A Gift From You to You

Hey kids, couple things to check out today. This current post, of course, and my article written for AOL Black Voices on Love Wednesday. Anslem Samuel, author of Naked With Socks On, and I teamed up with "10 Lies Women Tell" versus "10 Lies Men Tell (and a few more because men lie a lot)" Enjoy!!

"Closure is not something a man gives you, it's something you give yourself."-@madamnoire

I saw this quote on twitter last week and immediately RT'd it for obvious reasons, the most being I loved it. It just made so much sense in one of those clunk on the head, simple ways. Like duh! It got me thinking about my past relationships, those that ended well and those that went down in flames, and this quote won in every single instance.

For some reason, women really feel they need closure or the stamp to move the f*ck on from some guy. A friend of mine, Nina, is in one of those platonic male/female friendships that isn't actually platonic at all, but mostly on her part while he gets the best of both worlds: he gets the "you're my bestest friend in the whole world" routine AND sexytime. I've been telling her for almost a year to let that dude, James, catch the K, but she insists that he's all kinds of confused and that he really does love her, just doesn't know what to do, blah blah blah. That's what I hear when she imposes all her complex female feelings on his simplistic male psyche. I have seen this whole "friendship" blowing up since the beginning. Since she over analyzed her interaction with him while he fell for another girl who he punched a wall over and broke his hand or something. Whatever. Anyway, my inner Cleo saw it coming, which brings us to the current issue.

Long story short (something I never do well), Nina and James went out for a beer and to catch up, which was normal for them. At the end of the night, Nina invited James up to "make out for a little bit." Again, normal for them (odd to me, but whatever). So Nina and James go upstairs and make out for said little bit before things escalate and Nina and James go from making out to knocking boots.

At this point in the story, as it was being relayed to me, Nina says she felt weird, like the connection they had back in the beginning (when they were pseudo-dating) was absent. Apparently, the "no strings, platonic friendship despite being in love with you" sex wasn't working for her and when they finished, James announced he was going to go home instead of stay the night since he had to get up early in the morning. To this, Nina burst into tears. James was confused, he asked what was wrong. Nina attempted through snot and tears (which she later blamed on PMS), to ask him why they weren't together, why they couldn't work, etc. To which James replied, "I really don't want to have this conversation right now." Not having much of a choice, Nina continued on her quest and they had one of those kinds of exchanges that embarrasses listeners who weren't even involved or present. As Nina told me how she almost begged him to give her reasons why he didn't want to be with her, how he kept reiterating how he just didn't see her that way, that he tried, I physically cringed on the other end of the phone. I kept wanting to stop her, like, "Girl! What were you thinking? Not your finest hour at all," but we've all been there at some point (mine just so happened to be when I was 16 and I never went there again. I am still highly embarrassed by that story. Perhaps why I haven't told it in detail.) so I left that part out. Instead, when she finally finished, I asked, "What exactly did you want to gain from that conversation?" She rattled off a few answers, the most relevant being: "I need answers, I needed to know why not so I could move on one way or the other." I found this part interesting. Nina was under the impression, as are many, that she needed James to give her the go ahead to move the heck forward. As if he were the quicksand holding her back and had suddenly released her from stagnant prison. Nope. Nina didn't realize all that time that she had the keys to processing and filing away. We may feel like we need closure from the other parties involved, we may even trick ourselves into thinking we can't move on without beating the horse til it's dead six times over, but it simply isn't true. It is entirely possible to control your own feelings, your own actions, your own outcome. You look yourself in the face and say, "Bitch, please. He's a dirtbag and it's his loss." And because you surely don't believe it initially, you work the whole fake-it-til-you-make-it angle until you look in the mirror and don't even think about the fool you think you need permission from to move on with your life. It's really that simple. Sure, forgoing closure from him is hard in practice, but trust me, the theory is solid, and probably the best present you could ever give yourself.

That bitch stole my line,

xoxo

Blackie Collins