How many times have you gave someone a chance based off of your romantic relationship? Maybe she literally blows your mind , or perhaps he had “one arm on neck, one arm on frontal. Ya frontal off! Now three days later you in front of his mom house crying, he asking you “why you being weird?” WHY YOU BEING WEIRD TO ME?? You said you wanted to get married.. “ Mona love.

We are so quick to cut off our friendships based on mistakes, communication and sometimes based on our view on what someone should be doing.. or even if our perspectives in life do not match up , weird right ? Shouldn’t we be accepting people for who they are and embracing the experience.

I was reading up on why we feel that we need a romantic partner and not a friend.. here is a bit of what I found in an article written by Kendra Cherry “ I don’t need friends” she deep dives into points ranging from preferring solitude to my favorite one “fear of disappointment “.

Fear of disappointment sticks out to me the most because lets face it regardless of what your dating preference is he/she/they can disappoint you and you might still give them an opportunity. I myself am living proof of just going with the flow. Is it not a complete oxymoron to consider a romantic partner before a platonic one? Chances are you’ll invest more into the romantic relationship than you will the platonic. Personally I like when the odds are in my favor.

I searched the web in an attempt to find a reason why we give grace to our romantic partner but not our platonic partner.. I found nothing.

Men statistically maintain a healthier relationship with friends than women.. but women have more friends than men.. I too am confused. I’m inclined to believe that this only exist due to the fact that men are not as expressive within friendships..

I want to focus on my type of friends , in our community .. that’s right, the ones that grew up similar to me or at least the women and men I’ve encountered and our dynamics

I noticed that plenty of my guy friends withhold a lot of emotions with there “bros”, or whatever the fuck they call one another.

Our men, men of color are dying by suicide more than any other group.. let that sink in. Growing up in a “urban” environment , apparently in almost every environment, it is almost expected and accepted that women are emotional but men aren’t? Do you know that if we stopped applying societal norms to our men they would believe in therapy or even ask for help when they felt it was needed?

I sit there to observe and listen to the dynamics within my environment. While many in my community do not believe in platonic friendships .. I do. From time to time I like to “play the block”.. the girl that get it, get it. Slowly I started to realize that my regular question “how are you really doing?” or my common phrases of endearment a decade later still comes as a surprise, I am often rewarded with a thank you or in response given a ” I’m surviving”.. YIKES.

I was having a conversation with a friend of 5 years in which he told me he felt extremely alone, it tore me apart because he throws the best parties, has a crew around him constantly and his girlfriends are what we would label “Instagram models”.. how can that be possible? perhaps instead of ignoring his constant need for love and support, we should be embracing his feelings in the same manner we would our girl friends..

Another one of my platonic male friends went through a tremendous lost.. he and his male companions think alcohol and weed might solve the problem.. I’m not too sure that they know he needs a hug , WHICH is not only the job of his “romantic partner”.. if a hug is too much perhaps create a safe space so that he can grieve..

An ex housemate expressed unhappiness, shows constant concerning “toxic” behavior but merely laughed at the suggestion of therapy..

My not so platonic friend.. has taught me in a very little time that sometimes no one askes these questions maybe it’s because he’s the “big homie”.. he’s expected to show up, I automatically can tell he was dealing with the pain.. I’m not sure he gets a second to address it .. the quotes are only there because his truth is prettier the deeper you go in his shell. I’m working on breaking through

This all happened within a two month time span..

Do you know that Men of color are four times more likely to commit suicide than women of color? In the article listed above by Kelsie Sandoval, she notes that the suicide attempts has nearly increased by 80% since 1991.. some of ya’ll were just being born.

I spent the last week asking within my friend groups ” what would you want from your friend?” , ” what are somethings that bother you within your friendships?” “How can you be a better friend?” .. ” how are you feeling?”

Okay a lot of my guy friends are NOT your ordinary men.. do you catch my drift? These are a few of the responses I received from them : ” I’m not aboutta sit here and talk to my mans about my feelings”, ” they ignorant, I feel like they don’t support me or tell me I’m tripping” , my hands down favorite ” I am a MAN I have to keep it in, I don’t really talk about my feelings”.. ( I wrote it how I received it)

These men are not even talking about the basics of there struggles. If the root of the problem is not addressed it becomes a trickle down effect .. friendship dynamics are important if you don’t hold your friends accountable how do you know someone will? what if there is no one? Delete those unrealistic expectations, standards and begin to break barriers respectfully within your friendships.. your “girl” can only carry but so much of the burden.. especially when 60% of the time you are with the homies.

Emotions do not come easy for our men.. friendships are just as important when it comes to them as it should be the same when it comes to us… While men are listed to have healthier relationships with friends, after some serious research if I kept everything bottled up, perhaps I’d too maintain a great relationship with my girls.

Dealing with trauma that is often swept under the rug is what our men do best… when we loose someone due to violence, we work non-traditional jobs, we have to work 10 times harder to get to where we want to be, some of us never healed from the lack of parenting, lack of resources , don’t forget one of the main reasons our families are broken up is incarceration and we are still expecting our men to be a functioning part of society without the support of there inner circle.

Check on your homeboy he has been rapping for 10 years.. with no one to tell him the truth .. haha just kidding.. no seriously.. give him a call, have a genuine conversation. The honest truth is that some of us might not know the logical advice but most of us know what feels right. We should be educating our friends in a passive manner maybe we don’t because we grew up thinking it’s a every man for themselves world .. but it is literally killing our men, taking them away from home and often it’s because they are in constant survival mode.

Let go of that pride and tell them how you actually feel. I searched for numerous resources in which you can benefit from, in order to create a healthy outlet if you are not venting to your friends: therapy, working out, talking it out , writing it out. withholding all of that pain only causes harm, to you as well as those around you.

https://therapyforblackmen.org/

If we leave room for the conversation perhaps we can’t save everyone but maybe we can help the generations that are coming up.. because they are watching us. You are beautiful, you are valued and for those of you that encourage the ” toxic masculinity” tune into my post breaking down where the fuck you went wrong, it’s 2022 there is a lot of healing to be done.

If you or someone you know is struggling with depression or has had thoughts of harming themselves or taking their own life, get help. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255) provides 24/7, free, confidential support for people in distress, as well as best practices for professionals and resources to aid in prevention and crisis situations.

I’ll leave you with this, specifically dedicated to our men of color.. while I work on explaining to my ladies that you might accomplish more if we actually come together and stay together.. stayed tuned for part two

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