The Unusual

What it is, sippers?

It’s Finals Week around these parts. Luckily, I just wrapped mine up earlier today so I am smooth coasting until January 11^th, 2016. I’ll really be acting a fool in May 2016 cause your girl will permanently be saying goodbye to the undergrad life at UCF!

For now, I’m just chilling these days. I am appreciating life more often than ever, especially after spending some intimate time with my Auntie Cent during the Thanksgiving break.

I’ll continue to rock out with my cock out, as I would tell the next person.

This evening, I want to explore a dimension that is very much innate and familiar to me, and it’s something that’s much instilled in me because I personally live by it. To my readers, or at least some of you, it may not be that familiar.

How often do gender roles come up in the average conversation? How about personal conversations that you may have with your girlfriends or your homeboys?

How much of that conversation actually stimulates you? How much of it actually empowers you?

How often do you “live” or “abide by” the imaginary “standards” of gender roles? Do those affect you?

How many of you say “screw the rules”? How many of you disregard everything that your momma and aunties and grandmothers have schooled you on?

You know, it’s not surprising that virally, some believe that I’m a man basher. This was even physically said to me.

However, that doesn’t offend me. To define this blog under the same standard could be made logical to some, and for that, I will let everyone’s imagination run wild. Humbly, I’ll be proud to say I love the different perspectives of this blog, and I will take that name as a compliment. Tonight, I won’t be as such 🙂

I just want to flip mental states like a pancake and shake up your thoughts like a nice can of Coke.

If you are an avid reader, you should be familiar with how much I am an advocate for self-confidence in women. This is the basis of our core. Many of the decisions we make in life is determined from that core within ourselves.

When’s the last time you had a self-check? Has your confidence been shaken up lately to where you have to take a step back and re-evaluate your very being? Do you find more ways to reassure and seal your core?

Keep following me here.

Once you are familiar with your core, let’s take a leap on a lily pad.

When you walk down the street, what does your strut scream about you? Do you illustrate a woman on the go or a free flowing spirit? Either of these choices are 100% fine.

And as you walk, and ponder and think, or examine the patterns of the sky, is there anything else that can draw your attention away from that for a moment?

Could the way the wind blows in your hair or attempts to lift up your skirt make you smile?

Within all of this, is your core still intact?

We’re almost there.

Is your core still sealed within your folds to where you won’t shake or tremble if a man approaches you?

Better yet, would your core still be core if you were the woman to approach that same man?

Here it is.

Let’s discuss The Unusual.

How many times have you heard what I call “The Golden Rules” from your female and sometimes male elders?

You know, the basic and universally accepted rules under the dating and chivalry umbrella.

I am challenging one that my mom has often said to me.

“You let the man approach you.”

And for the majority of my life, that is exactly what I lived by. It didn’t matter how great you were or how you seemed to be, or how nicely you clenched your jaws while perplexed, or even how tight your waves looked and how your edge up was tantalizing. If you didn’t approach me, I wouldn’t speak to you. He, would have simply been, a dream gone poof.

Interesting.

The older I became, and the more experiences that I have conquered and stored in my archives of life, the more it became crystal clear that that indeed, is a limited way to live.

Why?

Because my core is intact.

“That’s not my place to do that.” That was once my favorite line to say.

Gender roles. It is highly perceived that the male is the initiator in almost everything in life.

However, it is where I differ and state firmly that a man does not always have to approach a woman first.

And that does not make him weak.

And that does not make the woman look manly, either.

It’s called being confident. It’s called having a core. It’s being sure of yourself.

“I don’t want to be rejected.”

Let’s go back to the brief scenario I provided with you walking down the street.

Go back. Is your core intact?

Let me go deeper. How you act in public in the streets reflect how you feel in the mirror at home.

I, for one, walk with my head held high, and sometimes, my nose may be up to where it touches a cloud.

What does your body language say about you?

How you are in public illustrates how you feel at home. Home, meaning in, solitude. That time where it is you versus you. Where you stare in the mirror and either nitpick at everything you see, or praise and appreciate the being that is staring right back at you.

Now, revisit the question. Is your core intact? If core isn’t acting as a core, this must be sealed, repaired, and ready for war. Your self-confidence is the main determinant in the choices that you make. Whether that be academically, financially, and even in the love department. Especially in the love department.

If this core is a core, rejection should rarely and never be an issue to do something that you feel.

And if that feeling is to approach a man and strike up a conversation, then there shouldn’t be any hesitation.

For what? Scared for what reason? Your core is intact, correct? You have mad love for yourself, correct? You do know your worth, correct? And you do realize that what is meant to be will be, right? What is for you, is only for you and no one else, hmm?

Tina says, “What’s love got to do with it?”

I say, “Why does rejection make you feel as though you are losing?”

Sometimes, our confidence does get shaken, much harder than K. Michelle shook the table. But damn, who said that you lost? What if in all actuality, it’s that other individual that’s really the loser? Who took the fattest L of the century because they missed out and will continue to miss out on a bomb person like you?

Ladies, I’m not saying you have to ask a man on a date. I am an advocate for women proposing to men, either.

But honey, if your core is intact, and you love the true woman you are, then I don’t see anything wrong with living limitlessly, and that includes striking up a conversation with a man you may find attractive.

What is truly the worst that can happen? You couldn’t possibly feel less of a woman, could you?

The man is still being the man. Hell, you aren’t taking all of his “responsibilities” from him.

“That’s just not my style.”

And that’s cool. Maybe it isn’t in everyone’s personality type. But in society, this shouldn’t be taboo. Don’t shame the next woman for wearing the hell out of her big girl panties and asking Jaron from her Psychology class to study later on at Starbucks.

I have plenty of stories of me approaching men. In the grocery store, at Barnes & Nobles, the park, the museum, on a solo dinner date with myself at a restaurant, at school… the list goes on.

Do I like being approached? Of course. I am still a woman.

But if I see something I like, or something I find intriguing, I have no problem speaking.

At all times, I am a woman with a plan.

And shoot, maybe in that certain day, my plan was to get to know the nicely built man dressed in a suit buying porkchops by asking him a question to create a conversation.

To each his own.

Have I been rejected? Of course. I used to a lot when I was younger.

I was still a butterfly. It never made me completely want to creep back in my cocoon.

I was still a butterfly. I may have been a black butterfly, but I was still flying. And after a while, it never stopped me from landing on another shoulder or finger.

Because by then, I developed my core to finally be stone cold.

For all sexes, confidence is key. And confidence will get you a long way. There are probably some men who have the woman of their dreams now because they took that leap of confidence, whether it was that they were scared of rejection, afraid of not looking good enough to her standards, not having the latest gear, or not having wads of cash.

And possibly, there are women who may have the man they want to be with for their rest of their lives because they also took that leap of confidence, regardless of size, physical features, or the fear that he would be another f*ck boy that would straight up play her.

Live limitlessly.

If it works out, great. If it doesn’t, don’t sweat it. Don’t let it disintegrate your space or your inner being- your core.

Hope I have your wheels turning just a bit. If not, some oil will do the job.

Feel free to leave your comments below.

 

Until next time, tea indulgers.