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By Kara Stevens

It never fails. You and your girls decide to get together after work or over the weekend to catch-up. The conversation starts light and airy; the usual—shoes, annoying coworkers, and recaps on all of your favorite ratchet reality shows. But then it happens. The conversation that was doing a good job of lifting your spirits, nurturing your soul and keeping you positive, reveling in your “young, gifted, and black” abundance goes awry and stays there when one of you kills the mood by bringing up doom and gloom-type topics that, without question, suck all the joy out of being a black woman.

If you or anyone in your crew is looking to audition for a Waiting to Exhale sequel, keep the following conversations flowing:

Conversation #1: Ain’t No Good Black Men Left

This kind of talk gives black women the toxic message that, unlike any other race, we are exceptionally unlucky in love and that most of our men do not know how to sustain healthy, enduring, and loving relationships. This mental model of scarcity is bound to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. With this view, we enter into new relationships already stank, expecting them to fail and for our men to disappoint us. If you think most black men are either gay, triflin’, in jail, or with white women, believe me, all you are going to run into are black men that are gay, triflin’, on their way to jail, or exclusively into the swirl.

Instead of giving up on our black men, why not shift our way of thinking and use our sister-girl circles to brainstorm ways to find our good black men? When we meet up, we need to call each other out on this tired, defeatist way of viewing and seeing love. We have to ask each other those hard questions that, when answered, may reveal that each of us has some growing to do:

Where are you looking for these so-called “good black men”? Are you still going to the club? Have you joined professional associations, civic organizations, or cultural groups where more “good black men” may hangout? Have you asked your married friends to introduce you to someone nice?

What is your definition of “good”? When was the last time you revised your “good black man” checklist? Has your definition of Prince Charming changed since the days of Jodeci and Boys II Men? Is tall, dark, handsome, and wealthy still the only type of man that you want? Are you opening yourself to date outside of your height, weight, color, income, religion, age, and country of origin (i.e. black immigrants from South America, Central America, the Caribbean, Africa) requirements?

 How good are you at learning from the past? Are you blowing the failures of your past relationships with black men out of proportion and taking it out on some new poor, unsuspecting black man? Are you allowing the failures of your past relationships to control your life and make you bitter?

From HelloBeautiful

It was a Friday night in Detroit. (I know, just keep reading)

Me and the homie decided to take in a bit of the nightlife in ‘the D’. (I KNOW! Just stay with me on this one)

So, there I was.  Standing in the middle of a packed “club” (in my head I just used 2-finger air quotes) wearing a simple ensemble: leggings, tall boots, a fitted top, and some fun accessories.  I thought I wore my outfit well, but it was no competition for the attire surrounding me. Everywhere, in every color and in every size were women in what I like to call ‘don’t bend over’ dresses.  Dresses so short that if she bends over…. yep, you know.

Read more at HelloBeautiful.com.

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From YourTango

By Christan Marashio

Ladies, I’m going to give you some of the best dating advice you’ll ever hear. Free.

Stop asking your girlfriends for dating advice. Wait. I’ll amend that.

Be very careful which of your female friends you turn to in times of romantic distress.The problem with most of said advice and reinforcements is that it’s rarely objective. For example:

“You look GREAT!” – Thanks to social media, we have an endless supply of people who are happy to toss off this attaboy whenever we post a new Facebook photo. I can remember reading one such status update a few weeks ago. The woman had recently lost a fair amount of weight and, to her credit, it showed. The string of comments underneath her picture ranged from telling her how hot she was to how “skinny’ she was. As I perused the list of people commenting, I wasn’t surprised to see that there was nary a man in the bunch. The lesson for women here, when trying to determine what men find attractive, is to pay close attention to both who is offering affirmation, and who isn’t. You’ll rarely hear a woman say, “Sweetie, time for you to cut back on the booze. Your skin looks awful.” A man *will* say it…. in the form of a rejection, leaving the woman perplexed.

“You can do better.” – This statement is dangerous because it feeds the idea that we “deserve” a certain caliber of partner. It’s also misleading because, in many cases, water has sought its own level. Meaning the man our friend is dating is exactly what she prefers, consciously or unconsciously. Therefore, she possibly can’t do better. Due to all the self-flagellation that occurs when women get together, women sometimes develop an over-inflated or distorted perception of themselves. Also? If it’s true that we can do better, we should always remember that he probably thinks he can, too.

See what other ways your girls can lead you astray when it comes to dating on YourTango.com.

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SheKnows.com

Our biggest worry when introducing our boyfriend to our friends is having him impress them. But, there are some things we do that make that hard for the poor guy. Here are a few things to avoid when  showing off our new boo…

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