♥Why don’t you love me? Tell me baby, why don’t you love me? When I make me so damn easy to love.
Why don’t you need me? Tell me baby, why don’t you need me? When I make me so damn easy to need.
I’ve got beauty, I’ve got class. I’ve got style and I’ve got a**. But you don’t even seem to care.♥
The fabulous Beyonce’ seems to be able to capture any emotion for any stage of a relationship, and her chart toppers are often the ones that speak about when the good goes bad. People connect with songs that tap into their emotions, and when going through a breakup, we are all emotional wrecks.
Sometimes we do so much to be the perfect mate, when the person you’re involved with barely knows you exist.
The men that complain of being on the short end of the stick often say they are hard-working providers who feel unappreciated; and the women on the low end of the totem pole say they try to master everything from looking good to cooking good only to feel ignored.
Some women (guilty one over here) make sure a hair is never out of place, the makeup is flawless and the clothes are always from the pages of a fashion magazine. I know when I would visit my former significant other; I would always try to look like I was ready for a photo shoot. To steal a line from one of my favorite Atlanta Housewives, NeNe Leakes, the lips would be bustin’ and the eyelashes poppin’. But guess what, the only thing my guy would mention is that I was always “so dolled-up,” and he meant it as a negative.
Many of us today have our ish together, if you know what I mean. We are career-oriented and filling top positions, have our own and don’t mind sharing. It’s just tough finding that special someone who truly appreciates the female swag in our our swing.
So many women waste so much time trying to be the picture-perfect object of desire for an unappreciative man and it can be draining, emotionally and physically.
And when you finally come to your senses –or are graciously given the boot—you find yourself nothing more than a crumpled up beauty queen in the streets, wondering if you can ever pick yourself up.
Well, girlfriend — dust yourself off and get yourself together — life goes on!
The last time I left my former significant other’s house, I stopped my car at the end of the street and just cried for what seemed like an eternity in my heart, but what was really about five minutes to the people who had to go around me to exit the neighborhood. I did not exactly know what I was crying for at the time, but when I gathered myself and began to drive home, I knew what the water works were for.
I knew that it was over.
The sad thing about the whole situation is that it never really was anything from the beginning. I played myself from day one on this one.
I had allowed myself to fall for someone who had been very upfront with me when telling me what he was – and was not—looking for. But like so many others, I thought that once he saw just how fabulous I was, he would want to settle down. Boy, was I WRONG!!!
To be truthful, I don’t know if I was really into him, or just into the thought of being with someone. I had just come out of an extremely painful divorce from an extremely verbally abusive husband. And after being torn down by my ex for so many years, I just wanted to be in the company of a man that knew my first name was not the “B-word.”
So when my “first” puppy-love found me…it didn’t take long for us to get into something. And “something” is definitely the appropriate term, because I never quite knew what we were doing. He was very adamant about not putting a “title” on what we had going. And for a while, I was OK with that, but after the months started to round the one-year stretch, enough was enough. It wasn’t just the lack of the “girlfriend” title that bothered me; it was the lack of everything else.
He definitely had some great qualities. He was a hard worker, an involved father to his child from a previous relationship and a homeowner with good credit. Good looking and sexy as all get-out are an understatement, so I can tell you, I fell fast and was just as smitten as I was when I was a teen. Then reality set in. Those same great qualities he possessed provided the major roadblocks in our “thing.”
I never asked for anything in the rebound relationship (mistake number 1) and I got exactly that—nothing.
Don’t get me wrong, there was no shortage of chemistry in the bedroom, but outside of that, we had nothing else.
The excuse I was given was the “I had a long week,” or “I am too tired,” and the “I don’t like to go to movies.” Would you believe I fell for that?
I often let it go because after working hard all week, I just wanted to lie next to someone and sleep peacefully. I prematurely clung to my pseudo-beau just trying to fool myself into feeling something — anything — real.
But after a while, that played itself out and I started to get cabin fever. We did go out sometimes, but I can count those times on only one hand.
Now, I can go on forever while the violin plays a melancholy tune, but the point is I allowed myself to fall into a situation that I could have controlled from the beginning. To his credit, he wasn’t the typical “dog” we love to bark about, he just had no interest in making sure my needs were met when I climbed mountains and swam rivers to meet his. And that is what this is about. It was not about how he treated me; it is about how I ALLOWED myself to be treated!
I believe my longing for companionship of any kind led me to settle for something I knew was less than what I deserved. As a child, you learn to “treat others as you would like to be treated.” But then we grow up and allow others to treat us less than what we want for ourselves.
Why is that? I will tell you why!
Little girls are taught to believe in fairytales and the creative creatures we are, we follow those fairytales into adulthood with the help of media images.
Remember the line from Silence of the Lambs, “We covet what we see every day?” Well, we do!
And what do we see every day? For starters, how about the decades-long love plots from our favorite soap opera couples and the American Express commercials of the great spouse scoring tickets to a sold-out show or the boyfriend whisking his girl to New York for an authentic slice of New York pizza.
Pretty Woman made rich and poor women all over the world long to be an uneducated, yet attractive, hooker that manages to make an extremely powerful, extremely handsome millionaire fall in love and climb the terrace of her ramshackle apartment only to whisk her away in a stretch limo. Well, I’m not a prostitute looking for a rich John. I am a woman.
Our fantasies will never become realities if we don’t get real—really fast!
Somewhere along the line, you began to put someone else’s best interest ahead of yours. You make yourself a pawn in your own chess game, instead of the queen that you really are. In doing so, you lose control of the board.
Well, it is time to get back in the game. Dust yourself off and get moving.
There is so much more in the world—and even though it may seem to take a year less than forever to find that true love—I hear that there is a person for everyone in this vast universe. I guess we should stop hanging our heads low and start holding our heads high so we can see what is awaiting us on Cloud 9.
So, if we sing a different song and change Ms. B’s lyrics a bit, we will start to question the only person that really matters — OURSELF!
And, in this case…it’s OK to answer back. You’re only crazy when you ignore the little voices in your head trying to tell you the truth.
How about asking yourself this:
♥Why don’t I love me, tell me baby, why don’t I love me? When God made me so easy to love.
Why don’t I need me, tell me baby, why don’t I need me? When God made me so easy to need.
I’ve got beauty. I’ve got class. I’ve got style and I’ve got a*** , and you can watch it walk out the door!♥
Remember, you are an asset, not a liability! Love yourself and allow yourself to be loved –properly.
Credits:
Model: Stephanie Gerry
Photograper: Shawn Welling
Check out Beyonce’s video “Why Don’t You Love Me,” courtesy of Youtube!
