With all the reality television being served to us on platter, it’s no wonder that talk of bullies has become more and more common in the circles of adult women. They’re no longer just lurking on schoolyards, folks. Some bullies don’t grow up (mentality wise, but they do age), and in fact, you can find them not only on TV (hey Tami), but at your job, or even in your circle of friends (*gasp*). They might pick on you a little, or they might make it their mission to spend their every waking moment talking to you crazy and treating you like something they scraped off of their shoe. These individuals could even be you. If you were wondering what are a few things that make someone an adult bully, we’ve got a few examples for you.

• You’re irrational as hell: A bully truly wouldn’t be a bully if they didn’t run around making the least amount of sense possible. They might tell you, “Don’t talk about me behind my back!” but will run around and talk about you to someone else like you are dirt in the road. The concept of “treat people how you want to be treated” doesn’t apply to them because that’s no fun. They would rather make your workday or your life a living hell by acting as though whatever small thing you may have done (but real talk, you probably didn’t do anything at all…) warrants them trashing your name to anyone who will listen.

• Confrontation is your best friend: There’s no reasoning with a grown up bully. You can’t have a real conversation with this person without them yelling at the top of their lungs, pointing their finger in your face or acting like a fight will ensue. The reality of the situation though, is that in most cases, the bully’s bark is bigger than their bite. They just want to jump in your face and think you’ll go cowering in a corner so they can have a reason to treat you badly and “keep you in line.” Intimidation is what a bully thrives off of, so instead of talking to you about what their beef is, they’d rather exchange your name for the b-word and make everyone think they’re tough.

• Your victims are always people who won’t fight back: Remember how I just said, “Intimidation is what a bully thrives off of”? Well, it’s true. As long as they feel that you fear them, they will continue to come at your head when they really need to be putting themselves in check. However, the minute you step up to them and let them know there’s just so much you’re going to take from them (or lay hands on them–but I really don’t recommend that), then they leave you be. You have to stand up for yourself and let folks know they aren’t as big and bad as they would like to be to get them to back down.

• You’re MAD insecure (and sensitive): It really doesn’t take much to set a bully off. Leave them out of a conversation, don’t invite them to a party (because they’re crazy), or spend a lot of time with their friends and they’re ready to lash out. Bullies like to be the center of attention or be in the midst of everyone’s business. When they’re not, that’s when they start to get moody. They think everyone’s talking about them (even when no one is worried about them), and when they want what you have (a man, the materialistic goods you tote around, etc.), they tend to diss you for it. As tough as a bully tries to act, sometimes they have deep-seeded issues and emotional problems that cause them to act out. But that doesn’t make their poor treatment of others right, of course.

• You try to embarrass people in public: Whether this is the co-worker who tries to blast you about your work ethic in front of others, the boss who tries to yell at you in meetings in front of everyone, or the person who critiques your outfit in front of all of your friends, bullies like to make you into a spectacle. It’s already annoying that they do it in general, but there’s something very uncool about trying to play people in front of other people.  It could be that they’re trying to make other people think less of you, or in reverse, maybe they think belittling someone for their own entertainment will make them look big and bad. Whatever their reasoning, it’s dead wrong. Karma is a bad Mamma Jamma, so if this bully is you, cut it out and grow up.

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Source: buncheness.blogspot.com

I think we’ve all learned from watching television that the last thing you want to do is call a crazy person, crazy.  Juice anyone? Everyone’s definition of “crazy” is different for one, and plus, calling someone that isn’t nice, even if men like to say that about women on the regular. But the women on this list from some very influential, good and bad movies played crazy so well and almost so real that it was scary. These are just a few of many, so feel free to add more in the comment’s section. So, crazy? I GOT YOUR CRAZY! Just keep a’clicking…

Source: Vibe.com

It’s the reality television show you’ve all been waiting for! Mama Jones, the crazy, deep-voiced mother of rapper Jim Jones (who you can all catch through the show Love and Hip Hop), has just received the green light for her own reality show. No word yet on what station it will air on (Vh1 or BET probably…), and if it will even get picked up for television, but we do know that it’s being produced by Flex Alexander (you know, from One on One?), but there’s already a trailer out for the program. And of course, it’s ratchet.

It looks like you’ll get to see Mama Jones go forward with her rap career (which Jimmy is not a fan of), push a line of condoms, throw shade at her Love and Hip Hop co-stars, and kick it in the strip club. *sighs* But there is also a deep aspect to the show, where we finally get to find out about her estranged husband and the drama that comes from their struggling relationship.

Altogether, it sounds like another reality TV show I WON’T be watching (I had to leave Love and Hip Hop behind once they started fighting all the time), but if this kind of ish floats your boat, go ahead and ride. Check out the trailer from World Star Hip Hop below:

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Source: Sweet Lyrics

I don’t know why magazine’s ask married men what they like in a woman. If they’re not on the market, who cares? And if they’ve got a suspect dating past that’s just asking for trouble. Case in point: Eric Benet.

Sister 2 Sister magazine caught up with the singer this month and he told publisher Jamie Foster Brown the quality he likes most in a woman: “emotional stability.” Plus he added this:

“Crazy is attractive, but you know … it’s dangerous.”

Now the former sex addict swore up and down he wasn’t talking about his ex-wife Halle Berry in the interview but I call BS. Why mention her if you weren’t thinking about her when you made the comment? I can’t think of one man who’s ever named “emotional stability” as one of the qualities he was looking for in a woman without taking shots at his “crazy” ex in the process, and that’s pretty much what Eric is doing here. Halle Berry has been crowned Queen of the Crazies when it comes to the public’s view of her failed relationships, so as far as we’re concerned, he’s not sneaking that shade past us. Eric went on to say:

“A lot of people may have, like, this unbelievably vindictive streak in them. Because somebody else isn’t really evolved, they may have done or said something that wasn’t so cool. A more emotionally evolved person would look at that and say, ‘Ok. You got some growing up to do. I’mma walk this way and keep moving in my positive direction.’ Someone who’s emotionally [un]stable will be like, ‘I’ll destroy you’ [laughter].”

Halle and Gabriel Aubry?

I don’t know what Eric or Sister 2 Sister‘s motive was with this one, but it reeks of shadiness to us. You can check out the full interview in the April issue, but what do you think of this snippet?

Is Eric throwing shots at Halle on the low?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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I’m sure you heard about the fact that the honorable folks over at BET decided to ban Nicki Minaj’s video for the track “Stupid H*e.” Depending on who you ask, that was an awesome decision to some sick of tasteless and mindless music, while it was a sexist and stupid decision by others. To keep it pretty real, BET is known for not having the best taste when it comes to music video choices, allowing the most ratchet and somewhat tasteless videos by rappers to get clearance but wanting women to stay ladylike: they’ve also banned Ciara’s sexually charged video “Ride,” and Teairra Mari’s pretty harmless “Sponsor” video. But all in all, I’ve seen a lot worse. We could run down a list of the very disgusting Tip Drill-esque videos BET has shown late at night with all the booty bouncing and credit card sliding, but instead, we’re running down some of our favorite stupid videos that we probably could have lived without seeing. If they were banned we probably wouldn’t have felt any real way about it (*Kanye shrug*).

I remember a “relationship” I had with a guy in college. I put relationship in quotes because we never quite made it to that point after months of talking and soon you’ll see why.

In school there’s typically parties almost every weekend and me and my friends were pretty much at one every week, as was he. After we’d see each other and speak, maybe have a dance or two, an odd “who can make the other more jealous” competition always seemed to brew between us and the night would take a drastic turn for the worse in no time. If he saw me dancing with a guy, he told me he’d never speak to me again, if I saw him dancing with a girl, I’d find another guy to dance with even harder. We’d go off about one another for the rest of the night to each of our friends, get on their nerves, and probably start a fight with them as well; he’d text me the next morning to see if I was still mad, and the next week we’d do it all over again. When I came across one of his female friends who I’d made out to be my number one enemies in my mind even though they were “not that cute”—inappropriate words were sure to flow. And if he saw me with any other guy, a question and answer period about the “ugly dude” was sure to follow. We were a hot, jealous, childish mess, and thankfully that’s all behind us.

Turns out, we’re not alone though. While you’d expect people in love—which we were not—to be all roses and sunshine, turns out the love a person has for their partner can actually make them more hateful to everyone around them. When participants in a small study at Florida State University were told to think about how madly in love they are with their partner, they were much more likely to make negative comments about people in photos they were shown and to rate them as unattractive. When these same participants were told to simply think about feeling intense sexual desire for their partner, they had neutral reactions to the images.

The responses were even stronger when the participants were shown images of prospective daters for a new university dating site. Not only were the people in the images attractive, they were also single, on their campus, and looking for a relationship. This time, there were nothing but negative adjectives and ratings when participants were reminded of how in love they were with their partner, since the people in the photos now posed an immediate threat. Those who were the self-reported jealous types didn’t even have to be reminded of being in love to make harsh critiques.

Jon Maner, a psychologist at Florida State, said the results show love, although a positive emotion, has a huge dark side. “The surge of romantic love lead [participants] to derogate these people. The more love they felt for their partner, the more negatively they tended to evaluate these objectively attractive members of their own sex.”

Jennifer Leo, a study researcher and graduate student, also said the participants somehow felt they were sustaining their own relationships by making others out to be undesirable. “Ultimately, love works in the service of protecting the relationship and maintaining it into the long term. Even if that means acting out.”

You can see this dynamic in it’s most extreme form played out on Snapped every week with women who refuse to let anyone else have the men in their lives but them. I’m not sure how me and the guy I was dating thought making each other jealous proved that point but I think we were somehow trying to prove why each of us should want the other by showing how desirable we were to other people. By the time we’d matured a little bit, he’d told me he never thought I was really interested in him. I don’t know how he didn’t gather that from me grinding all up on another man in front of him, but let’s just say that was the last time I used that as a mating tactic. I also learned to curb my own jealous tendencies when dating. It doesn’t matter how attractive or unattractive people around you are, a man is going to be where he wants to be. And your own jealous behavior ends up making you look less attractive in the end.

Are you the jealous type? Have you ever acted out when you perceived other people to be a threat to your relationship?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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