The evening was growing late, so I walked him to the door. As I reached for the knob, he enveloped me in his arms and for a moment, no words were spoken, yet so much was said.
He held me securely as we stood there, in the dark foyer, with only the porch light reflecting on us. With my head pressed against his chest as he towered over me, in all his chocolate glory, I remember thinking how safe I have always felt in his presence. It was nice.
After a while, he broke the silence by quietly, but firmly asking me to look up at up him. I couldn't. His oversized penis was the only thing separating us and with every breath of him I took in, I felt every bit of common sense leaving my body. I knew that locking eyes with him would send me over the edge. So, I whispered, "I can't."
He placed his finger beneath my chin and slowly raised my head up to meet his. Damn. Looking at him, my imagination began running wild. That's when I had an all-out battle between my flesh and my spirit. I don't mean that on some super deep religious level. I'm talking about a real-life, full-on war within. I went back and forth about the short-term benefits and long-term consequences. I knew my next move would be a critical one. Not just for me, but for him too. It didn't take long to realize what I needed to do. So, I closed my eyes, hushed my hormones and replied, "I'm just trying to be a better woman."
With that, I took a deep breath, stepped away from him, opened the door and bid him a good night.
This isn't about turning down sex.
In the past, I have allowed my insecurities, voids and loneliness to lead me to make some unhealthy decisions that ultimately had a negative impact on my own life and on the lives of others. I have entered situationships based solely on [good] sex and tried to build a forever with someone that should have been a never. I have ignored my intuition and jumped in bed and into relationships with people I knew were not a good fit for me just because I was tired of being single. In each of those instances, the writing was on the wall, but I tried to rearrange the words to tell a different story; one with a happy ending.
However, since then, I have been intentional about mending my broken pieces. I grew tired of bleeding profusely and cutting other people in the process. For more than a year now, I have been seeing a therapist on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. I had to come to terms with some hard and ugly truths about the kind of woman I was and the choices I was making that created the mediocre life I was living.
I had to go back and clean up my past.
I had to forgive a lot of people, starting with myself.
I had to humble myself and seek forgiveness.
I released a lot of guilt and shame.
Now, I'm realizing that healing is never complete.
However, every day, I'm working to evolve into a better version of myself. I am accepting the past for what it was. I am releasing the parts that I can and using the rest as an opportunity to do and be better for myself and for my daughters.
For the first time ever in my adult life, I feel like I don't need a man or sex to be OK. I didn't say I don't want a man, but recognizing there is a distinct difference between wanting and needing one.
Somewhere along the way, I figured out that my singleness is not a deficiency or indication of my worth or lack thereof.
This season has been about changing the narrative [internally] of who I am as a woman, what I stand for and making sure my decisions and actions are in alignment with that. l'm noticing that as I work to become the woman I was meant to be for myself and to myself, the world is also taking notice.
The heated night I referenced above could have gone a different way. I was lonely and vulnerable and I was with someone I care about, but even then, I made the decision to do it differently. For me, I think that's what healing is – recognizing the decisions, behaviors and patterns that lead to unwanted and unhealthy outcomes and choosing to do differently, even and especially when under pressure. I believe it's small incremental changes and actions over time, that ultimately make us who we are and collectively, it has the power to change the trajectory of our lives - for better or worse.
As great a man as I believe he is, I know Mr. Wonderful and I have fundamental differences that make us incompatible. Therefore, I chose not to share one of the most sacred parts of myself with him. I knew, based on my past, that if I had, it would create a burning desire within me to force fit a relationship that was never supposed to be.
I don't know about you, but sometimes, I wonder how you know when 'the work' [the therapy, prayer, meditation, etc.] is working.
I don't know about you, but sometimes, I wonder how do you know when 'the work' [the therapy, the prayer and the meditation, etc.] is working. How do you know when you're healing? For me, it was in that moment, when I made the conscious decision to not repeat old toxic behaviors – that was the moment I knew I was healing. Growing even.
Knowing that I'm one decision, one action closer to being the woman I desire to be gives me hope and serves as encouragement for me to continue with my work. The journey is a lot easier when you know what's at stake.
Quelina J., a Richmond native, is a writer and speaker who focuses on women's empowerment and growth through transparency. Through her blog, quelinaj.com, she shares her own experiences in hopes that it will inspire other women to heal from the inside out.
Featured image by Getty Images
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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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