Yes I am reflective right now. I will end up coming back here in six months or a year or possibly two and see this moment in time as a turning point. In the meantime I want to address the question in the headline.

I often see in circles I travel a school of thought that it’s better to have a ‘man’ than to be happy.

I haven’t really ever subscribed to that theory internally even if I’ve absent mindedly co-signed it.

The age old I have what you want. No honey you don’t.

I think of a friend as I write this who thinks one of the worst things that could happen is that she could be dating at 50. I don’t recall all the details of the conversation, instead I recall my reaction. “I don’t want this to be me.”

As much as I would like to not be dating, as much as I would prefer to not have to get the sex and S&M I need from so many locations, so many people, and the logistical nightmare that it is to arrange….I don’t ever want to be the woman who settles for something so I don’t have nothing.

As long as I am working on me, and being a better me, and a happy me I am not without.  I have something. I am not defined by my intimate partner(s).

Yes I can admit that I want something else and something more.  I can also admit that I am not willing to settle into something less than what I deserve so that I can say I have a man.

This same friend and I have discussed an older woman in her life who married because she did not want to be alone. It’s not a good marriage. It’s not a marriage of love or of friendship even. This same woman who fears dating at 50 says she doesn’t want what that older woman has…and does little to prevent it.

She’s invested in me finding a partner.  I firmly believe that it’s because she loves me and wants me to be happy. I also beleive it’s because she has accepted a reality that is not my own.

Until a woman in 21st century US has a man or stretching a bit here, an intimate partner…she isn’t a woman. She can accomplish anything and be amazing but she will always be looked at a less than if she hasn’t had a child or married.

I am at least advanced enough to know that is bullshit and live my life accordingly. Yes there are other things at play, but there is also my refusal to accept your judgment of my worth based on if I married. Or have a dynamic.

I watch women doubling down on relationships that aren’t giving them what they need let alone what they want. And I won’t let that be me again.  I’ve been there and it’s harmful to me. I no longer want to do harm to me.

This means I have to actively make different choices in how I navigate not just my life but the advice so many people walk to me to obtain.

At some point they are going to ask me what to do.

At some point I am going to have to say what I feel is my truth.

I only want to be sure though that I am sharing not out of envy or frustration, but out of my hope that we will all at some point get to where we choose our partners who are good for us not because someone says – where s your man?

Aphrodite Brown