"So you just gon' leave your hair and your husband in 2017?!"
I couldn't help but to burst out laughing as I looked back at my big sister's face on my phone screen. It showed a hilarious mixture of shock and amusement as we had an impromptu FaceTime sesh' that December day. I had just posted a not-so mysterious Snap on my Facebook page. All you could see in the photo frame was a pile of freshly cut hair in a sink and bold words that read, "So, I did a thing…"
Two months after choosing to separate from my husband, I had decided to chop my hair off.
And yes, the cut was most certainly symbolic.
At this point, only my close friends and family knew what was going on and no one took me seriously. The hair I was carrying on my head sprouted at the same time our relationship blossomed. It carried the memories of our love when it was unassuming and new. But it also carried the pain I began to feel as our relationship aged, and it kept getting heavier and heavier until that day in December when I decided to let it all go. When I chose to let go of my hair, I was also letting go of my marriage, which I realized had stopped serving me a long time ago.
The early years of our relationship were the sweetest, even without much romance. We were sharing our college experience and falling in love to a backdrop of weed, fast food, and normal young adult nonsense. I noticed that he showed very few signs of being ready for a real relationship but I figured that would change over time. We were having fun together and that was all I needed at the time. When he didn't even bat an eye after I chopped my hair into a Pixie cut and then transitioned to natural hair all in our first year dating, I was convinced he was the one!
In hindsight, I placed way too much value on how he handled my first big chop and didn't pay enough attention to signs that things may not have been as sweet as I thought they were.
As we approached our one year mark of dating, he took a few involuntary vacations, we had blown through tons of my money with no real plan and the romance was non-existent. But he still complimented me on my twist-outs, praised my natural beauty and wasn't a complete ass-hole, so in my mind that was good enough. It was so good in fact, that I decided to marry him despite the glaring red flags that maybe we weren't even close to ready.
My coping mechanisms for life's bullshit are to smile bigger, find the rainbows and sunshine, and suppress like crazy.
This got me through many trying times, but it also made it easier for me to deal with much more than I should have in my marriage. Not even a year after exchanging vows my with husband, I wrote this passage in an old journal:
"I mean, I feel like I'm the only one bustin' my butt tryna make us get to a happy place, but all he's concerned about is hoopin' & eatin...All I want to see is that he cares for & loves me more than he loves himself but all I've got to show for our love is this notebook!"
The frivolity of our relationship was revealing itself early on and I can recall numerous talks we had over the years about what he wasn't providing or changes I felt we needed to make as a unit. Unfortunately though, all of those pleas fell on deaf ears, even after having our two children in the 2nd and 4th year of our marriage. And despite this, I kept on smiling and being foolishly optimistic with no real evidence of things changing.
In 2016, the resentment and unhappiness I had suppressed for so long began to surface. I tried to ignore it but as I poured all the love I had into my two children, and my husband, I started to feel how much I was missing within myself.
One morning in October, I had finally woken up to how bad things were in our life together. As I drove him to work, I made a comment to him about his attitude and treatment of the women in his life and he immediately dismissed it. I looked at him and saw the irritation etched into his face and for a split second, I believed that I was wrong. That thought faded quickly though. I had to stop and ask myself how could someone I had given nothing but unconditional love to be so aloof to my feelings and the battles I was so obviously fighting?
A few days later, I finally worked up the courage to tell him we needed to separate.
My mind was made up and now his pleas were falling on deaf ears. I was done ignoring the early red flags simply because at least he loved my natural hair. I no longer believed that I could teach him how to give me the romance I was craving, or that I could make him really believe in my vision once I started making real money from my hustles. I knew that the only thing we could do at this point was to separate and he was not going to convince me otherwise.
It was one of the hardest decisions I have made yet, but one that I am proudest of.
I finally found the courage to stand up for myself and act on the feeling in my gut telling me I deserved better.
Fast forward to December. During our separation, I was forced to really think about my hair and how much I hid behind it in both the literal and physical sense. The confidence that I felt in my natural hair journey was superficial because it developed from my husband's approval. It felt forced and I felt like a fraud.
So on that December night, I placed my hair in six twists and cut them off one by one at the roots without a second thought. I remember the fear I felt in my heart as I was twisting my hair just melting away as I looked in the mirror and saw a shell of the woman I thought I would become. I knew that once I cut my hair I would really be cutting off any connection to the lies I had been telling myself over the years. I would finally begin the real process of healing. As I cut off each twist, I felt lighter and lighter and knew this was just what I needed.
I left my husband and my hair in 2017.
While I never saw it coming, it wasn't because the signs weren't there. For years, I practically begged for romance, for him to take the lead in our lives, for him to push me and be as supportive of my dreams as I was of his, but to no avail. We rarely had the really hard conversations and when we did, there was a lack of change afterward. He took me for granted and gave me a surface level love that was just enough to make me content.
So with my choice to cut my hair and make a bold move to serve myself, I also made the courageous choice to leave behind complacency in my love life. I chose to do what I needed in order to fall in love with my damn self so that I could honor the woman I once was and who I was striving to be.
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
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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.
____
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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