given my personal experiences where love is concerned, I just wouldn't be able to overlook that sort of thing. Dude's plate sounds full and I certainly wouldn't be auditioning to be his dessert or anything else. Now I understand Yasir was really freeloading because funds were tight but if the only option the dude I'm dating has is to lay his head at his ex's place, then I'm out. I'm whole and healed, and my insecurities been checked, but what *clap* do *clap* I *clap* look *clap* like? It all comes down to understanding what Love looks like and feels like to you. I skimmed through a book called The 5 Love Languages once - it basically broke down the ways that people generally like to receive love. For some, it may be words of affirmation, for others it may be quality time.
OWN
Nuri's outspoken colleague attempts to remove her rose-colored glasses and fail, her mama tries to get her to see the light and fails. The reason no one can get through to Nuri is because sis knows what she wants and needs and understands that although it doesn't really make sense, Yasir is it. By the end of the Black Love doc, my jaw was on the floor with all that these people put up with in the name of love. That's because it isn't supposed to make sense. I don't mean the type of nonsense that clouds your vision from leaving an abusive situation. I mean the type of nonsense where you don't feel even an ounce of doubt or confusion. It just feels right. While Nuri may have been playing the field whilst getting to know Yasir, she knew from jump that she just couldn't get enough of the way he made her feel, even when it made sense to nobody else BUT her.
I had a conversation with a few of my girls about the show and had an a-ha moment when one of them said to me, "Most relationships lose their glitz and glamor when you start to really learn the things they've put up with to maintain the relationship." I think that before advancing the necessary agenda and narrative that Black Love actually exists, Mara Brock Akil wanted us to know that it doesn't really look like that crap you grew up watching on the movies. The kind where successful man meets successful woman, together they decide to raise a family, have babies, buy the house with the picket fence and all that other jazz. I mean those are usually typical pit stops along the journey but there's a whole lot of cussing, huffing and puffing, sometimes infidelity, infidelity that led to children outside the relationship, and not liking but still loving your partner wrapped up during it all.
The older I get and the more I learn about love, is the more I realize that four letter word just means compromise, forgiveness, understanding, someone that's worth it, and a splash of relentless faith.
OWN network
I don't want to burst your bubble (trust and believe, I almost burst my own writing this here post, sis) but no, you probably won't meet this man with all his ducks in a row, bills paid on time, 50% of his down payment saved for his future home with his future wife and family, and all the other must-have requirements you may have on your proverbial checklist. He will be a work in progress with a few chips in his shoulder and a wavering self-esteem - just like you and the rest of us on this beautiful planet. It all comes down to choosing somebody that speaks your love language, warms your heart genuinely, and is honestly as tired of getting it wrong as you are. The dudes that you have to continuously advise on how to love you, why something hurts you, and where they're fucking up...consider them practice. They say you repeat a lesson until you've learned all it had to teach.
They were there to show you what love is...not.
xoNecole is always looking for new voices and empowering stories to add to our platform. If you have an interesting story or personal essay that you'd love to share, we'd love to hear from you. Contact us at submissons@xonecole.com.
Danielle Smith is a Toronto-based Personal Development Junkie on the gram @youbettaglowgirl. She keeps her hands full as a Writer, Speaker, Stylist & Non-Profit Founder, all while doing her most important job as a full-time mama of one. Marching to the beat of her own drum and a playlist of her favourite 90s R&B, she's blazed a path of her own.
ItGirl 100 Honors Black Women Who Create Culture & Put On For Their Cities
As they say, create the change you want to see in this world, besties. That’s why xoNecole linked up with Hyundai for the inaugural ItGirl 100 List, a celebration of 100 Genzennial women who aren’t afraid to pull up their own seats to the table. Across regions and industries, these women embody the essence of discovering self-value through purpose, honey! They're fierce, they’re ultra-creative, and we know they make their cities proud.
VIEW THE FULL ITGIRL 100 LIST HERE.
Don’t forget to also check out the ItGirl Directory, featuring 50 Black-woman-owned marketing and branding agencies, photographers and videographers, publicists, and more.
THE ITGIRL MEMO
I. An ItGirl puts on for her city and masters her self-worth through purpose.
II. An ItGirl celebrates all the things that make her unique.
III. An ItGirl empowers others to become the best versions of themselves.
IV. An ItGirl leads by example, inspiring others through her actions and integrity.
V. An ItGirl paves the way for authenticity and diversity in all aspects of life.
VI. An ItGirl uses the power of her voice to advocate for positive change in the world.
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It’s been nearly twenty years since India.Arie’s crown anthem, “I am not my hair,” gave Black women an affirmation to live by. What followed was a natural hair revolution that birthed a new level of self-love and acceptance. Concerns around how to better care for our hair birthed an entire new generation of entrepreneurs who benefitted from the power of the Black dollar. Retailers made room for product lines made for us, by us, on their shelves, and we further affirmed that though our hair doesn’t define us, it is part of our unique self-expression.
Today, that movement has turned into a wig uprising where Black women are able to experiment with colors, styles, and more without causing irreparable damage to our hair. It could even be said that we’ve arrived at a new level of acceptance: one that does not equate love of oneself to one’s willingness or lack thereof to wear her hair the way others deem acceptable. Not even other people who look like us.
However, as with Blackness itself, the issue of Black women’s hair is layered.
On the surface, it’s nothing more than a matter of personal preference. However, in a deeper dive, issues of texture, curl pattern, and of course, proximity to social acceptance, as well as other runoff streams from the waters of racism and patriarchy, rear their heads. The natural hair movement, though a wide-reaching and liberating community builder, also gave way to colorism and often upheld mainstream beauty standards.
Sometimes, favoring lighter-skinned influencers/creators with very specific hair textures, the white gaze leaked into our safe space and forced us to reckon with it. Accurate representations of natural hair in various states of being—undefined curls, kinks, and unlaid edges—are still absent from brand marketing. Protective styles, though intended to provide breaks from styling for our sensitive hair, have become a mask to help our hair be more palatable. A figurative straddle of the fence in order to appease the comfort of others in the face of our hair’s power.
And then there’s the issue of length.
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As a woman who has spent much of the last decade voluntarily wearing her hair in many variations of short hairstyles, from a pixie cut to a curly fro and a sleek bob, what I’ve gleaned throughout the years is that there is a glaring difference between how I am treated when wearing my hair short than when I opt for weaves, extensions or even grow it out slightly longer than my chin.
The differential treatment comes from women and men alike and spans professional and personal settings, including friends, coworkers, and industry peers.
What has become abundantly clear is that long hair is often conflated with beauty, softness, and any number of other words we relate to femininity in a way that short hair is not. That perceived marker of the essence of womanhood shows up in how I am received, communicated with, and complimented.
Even more so than texture, length has a way of deciding who among us is deserving of our attention, affection, and adoration. Whether naturally grown or proudly bought, the commentary around someone’s look or image greatly shifts when “inches” are present.
When it comes to long hair, we really, really do care.
In an effort to understand whether I had simply been misinterpreting the energy around my hair, I decided to take my findings to social media. I began with two side-by-side photos of myself. In both pictures, my hair is straightened; however, in one, I am wearing my signature pixie cut, and in the other, I am wearing extensions.
I posited that treatment based on hair length is a real thing, and what followed was confirmation that I was not alone in my feelings. “Long hair, like light skin, button noses, and being thin are all forms of social capital,” one user commented. “Some Black women enforce the status quo too, why wouldn’t we?”
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This also brought to mind the many times celebrity women (like most recently Beyoncé's Cécred hair tutorial) have done big reveals of their own natural tresses in an attempt to silence any doubt that Black women are able to grow their hair beyond a certain length. Of course, we all know that to be true, so why do we still feel the need to prove it so?
The responses continued to pour in from women of all skin tones, who felt that hair length played a role in people’s treatment of them. “When I have short hair I always feel like people don’t treat me like a woman, they treat me like a kid,” another user commented. “When my hair is long I get a lot more respect for some reason.”
From revelations about feeling invisible to admitted shifts in their own perceived beauty, Black woman after Black woman poured out her experience as it relates to hair length. Though affirmed by their shared realities, knowing that reactions to something so trivial have become yet another hair battle for Black women to fight was disheartening. Though we continue to defy gravity and push the bounds of imagination and creativity by way of our strands, will it always be in response to the idea that we are, somehow, falling short?
Unlike more obvious instances of hair discrimination, the glorification of longer length is sneakier in its connection to Eurocentric beauty standards. Hair commercials, beauty ads, and even hip-hop music have long celebrated the idea of gloriously long tresses while holding onto the ignorant notion that it is inaccessible for Black women.
Even as we continue to fight to prove our hair professional, elegant, and worthy in its natural state to the world at large, we’ve also adopted harmful value markers of our own as a community. It’s evident in how we talk about who has the right to start a haircare line and which influencers we easily platform. It’s evident in the language we use to identify those with long hair versus short hair. And it’s painfully obvious in how we treat one another.
It makes me wonder if India.Arie’s brave rallying cry, almost two decades old in its existence, will ever actually hold true for us. Or will we just continue to invent new ways to uphold the harmful status quo?
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Feature image by Willie B. Thomas/ Getty Images