 The call I was dreading came today. My father wants me to come 'home' for Christmas. First of all, where I'm from is where I'm from. I no longer consider it home and have not for quite a while. My family ended when my mom died. My dad is remarried. While I respect his family, I do not consider them mine.
I feel out-of-place when I go 'home' for the Holidays. It's like being a visitor at a co-worker's house - and not your BFF co-worker - but one you know in passing. But, what makes 'home' for the Holidays even more unseemly is that I'm 41 single with no kids ... and there are no indication that either of those situations will change. Being surrounded by married couples with kids is a painful reminder of what I don't have.
So I called my best friend, Deni to tell her I'd be home. She asked why I didn't sound enthused so I told her. I got absolutely no empathy or understanding. Instead, she launched into a diatribe about how I was single because I wasn't interested in white men. If I dated white men, I'd be married with three kids by now so my situation was solely my fault and it wasn't too late for me to jump on the white boy bandwagon.
I know several women who have 'crossed over' as she called it and the results have been mixed. Not every white man is some knight in shining armour. I am just not that attracted to white men and defintely not to the one's who approach me who are either:
- Trying hard to be black ("Whass up sista?" "I love me some BLACK women!" Why don't you holla at a brotha?")
- Think I'm some kind of socio-sexual experience (I've never been with a BLACK woman!)
I don't think either one of those men would attract my attention. And I guess what makes me so upset is the implication that she makes that white men are smarter, more generous and more suited to 'an educated black woman' and that there are no black men out there that can relate to me on my rarefied level. The sad thing is that she might be right. What black men that are out there want white (or anything other than black) women. And I'm black. So there you have it. I am not really attracted to white men and black men don't find me attractive. Right now, I'm in the process of accepting that work is all I ever will have (and not even that is working out for me at the moment as I prepare to enter month four of unemployment). I am not going to settle for anything that I don't want just to have someone. But today, when I called Deni, I needed a friend, not a bitch. Labels: Friends |
Sometimes, folks can be extremely insensitive.