I know I’m not the only woman that’s fallen asleep next to an empty wine glass (or bottle) with Mary J. Blige playing in the background after screaming or crying through an argument with my boyfriend and swearing that this is the LAST time, at least I hope I’m not. Yes, there’s just something about Mary. No one delivers I’ve loved, hurt, but now I’m doing me like she does. What does that even mean?
So often women, me included, go through these phases where we withdraw from any and all things male. It might be after a break-up or a slew of bad dates. We say things like, “I’m just doing me right now,” and “I’m just going to focus on myself for a while”. Then we start eating better, working out, doing yoga, every Sunday we’re in church…We feel good while we’re actually working out, sitting in church etcetera but overall we don’t feel any better than we did before we started “doing ourselves”. That’s because avoiding men doesn’t solve the issues that we have with them, it only feeds the fear we have of another failed relationship.
While it is healthy to take time away for you, there’s a difference between spending needed time alone and being afraid to date because of past bad experiences. Unfortunately, many women fall into the latter without even realizing it. I personally feel that a lot of women don’t trust their self enough to believe they can go out with a man and get to know him the proper way— In other words, without sex too soon. That’s really the only time women feel bad about a situation. In a woman’s mind if there was no sex then there was no loss.
It’s completely logical to be jaded if you’ve had a lot of bad experiences with men, but let’s be honest, if you’re a grown woman that’s had so many bad experiences with men that you don’t even want to go out with one something is wrong with YOU. Some women realize that they may be the problem and they think that staying away from men and “working” on themselves is the solution. Again, makes sense but it’s not true. How will you ever get better at dealing with men if you don’t get any practice? When you learned to drive the more you did it the better you got at it, right? Right.
That’s not to say you should just start going out with any and every one that wants to go out with you so you can get practice. It means you should stay open to dating and love if you really want it. The only way to grow and to learn is to experience. If you’re doing it right, from experience you’ll learn when to hold ’em, when to fold ’em, when to walk away and know when to run (Shot out to Kenny Rogers) That experience should also eventually reveal what you’re doing wrong with yourself that’s causing your relationships to fail.
So, as Wendy Williams used to say, keep your waist tight and your nails done! Love might be right around your corner waiting for you to turn and bump right into it.
Kisses
Adia Kamaria
Adia Kamaria 
Better get my nails done tomorrow… love your writing!
While I can agree with mostly everything on this article, I feel as though there may be some unresolved issues at hand when women constantly feel as another relationship “failed”. And yes, the problem is HER if this keeps happening. I don’t , however, feel that the only solution is to “keep practicing”. There must be some underlying factors, such as childhood relationship with father, witnessed relationship with father and mother, first experience in love, personal insecurity issues, etc. With this being said, a woman spending time to be alone and gather her thoughts and really look deep down within herself to analyze the situation and map out the steps that are needed for these issues to be resolved is priority.
Nonetheless, this is a great topic we need to be discussing with our girl friends, to call them out if need be and support them.