This article is in partnership with Hallmark Channel's Countdown to Christmas.
As we move into the year of 2021, it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas… and a time for some self-reflection. We think about our professional accomplishments, how we have personally grown over time, and even the evolution of our love stories. Whether it was the one that got away, the unexpected soulmate, or even the successful self-love story that took root from heartache. We have all experienced these kinds of moments and it is inevitable to think of "what if" and how our lives would be different. If you have been feeling more reflective lately, what you are about to read next will definitely spark your interest. As a part of Hallmark Channel's Countdown to Christmas, the forthcoming film, Christmas Comes Twice, is all about a time for reflection and learning about the possibilities of how a love story could be.
Christmas Comes Twicepremieres this Sunday, December 13 at 8pm/7c. The film stars Tamera Mowry-Housley playing the lead role as Cheryl Jenkins and Michael Xavier playing her love interest, George. Cheryl (Mowry-Housley) is an astrophysicist who has achieved her career dreams but finds herself wishing she made different choices. When the Christmas carnival comes to town, a ride around the carousel takes her magically back in time to the carnival five years earlier, giving her a second chance at a life she didn't know she needed before she must return to Christmas present. Though she didnt' expect to fall for her then-"frenemy" George (Xavier), she finds herself falling for him and finding an unexpected love in the process. We are all the culmination of our choices. This film gives you the chance to travel back in time and answers that "what if" question I mentioned earlier.
I am sure that the "what if" question has popped up for this couple during this holiday season. xoNecole's Social Media Manager, Ashleigh Hardin-Jones, and her partner Adrian Goodman have been staying strong and supportive of one another throughout their 13-year relationship. These high school sweethearts didn't start off with the typical boy meets girl meet-cute, but you could only imagine if things did not happen the way they did, how things would be different for them.
In this installment of xoNecole's How We Met, we were able to talk with our social media manger and her accounting specialist partner on how their love story started and how they have grown more in love with each other over time.
How They Met
Adrian: The courtship happened by accidental purpose. A situation with Ashleigh and another guy, who we both had a class with, went sour. I was asked by the guy to figure out why since me and Ashleigh had classes together. At this time, I had known for a couple years that I liked Ashleigh but she was not interested in me. Even though I felt how I felt, I put my feelings aside to do what was asked of me. We would talk about the situation during school as I played messenger back and forth. Until one day, she gave me her number and told me to call her after school. I called that same day and during our first conversation, it switched from the task at hand to friends talking, then rapidly progressed from every conversation after that point. I think we both mutually initiated and agreed on how our relationship would progress.
Ashleigh: Like Adrian said, it was an accident that I never saw happening. I thank the guy who pissed me off though because there's no way we would be at this point without that situation going wrong. Sometimes a closed door leads to a beautiful beginning.
Courtesy of Ashleigh & Adrian
Making It Official
Ashleigh: My attraction to Adrian developed over the course of a month. So I actually wasn't sure right away. I knew I liked him and I knew we had so much in common. But I was still undecided. But there was an incident where my ex called him cursing him out and telling him things about me that were untrue and I just remember being so scared that he would never talk to me again. I was in tears. That was the moment I knew I really wanted to be with him.
Adrian: After getting to know her better, it was a no-brainer for me to commit to a relationship. We have a lot in common and it made the decision easier. This happened during our 12th grade year in high school.
The "L" Word
Ashleigh: We got into an argument our freshman year of college that caused him to storm out of my dorm room. He was pissed! He's such a nice quiet guy that it's rare to see him really angry like that (I've only seen it two other times in the 13 years I've known him). I sat on my bed contemplating whether or not I cared and out of nowhere I started having what I now know is a panic attack and I burst into tears. I hopped up and ran down five flights of stairs, and out of my dorm building down the street to a bus stop where he was waiting on the bus. I was out of breath and was telling him I was so sorry. After we hugged it out and he apologized too, we realized I had no shoes on. That was love because running outside with no shoes is a no for me.
Adrian: It was this unexplainable feeling that I had never felt before. I was always thinking about her and considering how everything I did may impact her.
"It was this unexplainable feeling that I had never felt before. I was always thinking about her and considering how everything I did may impact her."
Love Lessons
Ashleigh: I've learned how to be self-less. This journey with him has taught me that love does not come with conditions. You have to be willing to compromise, not only for the sake of the other person but for the success of the relationship as a whole. I have also learned that while receiving compliments from your partner is extremely important, the greatest compliment comes from yourself. I spent so much time growing up looking for other people, specifically men, to fill my cup but loving him has taught me that if I don't fill my own cup first — it will always be half-empty.
Adrian: I learned that the way you love is not a one size fits all but more of a unique tailored experience. I had to learn to let go of things that may have worked for my parents that may not work for us and also sometimes to do more than my parents may or may not have done. It's OK to treat yourself and not feel guilty about it. I used to think once we became one that we had to do everything together. It's OK for each of us to have time to ourselves or our own hobbies.
"This journey with him has taught me that love does not come with conditions. You have to be willing to compromise, not only for the sake of the other person but for the success of the relationship as a whole. I spent so much time growing up looking for other people, specifically men, to fill my cup but loving him has taught me that if I don't fill my own cup first — it will always be half-empty."
Love Challenges
Ashleigh: Together, I believe our biggest challenge is overcoming my infidelity. It happened years ago but it still lingers because I broke the trust he had in me. Trying to win back trust is one of the hardest things because it's not an easy fix, there's no guidebook or tips on how to make someone feel secure — so you have to have patience and hope that they will trust you to not break their heart again.
Adrian: My biggest challenge independently is being more emotionally present and available. It has been the hardest thing since I have been programmed for years to not show any emotions. The biggest challenge together has been both having a child a little over a year into our relationship and infidelity not on my part. Having a child that early was not in our plan but we both managed to graduate from college. The infidelity piece is still hard for me because I do not feel that the problems we were having in our relationship at that time warranted this response. I wouldn't have taken this route. I do understand it's not for me to decide how someone will react in certain situations and that is why it has been challenging. We are in a better place and working towards a common goal.
Baggage Claim
Ashleigh: I had a lot of baggage from my past. In the beginning, I spent a lot of time blaming him because of my trauma. I realized that he wasn't my ex and I was being unfair by assuming that all men are the same. My weakness coming into this relationship was bad financial habits. My parents talked about finances but not the bad side of it when it came to bills and debt so I wasn't as knowledgeable as he was. He's truly helped me become less of a spender and more of a saver. As young parents, we struggled financially which helped me realize the difference between wants and needs.
Adrian: I didn't really have any baggage so I had to understand sometimes I triggered things from her past unintentionally. We would have conversations and talk through any baggage issues. One thing I had to unlearn is enough is enough. There is never enough and I can always do more.
Courtesy of Ashleigh & Adrian
"One thing I had to unlearn is enough is enough. There is never enough and I can always do more."
The Sweetest Thing
Ashleigh: I believe our views on family and tradition are in sync. We both have the same ideas when it comes to what those are and what we want them to be. I also love how honest and loyal he is. It's extremely difficult to find a man who will always tell you the truth and stay committed to just you. Adrian's my needle in a haystack.
Adrian: We both value and respect each other's opinions and supporting each other professionally. I love how considerate she is.
Christmas Cheer
Ashleigh: I love decorating Christmas trees and a few years ago we started going to Christmas tree farms to cut our own. I always look forward to it.
Adrian: I really enjoy our new tradition of selecting and cutting down our Christmas tree.
'Tis The Season
Ashleigh: Favorite gift I've received so far from him has been this Caroline Herrera perfume I wanted. I collect perfumes and I'd been eyeing it for a while so I was super excited to receive it. My greatest gift I've given is buying him tickets to the Atlanta Falcons game. He's a ride or die fan so I surprised him a couple of years ago with tickets and a jacket. He was shocked.
Adrian: My favorite gift that I have given has to be a Viktor Rolf Flowerbomb gift set and some Victoria Secret items (I drove all the way to Orlando, FL to get to Savannah, GA from Tallahassee, FL). My favorite gift that I have received was a surprise trip to an Atlanta Falcons game in Atlanta and luckily the Falcons won that day so it made it that much more special.
Follow Ashleigh on Instagram @musiq.leigh.
Don't forget to watch the premiere of Christmas Comes Twice on Hallmark Channel this Sunday 12/13 at 8pm/7c!
Featured image courtesy of Ashleigh and Adrian
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Ding. Ding. DING.
A life coach by the name of Thomas Leonard once said that “Clarity affords focus” and, believe you me, when it comes to dealing with other human beings, if you don’t get clear on where you stand when it comes to your interactions with them, you can very easily find yourself “focusing too much” on those who don’t deserve it and too little on those who absolutely do. And y’all, this lil’ PSA couldn’t be more relevant than when it comes to what I call “casual friendships.”
Let’s dig — and for some of us, dig our way out of — what it means to have a casual friend, so that you can get clear on if you really need those in your life…and if so…why?
Article continues after the video.
It Can’t Be Said Enough: Always Remember What “Casual” Means
GiphyThere’s a reason why I decided to share two videos by mental health coach Isaiah Frizzle at the top and bottom of this article. It’s because a lot of what he shares in both of them complements a piece that I wrote for the platform last year entitled, “This Is Just What Purposeful Relationships Look Like.”
It’s the author M. Scott Peck who once said, “Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it” and please believe that the older (and hopefully more mature) you get, the more you tend to see just how valuable — and fleeting — time is; and that is what plays a huge role in motivating you want to only involve yourself with people, places, things and ideas that will honor your time — and when something is casual? In my opinion, it’s highly debatable that it’s worth much of your months, days, hours, or even too many of your minutes.
The main reason why is addressed in an article that I wrote back in the day entitled, “We Should Really Rethink The Term 'Casual Sex.'” The gist? When it comes to relationships, “casual” is certainly not a favorite word of mine because I know what it means. Have mercy — why would you want to invest your time, energy, and emotions into something that is, by definition, apathetic, indifferent, careless, lacking emotional intimacy, and/or is without purpose?
I don’t know about y’all but that sounds like a complete and total crap shoot to me — especially if you are going to go so far as to consider this type of dynamic a true friendship (check out “Ever Wonder If A Friend Is Just...Not That Into You?,” “6 Signs You're About To Make A Huge Mistake In Making Them A Close Friend,” “5 Signs Of A Toxic Friendship That Is Secretly Poisoning Your Life,” “12 Friend Facts That Might Cause You To Rethink (Some Of) Your Own,” and “Less & Less Of Us Have Close Friends These Days. Why Is That?” ).
To me, when you decide to call someone “friend,” it means that they are loyal, reliable, consistent, trustworthy and willing to be there to support you to the very best of their ability — even if it’s inconvenient to do so sometimes (check out “Life Taught Me That True Friendships Are 'Inconvenient'”). How in the world can you expect that from something that has the word “casual” in it?
And you know what? That actually segues into my next point about casual friendships pretty darn well.
Ponder the Purpose “Casual Friends” Serve in Your Life
GiphyA couple of years ago, Verywell Mind published an article entitled, “How the 4 Types of Friendship Fit Into Your Life.” The four that it listed were acquaintances (which I actually don’t consider to be friends; check out “6 Differences Between A Close Acquaintance And An Actual Friend”), casual friends, close friends, and lifelong friends. After reading the piece, I think they consider casual friends to be the “pleasure” friends that I mentioned in the article, “According To Aristotle, We Need ‘Utility’, ‘Pleasure’ & ‘Good’ Friends.”
And although I certainly get that, I think my “cause for pause” is calling those people “friends” when they probably should be called something like an associate or possibly even a buddy instead. Why do I feel this way? Well, I’ve shared in other articles that I think social media has jacked up vocabulary words and their true meaning on a billion different levels.
Take “friend,” for example. Facebook had us out here calling everyone we connected to on their platform “friends” when some of them, we’ve never even spoken to before — and I personally think that influenced, affected and perhaps even infected our psyche to the point where we will call folks, both online and off, “friend” even when they haven’t earned it and/or who possibly don’t deserve it.
That said, do I think that we all could use lighthearted interactions that don’t go very deep and are filled with not much more than fun? Sure. However, if we were to move this over into a sexual thing — those types of people would probably be called a sneaky link, and there is nothing significant or substantial about ‘em. In fact, if anything pretty much automatically comes with an expiration date, sneaky links would have to be it.
And that’s kind of the point that I’m trying to make about a casual friend — so long as you know that the word “casual” is being used to describe them, while you may enjoy the people who fit that bill, they aren’t really anything that you can or even should fully rely on. Instead, take them for what they are and don’t really expect much more than that. Otherwise, you could be in for some profound levels of disappointment. And who wants that?
Final point.
How a Casual Friend Can Become a Huge Red Flag
GiphyI’m telling you, y’all gonna quit clowning Tubi. LOL. To me, the best way to describe it is it’s the Cricket of current streaming apps. What I mean by that is, back when Cricket (the cell phone service) first came out, people, like me, who used it service got incessantly clowned because it was seen as a bootleg provider. Now it’s owned by AT&T, and as someone who has rocked with them since I was in my 20s, I don’t have one regret for doing so. Cricket has always been good to me, chile.
And Tubi? Well, when you get a chance, check out CNBC’s article, “CEO at 33, Tubi’s Anjali Sud on success hacks she learned at Amazon, IAC on way to top of Fox streaming” — take note of the moves the streaming app is making and the quality of programming that is transpiring in real time.
Anyway, I find myself bringing up Tubi more and more in my content because it helps to amplify some of the points that I like to make. This time, it’s a movie that’s (currently) on there calledRight Man, Wrong Woman. If you haven’t seen it before, I don’t want to give too much of the film away. What I will say is that the main female character, she had a casual friend and then she had a close friend.
That casual friend—the one who liked to kick it all of the time—was a lot of fun; however, dealing with her came with a ton of semi-unforeseen consequences. Meanwhile, the close friend? She’s what the Aristotle article (that I mentioned earlier) would call the “good friend” because she tried her best to hold her friend accountable.
And really, it shouldn’t be a shock that the casual friend turned out to be a plum trip because if someone is loads of entertainment and pleasure and yet they are indifferent towards you, they make careless decisions around you and/or they don’t really make known the purpose for you being in their life other than to pass some time — where really do you and that person have to go past drinks after work or dinner on a rooftop restaurant from time to time? And if that is all that the two of you are doing, again, why are they deserving of the word “friend”?
Hmph and don’t get me started on the lack of reciprocity that typically transpires when it comes to dealing with people like this because, while they won’t mind you spending your coins on them, taking their calls in the middle of the night or listening to all of their issues — when it comes time for them to show up for you, they very well may gaslight you into thinking that you are being dramatic, clingy or “doing the most.” Why? Well, it’s mostly because the two of you never really established what the hell the both of you are to one another.
And so, while you’re somewhere taking them seriously, they are out here seeing you casually, and as much as it might hurt to hear, that doesn’t automatically or necessarily make them a bad person. You shouldn’t expect much where no clarity is involved. After all, casual is just that: CASUAL.
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I’m hoping that you can now see why I entitled this piece in the way that I did. It’s because a red flag is pretty much a warning, and to me, a casual friend is about as big of an oxymoron (again, to me) as casual sex is. Friends and sex are both too intimate to be seen or treated casually. Oh, but if you step out and take that risk, you could find yourself getting far more involved than the other individual ever wanted to go, because casual is how things have always been. “Friend” was simply to get you more mentally and emotionally invested. SMDH.
American columnist Walter Winchell once said, “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” A wise person once said, “One good friendship will outlive forty average loves." Former President Ulysses S. Grant once said, “The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity.” Does any of this sound casual to you? Yeah, me neither.
Again, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have people in your life who aren’t on deep levels. I’m just saying that you might want to consider putting them into another category than friend, because what friends do for people? There ain’t nothin’ even remotely casual about it, sis. Not even a lil’ bit.
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