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Ladies, Stop Dating For Marriage. Seriously.
People are still human beings who long for connection, regardless if they meet your criteria to be a long-term companion or not.
Over the past few days I found myself reflecting on the many romantic opportunities I fumbled due to my younger, more naive brain being infiltrated by romance programming made possible by many women I looked up to.
The overwhelming consensus when it came to dating was that as a young lady I was not supposed to entertain men who were not serious about marriage. That meant no dating, no talking stages, and certainly no friends with benefits setups with men who were not interested in being husbands.
The fear-mongering concluded with the following warning: if you engage with men who are not serious about settling down with you from the gate don’t be surprised if you end up becoming a baby mama.
Apparently in the eyes of the black community that is the worst thing you can be, and it’s all your fault if you end up in this predicament.
So as a young black woman armed heavily with fear I pretty much rejected many requests from men to wine and dine me and get to know me better, whether in a platonic, professional, or romantic dynamic. Because the black feminine collective is especially fixated on black love I also adapted this race-first rhetoric as…
