Maintaining Self in Relationships

Have you ever wanted a happily ever after so badly that you would transform to fit the part? Subconsciously losing yourself and all the while thinking it was for the best? Well, I did. I always felt as though there was a piece of myself I had to stifle if I wanted to keep him.  I became beige, and I knew I would have remained beige if it meant looking good with someone. If only the little girl in me, who was called ugly her entire life, could have a handsome man on her arm.

It did not matter that we did not have much in common. It did not occur to me then that I might one day have wanted to have a meaningful conversation about current events. I wanted us not only to look good but to be good, although I hated myself with him. He would always find the one thing wrong with me, and I would jump up and change it. He knew nothing of my personal goals or had even read any of my poetry or short stories. He barely knew I was published and barely knew I was alive. And I told myself it was okay because we looked good together.

I believe that at some point as women we have to make the decision to choose ourselves first. It is very easy to get caught up in the marriage rate among women of African descent, or how you may be the last of your friends to be single.  It is  difficult when women in relationships try to make you feel like a freak for going solo, not to mention the constant statistics and news programs on ABC, CNN, and FOX geared to the growing ‘epidemic’ of single black womanhood.

In my case, I truly believed in a “type.” That a list of characteristics, attributes and physical descriptions would create my perfect mate. I was so busy idolizing that boyfriend, and he was so consumed with making me a living mannequin, that I do not think we took stock in ourselves as real people. I ignored my inner voice and disregarded my own feelings, just for the chance to look good on a handsome man’s arm. It was as if I was telling him that it was okay that he did not accept me for who I was, because I was willing to become whoever he wanted. This is something I will never do again.

I know now as an adult that love does not come in the image I thought it would as a young woman. I may date someone and we would not look like a catalog couple together, but it is about the life experiences, attitudes and ideas that make a person who they are. It is about a man knowing all of me: the embarrassing stuff, the quirky stuff, the private stuff, not just the edited parts, the beige. If that man can accept all that, and I in turn can learn him and accept him, that would be the ideal relationship.