Naturally anytime I have a conversation about being single or the bigotry that single people face, there’s usually some hetero Black man (but sometimes other men) who cannot handle the conversation so he comes around with his “prophecy" about how I will be "alone" as if this is an insult. This will of course heighten since Valentine’s Day is this month. But…Black men cannot "threaten" me with solitude. That’s like them screaming at me that they’re going to give me a $1,000.00 shopping spree to Sephora. All I’m gonna do is get happy. I tweeted about this recently:
They cannot “threaten” me with projections of their own fears and/or rigid constructions of who they think Black women should be or are. It’s like being afraid of drowning and telling an Olympic diver that water is scary. It’s laughable. This doesn’t mean that all introverts are shy (most are not; that is not what introversion is about anyway) or single. It doesn’t mean that love, connection, trust and a variety of types of relationships are not desired by introverts. The idea of happy frequent solitude and occasional time spent in small groups or one-on-one with someone awesome like my best friend, valuable work that doesn’t require performance extroversion (haven’t come across this one yet though) and a few but deep meaningful friendships, familial relationships and other relationships (i.e. with fellow Black women; online buddies) mean a lot to me.
The societal centralization and pedestal erected for sexual romantic relationships to the detriment and devaluation of all others is why these men project their misogyny, misogynoir, heteronormativity and compulsory perceived heterosexuality onto me. They hope that they can hurt me with their projections. I mean…I can pretend to be sad about being single if that will make them happy but it won’t last long because I’ll move from the performance of sadness to the authenticity of not giving a fuck rather quickly. I forget to stay in character…sue me.
And the most ridiculous notion is that for single people, especially Black women, any sadness experienced is about the lack of a sexual romantic relationship. So if on a particular day Sallie Mae sends me a high ass statement, I stub my toe, a mosquito bites me, I have 12 blog troll comments waiting to be moderated, I forgot to defrost my chicken for dinner, I owe taxes instead of getting a return, I have 27 trolls attacking me on Twitter and one of my good friends is sick, and I am worried, I am not “really” sad about these things. It’s only because I am not actively in a sexual romantic relationship as to why I am sad. Yep, cause this makes “sense” to the men who tweet me this nonsense (and have said in person too, for years) on the regular.
"Single" is not automatically: unhappy, bitter, lonely, mean, afraid, no past relationship experience, no future relationship possibility, no knowledge of human contact, no other types of non-sexual non-romantic relationships present, dying to be in a relationship, incomplete, broken, worthless.
important post