Madame Noire | Black Women's Lifestyle Guide | Black Hair | Black Love

Taking cues from romantic comedies and applying them to your real love life is always a risky proposition. After all, can you really expect things in real life to play out the same way they do in movies?

Well, yeah, you can. That’s the great thing about living! But if you’re not careful you could end up emulating idealistic behavior and circumstance based on a work of fiction. Ultimately you end up using real life to imitate art without the multi-million dollar backing of a Hollywood production to make sure your story has a happy ending.

Imagine the scores of middle-aged women who booked flights to the Carribbean to get their groove back, inspired by Terry McMillan’s novel and the resulting film, only to be struck with the post-happy ending reality: Stella’s “groove” is actually better suited for something closer to a Steve.

But in the beginning art does imitate life and if we go through your favorite love stories with a fine-tooth combed and monocle trained on realism, we’re certain to find those undeniable truisms that peaked your interest in the first place.

Here are the love lessons learned from Brown Sugar:

They mean well. Your parents. Your friends. Your favorite bloggers. But, there is just some advice that comes with a larger con than pro. Like these:

Wait to sleep with him

I’m not saying jump into bed with a guy on the first date, or even the fifth date. However, some girls follow rules like waiting three months to sleep with a man, even when they are dating exclusively. But, look at it this way: it would be a major bummer to become extremely attached to this man only to discover that you are so sexually not compatible.

We did it again!b  Damon Young (aka The Champ) of Very Smart Brothas hosted his second live chat on our Facebook page.  For an hour, The Champ answered a gang of questions about love and relationships from our Facebook friends. You know it was a lively discussion. Check out some of the questions and answers below.

Iris: I have a question! I’ve been separated from my kids’ father for 6 years. He was very controlling & abusive til I finally left his a*s after 10 years. Anyway he bad mouths me to my kids & everyone else around him constantly. He still absolutely HATES me! My question is why would any man stay angry for so damn long & not just get over it & why would his new wife allow him to keep talking about me (his ex) so much???

Damon Young: He’s doing it because he’s an a**hole. And, if life has taught me anything, it’s that it is a waste of time to try and understand why a**holes are a**holes.

Romantic comedies will have you believing that all we women want to do after a break up is cry for a couple of minutes, eat ice cream, stop brushing our teeth and spend and entire day on the couch.

While this may be true in parts, that’s not exactly how the real world works.

Find out what’s true and what’s false when it comes to break ups and getting over the ex at Your Tango.com.

Speaking of getting over the ex, be sure to join us tomorrow for our Twitter Party from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Be sure to follow Madame Noire and Your Tango @YourTango. When the party starts, search for #DumpUrEx in the Twitter search bar, and you’re in (make sure you select “All Tweets” to see everyone’s tweets)! To ask a question or post a response, you need to include #DumpUrEx in each of your tweets, or we won’t see them.

You’re loving your man, he’s loving you. Things couldn’t be any better, except… for that treacherous ex of his. Now that he’s gone she realizes how she messed up and is trying tirelessly to get him back in her life, all while ignoring the fact that he’s in a committed relationship with you.

This is the case for one of the readers over at Hello Beautiful.com.

Find out what the “Gay Best Friend” aka Terrence Dean had to say about her dilemma and how she should move forward, here.

More on Madame Noire!

• Seriously, What’s With All the Overly Aggressive Men in the Club Nowadays?
• Evening Eye Candy: Actor Jason Momoa
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• 8 Signs The Guy You’re Messing With Is NOT a Grown A** Man
• Close Call! Actors Who ALMOST Played A Few Surprising Roles…
• Want Kids? See What Mother’s Wish They Knew Before Starting A Family…
• Somebody Come Get This Fool: Bow Wow Reveals Celeb Chicks He Slept With

When you were a child, love was based solely on what you saw in Disney movies and other fairy tales. In high school you learned through crushes that sometimes the feeling wasn’t always mutual. And in your twenties you realized that maybe love isn’t always so sweet. Now, that you’re 30 (or over) what lessons have you learned about love? Has your prospective changed?

Find out what this woman realized about love and relationships once she hit the big 3-0 at Your Tango.com. 

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• Evening Eye Candies: 6 HOT Reasons to See “Red Tails” NOW…The Delicious Cast
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Have you ever had a man you COULD NOT get out of your head? You thought time and distance might cure the longing but things didn’t change. In fact, they got worse.

Find out what a relationship expert has to say about this troubling predicament and how to get out of it at Your Tango.com.

More on Madame Noire!

• Sisters In Hiding: Not So Famous Sisters of Famous Celebs
• Delusions Of A Thirsty Chick
• Things Black Mothers Say
• Celebrity Mistresses: The Good, The Bad, and The Trifling
• 7 Curl Defining Products to Get Your Curls and Coils Poppin’
• Family Ties: 7 Rappers Who Finally Grew Up
• He Loves Me: Men Who Just Adore Their Wives
• What Exactly Makes Something Ghetto?

Today, Damon Young (aka The Champ) made history at Madame Noire with our first live chat. For more than an hour, The Champ answered a gang of questions about love and relationships from our Facebook friends. You know it was a lively discussion. Check out some of the questions and answers below.

D.B: What does it mean when a guy is calling you constantly, wants to hang out all the time (always pays whenever you two go out) but claims he doesn’t want a relationship?? This is happening to me and I decided to fall back since I am looking for a relationship but now he is calling me everyday and wanting to hang out all the time! Confused. Does he just want some of my Jamaican jerk sauce??? LOL.

Damon Young:  It means he wants to do “relationship things” (have sex, companionship, etc) without the commitment of a relationship

When you ask your man questions like, “where is this going?” or say things like, “we need to talk,” he’s liable to panic a little bit on the inside.

Find out which other phrases send off red alarms for men and how they interpret our communication at Your Tango.com.

They say our relationship with our parents greatly influences how we’ll interact with our partners down the line. If this is true, does that also mean if our parents couldn’t sustain a healthy marriage, our relationships are doomed from the start?

Find out what an expert has to say about this phenomenon at Your Tango.com.

More on Madame Noire!

• Let’s Be Real: Things in Life You Need to Blame Yourself For From Time to Time
• Color on Campus: What It Really Feels Like to Be the Only Black Girl
• The Most Painful Things A Woman Can Say To A Man
• 10 Artists That Blew Up…But Shouldn’t Have
• We Are Family: Shocking Celebrity Relatives!
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