The e-Boo

Time is running out to nominate me and my blogging buddies for the Black Weblog Awards. Take a quick five minutes to cast your vote please! 

Ah the e-boo. Part crush, part long-distance boyfriend, part ridiculous fantasy that makes you feel like you've regressed back to your teenage years. If you spend anywhere near as much time online as I do, sooner or later you will probably find yourself in some kind of e-boo relationship. This is both a blessing and a curse.

But first for my three-dimensional people who are looking at me like I'm nuts, allow me to explain what I'm talking about.  Your e-boo is someone you met online when you weren't looking for anyone. This isn't someone you met on match.com or POF, it's someone you "met" in the comments section of your favourite blog or who caught your eye on twitter. Or maybe he's a blogger whose point of view you find intriguing or a dude in a mutual friend's Facebook photo who you wanted to get to know.

Wherever you find him or her, the e-boo relationship is ideal because of its ability to seamlessly integrate into your "real" life...it's a fun little distraction that can pick you up on a bad day and entertain you when you're bored. For the most part, an e-boo is a safe bet...you're unlikely to get your feelings hurt by someone who you're not even completely sure really exists.

On the other hand, because your "relationship" exists exclusively on the internet it can be hard to gauge just how much importance you should put on it. I've seen people take their e-boo relationships way too seriously and start to get jealous and feel a way when they find out that their e-boo is actually attached in real life. Then they feel dry and rejected and the worst part about it is that they're feeling that way about someone they've probably never even met.

The best thing about an e-boo relationship is that the delayed nature of online communication allows you to put your best foot forward at all times. If you're like me, you do your best flirting online where you a) have time to think about what you want to say and b) the object of your flirting cannot see you getting all sweaty and shaky.  Your e-boo can make your spirits soar as a flurry of suggestive tweets fly back between you...until you creep his timeline and realize he's been simulatneously exchanging dirty tweets with @RealTalkSuki three other girls. Once again, you end up feeling dry.

Having an e-boo can take the sting out of being single just by the simple fact that you have something to distract you from your loneliness...until you're on twitter at midnight fighting with @RealTalkSuki a bunch of other girls about who claimed him first and you realize that while you're doing that he's off in the 3-d world getting his. Then you feel silly.

But hands down the absolute best part of the e-boo relationship is the e-sex...with the right e-lover it's epic. And you have a written record of it that you can carry around with you and read when you're bored or horny.

Yes the e-boo relationship has its ups and downs, but if you're going to undertake it, please remember to keep it light. I am never in favour of psycho-bitch behaviour, but if I find out you've gone nutso on your e-boo for any reason, I will block you from my blog!

But what about you guys? Anyone out there have an e-boo? Does s/he lift you up or take you crashing down? Share your e-love stories in the comments.

Ready for Love - A Guest Post

If you've been reading this blog with any kind of regularity you probably know by now that love is not on my agenda. Although I have a great appreciation for love in other people's lives, I'm of the firm belief that a good book, a stiff cock, and a fresh bagel are pretty much all I need to keep me happy. But every now and then it's nice for me to post something over here at jaded woman central that appeals to those of you who still have souls actually are in love or plan to be one day. Thankfully my girl MsEsquire77 has brought the goods today with an open letter to her future husband.  Check her out and be sure to show her love in the comments so she'll come back and visit us again.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I want to be a wife. While I’d like to have a lovely wedding it’s not really all that important to me. What I really want is a commitment that mirrors what my grandparents have had for the past 59 years. While I’m sure they’ve had their share of tragedies and triumphs they are still together and their love each other is evident to anyone who knows them. I’m 32 (33 on October 5th…feel free to send me gifts.) and I’ll confess that in the past few years I’ve grown a little weary with waiting on my husband. I sometimes find myself asking God, “When will it be my turn?” I’m ready for love.

I have an anthology about love called “It’s All Love: Black Writers on Soul Mates, Family and Friends”. One of my favorite pieces is “One Hundred Days of Bliss” by Sonsyrea Tate Montgomery. In a nutshell it’s an e-mail from her to God thanking Him for her husband, Mike. It has inspired me to write a letter to my future husband. Here goes:

To my beloved,

What took you so long?! I’m just kidding :) I know that God had a plan for us and that we were predestined to meet and fall in love based on His timeline but I’ll admit that I was getting a little nervous.

I’d known love in my past and mistakenly thought I’d met you at least once before but God knew better. I am thankful for those past relationships because they taught me invaluable lessons about patience, kindness, fidelity and communication. Those other men were just tools that the Master used to mold me and shape me into the woman He wanted me to become for you.

When we first met I was guarded because I’d been hurt in the past but you were patient with me and didn’t let my fear run you away. We both came into this relationship with some baggage but have managed to love each other flaws and all. You’ve loved me with a passion that is honest and true and I thank you for allowing me the freedom to be my best me.

Our marriage isn’t always perfect but our love is and it allows us to press through the hard times. We cherish our vows and have managed to stay together through sickness & in health, through richer & through poorer. Through it all you’ve been my lover, my friend and the head of our household. I’m thankful for you and all that you do.

You are the answer to countless prayers and I’m blessed to have you.

Thank you for loving me and accepting my love in return.

Yours until the end of time,
Shondriette

That was beautiful, wasn't it? I have no doubts that my little Shonnerz will find what she's looking for because she has the courage to put it out into the universe.

But what about you guys? Are you actively seeking your husband or wife? Think you're ready for it? Have you ever written a letter like this? Already found your love? Think love is for other people? Share your stories.

Now I may not be ready for love but I am ready for a Black Weblog Nomination. Have you nominated me yet? If I'm not going to have a husband I need something to cuddle up with at night! Get the easy instructions right here.

 

Why I'll Never Get Over My First Love

"The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end" - Benjamin Disraelier

Longtime readers of this blog probably already know the basic story of my first love, but I'm gonna tell it again in more detail for the newbies. I apologize in advance because this is gonna be a long one.

I met Snickers when we were in high school at a mutual friend's party. He had a girl but we became fast friends - he and his cousin and me and my sister were a tight foursome; spending countless hours in each others' basements watching basketball, playing Come Clean over and over and over, and talking sh*t. We probably fell in love with each other about two seconds after we met but it took about two years for us to finally get together, and that was only after I gave him an ultimatum - be with me or we can't be friends anymore.

I know it sounds crazy to say this, but for a long time we had a perfect relationship. We hardly fought, loved each other hard. We knew we were going to be together forever. The only problem was that it was a long-distance relationship in the days before email, before cell phones, before facebook and twitter and all the ways we now have to stay connected to people even when they’re far away. We wrote each other letters and my parents allowed me to call him like once a month for half an hour – at something like $0.45 a minute.  There was never enough ink in the pen or minutes on the phone to say all there was to say, but we made it work. We were happy.

But we were also stupid. See here’s the thing – he was a basketball player on scholarship at a school in New York. After two years he decided he wanted to change schools; he wasn’t happy where he was. But changing schools meant that he’d have to start over from scratch somewhere else and instead of waiting two more years to be together we’d have to wait four more years. For some reason we decided that we should “separate”. We didn’t call it a break up because we would still be together when he was home but when he was at school we would be free to do our own thing. I remember being nervous about what “doing our own thing'” might lead to and I remember that he wasn’t nervous at all….he told me that no matter what happened, no matter how far apart our lives might take us, no matter what one day he would show up on my doorstep with his hand outstretched saying '”we gotta go”.

I would ask him things like “but what if I marry someone else? What if you marry someone else? What if you show up on my doorstep and I’m pregnant with someone else’s child?” And he’d tell me that he would stand there with his hand outstretched until I came with him. No matter what. And so I believed him.

Needless to say, time passed and “doing our own thing” led to huge problems between us. Our separation turned into a breakup that took about three years to complete. And when it was over there was nothing left but the love. We weren’t friends anymore. There was no closure - we never talked about what went wrong. He never talked about showing up on my doorstep one day and I stopped expecting him to.

More time passed and I dated other people. Loved another person. It took about 5 years but eventually I was able to picture myself marrying someone else without feeling like I was betraying him. I was over it, I thought.  Until he died.

The afternoon I found out I could not stop crying. I thought there was something physically wrong with me and I called my mother half-terrified that something had permanently shifted in my brain and I would never, ever stop crying. She said to me “now you’re going to have to really get over him.”

My mother – if she lives to be 112 years old – will never be more right than she was with that statement. I thought I was over it but what I was really doing was burying my feelings. I thought I had accepted that we would never be together but what I was really doing was biding my time, waiting for that knock on the door. And when I found out he was dead I was crying as much for the fact that I would never know if that knock was coming as for the actual tragedy of his death.

It’s been three years now and if you come into my home you will see more pictures of him than of anyone else in here. I know they should come down at some point and I know that I will probably never take them down. I resist everything that I see as a threat to his memory, even as my mind gently pulls me away from it. Earlier this month the anniversary of his death passed without me noticing it.  The horror of realizing that I am no longer fixating on it – and him – sent me into a tailspin of tears and self-recrimination. And that was an unconscious step forward from my past….what would a concerted effort to move on do to me? This isn’t just moving past a relationship that was meaningful; this is exorcising someone who is part of the fabric of who I am. Someone I was in love with when I became myself. I don’t know how to get rid of that and leave myself intact.

If I were reading this story about someone else I would have two things to say about it. First – that this person is caught up in the tragic romance of it – two star-crossed lovers separated by tragedy. It’s so poetic and beautiful…it’s like starring in your very own romance novel. And second – this woman is using her dead first love as an excuse not to try again. And both of those things are true. They’re part of the reason but not the whole reason.

The rest of the reason is who he was and what we had. He is the only person who ever made me feel that he loved me just for me. Not for what I did for him or how I made him feel or what I looked like, just who I was. Nothing I’ve ever had with anyone – friend, lover, whatever – has ever come close to that. And I fell in love with him at an age when I didn’t know what a broken heart felt like. I didn’t know about the horrible things that people can do to the people they love. I didn’t know that finding love is the easy part, that staying in love is the hard part. And honestly if I had known all of that back then I might not have bothered.

Why can’t I get over my first love? I don’t see the point in it really.  Even with everything I’ve learned about love and relationships, even with all the effort I’ve put in to make relationships work, I’ve never had anything like what I had so effortlessly with him. So it doesn’t seem worth the bother. I’m content with the memory of something amazing, coupled with the sheer comedy of my life as the perpetually single gal. It doesn’t seem like much but it’s enough for now.

So what about you guys? Do you have big loves that you can’t get over? Do you let them stand in the way of falling in love again? Can anyone see where I”m coming from? Give me your take in the comments.

Throwback Tuesday - 10 Dumb Things Women Do

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