The Reality Of Big Girl Panties

The Reality of Big Girl Panties

Sometimes you have to pull them up.

I started to write about my most recent 'relationship'. I started to write about how we met and how I felt after everything ended between us. But in looking back on things I realized that although things didn't go the way that I wanted them to I learned a great deal. I try to look at every experience as a learning lesson. For clarity, his moniker will be FratBoy. I might write about him in future posts and I want sure that you all know who I'm referencing. As I look back on how everything played out here are my reflections.

1.Head to Head Competition- FratBoy challenged me in ways that I couldn't imagine. He asked probing questions and wouldn't accept surface level responses. Let me tell you that this wasn't easy. I'm used to what I say is what I said and that's it. But he would go further and dig deeper. This made me more pensive, it made me sharper, and it made me choose my words more carefully.

2. Come and Talk to Me- I consider myself a decent communicator. I have to be clear and concise professionally and also when I'm working with clients. I have to relay information in a way that is easily understood. FratBoy definitely burst my bubble on this one. Whilst I'm great at professionally communicating, I'm terrible at communicating my feelings and talking about myself. This is one of the areas where we would butt heads on ALOT. Mostly because I wouldn't be open and up front about how I was feeling. I was so used to not being vulnerable that it backfired on me. FratBoy would make me sit down at the dining room table or on the couch and talk. "Stop Fidgeting" he would also reprimand me. Trust me it was so very uncomfortable for me but it made me confident in my voice. The practice of sitting and not moving until I talked was helpful in the development of my voice. I'm finding myself advocating and speaking up for myself which is something that I hadn't done prior.

3. Ugly Duckling-One of the things that FratBoy would point out was that I had ugly duckling syndrome. I guess the best way to describe 'Ugly Duckling Syndrome' would be that a person has reached adulthood without realizing that they aren't the kid that they grew up as. They are the boy or girl who had to catch up with their ears or that their facial features are now attractive. He would notice that I was oblivious to almost everything around me because I live in my own head most of the time. Most notably he would point out how other men reacted to me. He would say "You really didn't notice how so and so looked at you? or How so and so's voice would get deeper when speaking to you?" My response would be one of confusion. Growing up in the 90's, there weren't black girls that looked like me on tv or in magazines. Which is something that had nothing to do with him but something that I am figuring out for myself. Being short, round, and dark I'd come to the conclusion that there wasn't necessarily a place for me in the category of attractiveness for black women. He would often remind in subtle ways that this wasn't the case. Or not so subtly say "If you weren't cute..." lol.

I named this post the Reality of Big Girl Panties because as I truly dissect the relationship with FratBoy I now understand that it was all a learning lesson. While FratBoy had many flaws of his own, I'm not here to bash or discredit him. I look back on everything that we went through and see the lessons taught and learned. As I'm on this dirty thirties journey, I have to face the reality that I am responsible for every interaction that I have with the opposite sex. Ultimately we "ended" because we didn't want the same things relationship wise. To be honest, that hurt but I deep down I knew. I knew that he didn't want the same things I wanted. That's where I had to pull my big girl panties up and accept that. He didn't take advantage of me. He was as gentlemanly as possible while all of this was going on. I thought it would be helpful to some of you because oftentimes we push most of the blame on men for the downfall of a relationship. In what areas can you take responsibility? There are many lessons that I learned from FratBoy which I will probably write about in future posts but I want to let you ladies know that sometimes we have to face reality and pull up our big girl panties.

Life, Love, and Jesus,

Evelyn Denise