“Some niggas recognize the light but they can’t handle the glare.”
~Common, The Light

Read this article first, then get back at me.

I respect the notion that sometimes a woman has to take the back seat and submit in order to get and keep a happy relationship with a “good black man.”

But I darn sure don’t agree with it.

Now, before I go any further, let the record show I’m single and have been for 99.9% of my life. It’s not that I don’t want want a boyfriend,
it’s that I don’t just want a boyfriend. You see, I tend to get caught in the “friend zone.” You all know that zone. You meet a guy, you become friends, and gradually you become really good friends. Like, help me move out of the dorms friends. Let’s do our laundry together friends. “Hey, could you help me pick out a birthday gift for this girl I really like?” friends.

Yeah, that zone.

I dislike it, but I don’t run from it. I like being a friend, and having good friends. I can’t imagine getting lovey dovey with someone without having been friends first. The problem is that most of the world sees it the other way around. The common advice is “don’t date your friends.” Well, why would I want to spend time with someone who’s not even my “friend?”

I know some people say that the friendship grows later, after you’ve gotten to know one another. But my inclination to swap bodily fluids with someone I don’t already know quite well is reserved for celebrities and soccer players. Sam Spade on the street doesn’t make the cut. If it weren’t for all those Jim Crow laws and lynchings, I probably would have done well being born a couple of generations earlier.

But I wasn’t, so I’m single. Because by the time I know enough about a gentleman to want his tongue in my mouth, he knows enough about me to not want it there. I’ve crossed the line from girlfriend to girl-friend. And boys don’t want to date their friends, no matter how wonderful and consoling and helpful they are. Obviously not, if they’re scared off by a woman who won’t just “take his hand and go with the flow.” Maybe things are different when boys become men, but I doubt it. In any case, I’m just not the type to wait around for someone to take care of me. I’m not saying that I’ll never yearn for companionship; I’m saying that I don’t need any ol’ man. And I am not willing to accept any fellow that I cannot consider my friend.

I’m not ready to just take a hand and follow you; I need you to be secure enough to take my hand and walk with me. If you have to take control of the household because you feel emasculated in the white man’s world, hit the door. I’m defeminized in the white man’s world. But that doesn’t mean I need to put on a petticoat and nurse a baby to feel secure in myself as a girl. It works both ways.

It’s not that I don’t ever want to be with someone, it’s that I’m not willing to settle on one of the biggest decisons of my life. If I’m single forever, I might be a little miffed, but I’ll have no regrets. I know how great I am.

And I always get what I deserve.