Small Doses

by Amanda Seales

  AFTER THE CURVE

  Can we be friends?: The good news is, yes, perhaps you can be friends, but if you’re the curver it’s really not on you to determine that. All you can do is be present. A lot of folks don’t grasp this and think that the curve can just be brushed off. But you always have to take into account that feelings are real, and some—ok, most—people need space to get back to the middle after they been curved to the left!

  No curve then kiss: You cannot curve then kiss. YOU CANNOT! You can’t one minute say, “No, this wouldn’t be a good idea,” and the next minute try to go in for the kiss. It sends a mixed message! The curve is confusing in and of itself without then having to figure out why this person is still coming after you physically when they just said no dice. Curve your lips that way!

  On to the next . . . friend: If you curve me, you can’t just try to holla at my friend next. Sorry, unless there was already a previous vested attraction it’s just shitty to curve somebody and then direct your interest to the person next to them. That’s not even a curve. That’s a swerve, which means you are outta control!

  KIND OF CURVE

  Then there’s the curve that’s not a no, but a possibly. It could be for a number of reasons—timing, location, being broke as a joke. Regardless of the reason, it’s not the ideal outcome and thus, a curve. Then what? How do you curve but still keep things cool so that if the cause of the curve shifts there’s no baggage to step over to get to the good stuff? The balance comes in walking the line of practicing restraint without coldness.

  GHOST RIDE THE CURVE

  The worst curve is the ghost. It’s basically a very strong action that says, “I don’t want to deal with you” for a bevy of reasons. Maybe the person is afraid of a tough convo, maybe they’re unsure of how to handle their Dru Hill ’90s R&B-level romantic feelings, maybe they’re just not that into you. Whatever the case, the ghost is a method of curve that I DO NOT support. Communication is so important to advancement and elevation, and I always feel it is important to at least speak your piece before saying peace.

  GHOST STYLES

  Ghosting has become so commonplace that, like Inuit tribes possessing fifty words for snow, there are now words for specific ghosting techniques!

  • Bread Crumbing: When somebody drops little words in here and there like, Hey!/Sup/You good? just to keep you on the trail to their affection but never actually follow through with action.

  • Stashing: When they just keep you in the stash. You don’t meet their friends or family. You don’t have consistent convos. They give you intermittent rewards that keep you on ice until the next time they want to see you.

  • Submarining: When they dip out mid-convo and then resurface days, weeks, months later like, “Hey, wassup? You good?” only to dip out and resurface again with the same lingo.

  That’s three different kinds of ghosts. Again, some folks ghost because they’re in fuckboi/trife gal mode, some do it out of insecurity, some do it to avoid confrontation. Regardless, no one likes to be curved, but the ghost curve is def the worst because it has no explanation! I’m not sure when it happened, but this narrative that says “don’t tell people what issue you have with their behavior, just bounce” is no bueno. I get it—the disappearing act protects you from confrontation, but it also protects the person from having to face the facts of their wackness if, in fact, they’re acting wack. So, what ends up happening is they carry on thinking that their behavior is okay, and they bring it to the next person. I’m not saying there has to be a discussion. I’m not saying there has to be confrontation. All I’m saying is keep it 100. Tell somebody what’s up, then bend that curve like a body wave!

  GEM DROPPIN’

  Curve vs. Diss

  EVERYBODY DEALS WITH REJECTION DIFFERENTLY. The mollywhop to your ego is real and can truly have you feeling some type of way. Some folks cry. Others go ham in their kickboxing class. Others down a fifth of Hennessey. Everyone has their own method to deal with the wackness of being on the receiving end of a NO. However, it doesn’t always have to be that way. Step back, get out your feelings, get out your ego, get some perspective, and you can possibly save yourself some heartache. For a lot of folks, even if they were simply rejected, they take it personally and as an affront! They think just because they got curved, they got dissed. They attach the rejection to disrespect, but often that’s your ego on overtime and has nothing to do with the situation. There are definitely disrespectful modes of curvery, but a lot of times it’s just the basics of someone not being on your same plane, and that’s ok. The key is learning the distinction between the curve and the diss and how not to let either disrupt your magic.

  The curve is simply, “I’m not interested.” News flash, you don’t have to be interested in everybody. As I’ve already explained, there’s this false rhetoric that says everyone deserves a shot, and guess what, they don’t! If you’re not interested, you’re not interested. You don’t owe anyone a chance just because they were nice to you. You don’t owe anyone a chance just because they like you. You don’t owe anyone a chance just because they showed up. Context matters. Timing matters. Preference matters. You are entitled to all. Your bottom lines may even be trash inspired, but you’re entitled to them nonetheless. And because you’re entitled to them, you reserve the right to curve. The nuance is in how you deliver the curve. There are ways of curving that can come very close to disrespect. For the sake of your karma and your car not getting keyed, it behooves everyone to try their best to deliver the most direct curve possible. It’s like playing that game Operation. For all the folks reading this born after 1987, Operation was a game with a weird-looking white man on a board and all over his body were little openings that had different bones and organs in them. The challenge of the game was using little tweezers to pull out the bones and organs without touching the magnetic rimmed walls of the openings and making a buzz sound. That’s what delivering a curve is, except you’re essentially trying to put someone’s heart back without touching the sides and making a buzz sound that translates to a series of deep quote memes and an overdose of depressing R&B. A lot of folks say honesty is the best policy, but when it comes to the curve, I would swap honesty for tact. That’s not to say you don’t have to keep it real, but sometimes—actually most times in a curve scenario—it’s just not necessary to say everything. Especially if everything borders on being straight-up mean. DON’T GET ME WRONG, sometimes a mean curve is ABSOLUTELY earned! However, if the curve is simply based on lack of interest and not on earned disinterest, you simply need to say enough to make it clear why you’re curving, and keep it moving.

  Things take a turn when the curve has a bite to it. That’s when we step into diss territory. Diss is short for disrespect, and rejection is bad enough without that extra bit of bitter added to it. However, I repeat, just because you got curved doesn’t mean you were disrespected. The disrespect is really about the reason you were curved and how the curve went down. Any time someone feels it necessary to attach something demeaning to the curve, you’ve entered disrespect territory. For example:

  Curve: I just don’t feel like there’s chemistry here but thank you for taking me out.

  Diss: You’re hella corny and it doesn’t turn me on at all but thank you for taking me out.

  Curve: I realize that I still have feelings for my ex, so before this goes any further, I think it’s best to just be friends. *You know you’re not really gonna be friends, but it’s a nice gesture.*

  Diss: *They don’t hear from you, then see you out with your ex.*

  Now, in the first example, the diss came when you unnecessarily felt the need to call out the corn. Unless you’re pressed for some very specific indicator of why this person doesn’t make you wanna put your phone down, so to speak, you can be clear without being OD and you can be tactful without being vague. That said, some folks don’t abide by this and really be going for folks’ necks. I’ll be the first to tell you, I’ve doled out a murdergram or two in my
time, but those disses were in response to being disrespected, so they had it coming!

  The key to all of this, though, is that when you are rejected you have to ask yourself, Was I dissed or was I curved? Either way, you must take a look at the lesson that can be learned, your own behaviors, and wish that person love and light as you continue on your journey. Be that as it may, we’re all human and you’ll inevitably feel a snuff to the ego when someone you’re feeling just ain’t feeling you. The thing is, we all do feel a bit better about a situation when, even if it didn’t go our way, we can still regard that person as a good person. The curve gives you that. Let it give you peace of mind. It may not have been a match but at least you have good people around you. When you get hit with the disrespect, the natural inclination is anger. “Who do they think they are!?” “He gon’ see!” “Oh HELL NAH!!!” All are valid responses, but you can’t let their diss take you down. At our most evolved we’re able to look at someone giving us an unwarranted diss and say, “That’s unfortunate” and send them, too, on their way, with love and light!

  If you’re dating, you’re gonna deal with curves and maybe even some disses, but the most important thing is realizing that you have to find what’s good for you and so does that other person. If they curve you and feel you aren’t good for them, that’s on them. You don’t need to convince them, or pitch them, or campaign to them. You simply have to walk in the confidence of what’s good for you and whether someone’s winding up a curve or crafting up a diss, they’re not it. Someone will be!

  Flying Vaginas

  THAT ONE TIME

  I remember it like it was yesterday. There we were, in the midst of what I thought was great sex, when out the blue the brother currently inside of me said, “You ain’t gonna cum anyway,” pulled out, and strolled out of the room to go play video games. At first I wasn’t offended. It was like when you’re dancing with someone at a party and they walk away: You figure they went to the bar; they’ll be back. He must have been joking, I thought! Nope. He was deadass serious. My box was not producing enough bass for his liking, and he exited the club. To him I was a waste of sexy time because I didn’t easily arrive at the Ozone, a climax, the big O. I was shocked, for obvious reasons, but also because I really was having a good time. I didn’t really need to orgasm. The rest of the elements were on point! Needless to say, that was the end of that. I gathered my things and did a walk of shame, not because I’d slept at someone else’s spot instead of mine, but because I’d been curved mid-stroke for something that at the time I couldn’t even control! Eventually, I chalked it up to his ego, and the fact that the curve had devolved into a diss was beneath my accepted level of treatment anyway. Good riddance! But then it happened again. A few years later a different partner told me mid-thrust, “I don’t know why you’re not letting it happen; you’re making this tough for me.” It hadn’t occurred to him that perhaps he was not making it happen! Nevertheless, in so many words, these two told me they thought my vagina was broken.

  I always say, men have the Tonka truck of reproductive organs. It goes up. It goes down. Voilà. For women, the engineering is like assembling a LEGO Millennium Falcon. One piece in the wrong place and EVERYTHING goes into disarray. The pussy is very pesky! Women spend our whole lives tryna get a handle on this thing. It’s got all kinds of modes and mechanisms. It’s like Instagram and switches up its algorithm without any notice. Perhaps to an OBGYN there is some order in the cooch court, but as an owner of one for more than three and half decades, I have found that the “magic middle” has no blueprint, rhyme, or reason. Everyone’s is built different, with different instructions, which are less helpful than an IKEA booklet. Each vajayjay requires a different set of skills, which can take a while to perfect, in order to get taken to “the promised land,” so to speak. You watch Samantha on Sex and the City and it’s like she can orgasm just by thinking about it. However, for most, that couldn’t be farther from the truth, and for some women it’s simply not even in the cards. This is not kept on the hush-hush. It’s known that an orgasm is like finding the gem at the end of the obstacle course on Legends of the Hidden Temple. So why do some men shame women for something that’s notoriously hard to reach? I’ll tell you why: Our climaxes are attached to that fragile construct of hypermasculinity.

  For the first time, women are in a position, at least in the US, where, even with the duplicitousness of pay inequality, taxed feminine products, and rampant sexism, it’s possible to make a completely independent life for ourselves. As recent as 1975, women needed a husband’s signature to get a bank account. If you’ve seen Mad Men, you know that husbands were even given access to your conversations with a therapist. It’s no wonder that for so long the goal of so many mothers was to make sure their daughters were married. Until fairly recently, we were still living in a Jane Austen–novel-esque society where things were set up to force our reliance on men as providers. However, times, they are a changin’. As women become more and more independent, thriving in our single lives, working in careers previously unavailable to us, holding abusers accountable, having children on our own terms, marrying for love not for necessity, reclaiming our time and our sexuality, some men feel compelled to assert their dying roles as providers in a heterosexual relationship by taking ownership of our pleasure. Don’t get me wrong, some men simply enjoy pleasing their partner sexually and want to see them happy, so they go for gusto. Others, however, root their desire for their partner’s sexual pleasure in a reflection of their own prowess, value, and masculinity. On some “Sure, women may have made inroads, but in the bedroom, man still reigns!” type shit. So, when we don’t orgasm, they see it as an emasculation. Like we’re intentionally disarming them of their penis purpose. No wonder so many women have learned to fake it to preserve their partner’s manhood. Well, I never got that memo, so I never faked, and I’m here to tell you YOUR VAGINA IS NOT BROKEN.

  Along with the fact that the O is simply not a button that is pressed, not all dudes are able to, interested in, or good at getting you there! Just because you have a dick doesn’t mean you know what to do with it. It takes both people having not only self-awareness but awareness of the other person as more than just a hole, or a pole, in order to make this thang pop off! I eventually found my orgasm thanks to a now ex who—due either to love or the fact that he didn’t have a job—dedicated himself to locating it like Waldo in what I consider to be a sea of internal chaos. For some women, getting to yours may take sexual maturity, a certain position you have yet to discover, a patient partner, or some dedicated self-exploration. Not everyone will be able to climax via the johnson or want to, either. And that’s cool. Regardless, let’s all agree: There’s no room in your vagina for a penis and an ego.

  SIDE EFFECTS OF

  Booed Up

  The road to coupledom

  is full of twists and turns,

  you live, you love, you like,

  Keep baggage light,

  enjoy the ride,

  and in tune with this insight.

  FROM HOLLA TO HASHTAG BAE

  The steps to sealing the deal between you and boo are def not as clear as they once were. A guide:

  • Hollering: When interest is being shown but action hasn’t been taken to advance the desire.

  • Talking: When both of y’all have shown interest but have yet to verbalize real romantic feelings.

  • Dating: When both of y’all are going out in the world to get to know each other better.

  • Smashing: When y’all are going out and getting it in.

  • Cuffing: When you’re sleeping with only each other but not committed emotionally/mentally.

  • Rockin’: When y’all on your Ashford & Simpson, together, and solid as a rock.

  WHAT EVEN IS A DATE?

  As society shifts and changes, so do some people’s concept of what a date is and why it’s important in the development of a relationship. On the surface, it’s simply an outing between two people with romantic
interest in each other. On a deeper level, though, it persists in the midst of technological advances and social shifts as one of the strongest continued traditions humans use to meet other humans and eventually reproduce more humans. The date is where folks get to know each other, and for that reason the first date can’t be overlooked. It sets the tone for whether or not there’ll even be a second date! Just in case you need a refresher, here are some basic bottom lines for date numero uno: