I want to spend the rest of my life with a woman. I\u2019ve been through enough to know that much. But I\u2019m starting to doubt that it\u2019s going to happen. I know dating is hard in the Black lesbian community, and yes, I know \u2013 I\u2019m young, I\u2019ve got time. But I\u2019m ready\u2026 and impatient.<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m a newbie. I \u2018ve been out for no longer than 4 years; I\u2019ve been in a relationship with four women and I am sick of dating. I\u2019m ready to settle down with the woman that is right for my journey. I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m going through right now, with these faulty, short-lived relationships I\u2019ve been having. Out of my four girlfriends, three of them were five months long. I know that\u2019s like two years in the lesbian community, but I\u2019m too old for that. The longest was a year, and it was long distance, so really it was about 4 months total. Lord I loved that woman. Took me a damn year to get over her to the point where I could just date someone else without making comparisons.<\/p>\n Okay, look \u2013 yes, I\u2019m the common denominator. I realize this. I\u2019m picky. I\u2019ve gone from having too little standards to having too many. I once wrote out a list of what I wanted in a woman and was teased; one person said I wrote a novel (it was one page long \u2013 in paragraph form, but so what). Another said I was looking for myself. My response to that was that I don\u2019t ask for what I can\u2019t bring to the table. It\u2019s not like I wanted someone who made six figures or had perfect white teeth. I didn\u2019t even ask for someone with impeccable style with the same size clothes and shoes as me so I could double my wardrobe.<\/p>\n [pullquote3 align=”center” variation=”purple” bgColor=”#ffffff” textColor=”#660099″]Is it too much to ask for a woman to have a strong sense of self (without being arrogant)? Someone who is consistently and consciously moving toward inner peace and self-evolution?[\/pullquote3]<\/p>\n I love women. I love our complexities; I love that we allow ourselves to feel. The socialization of women to be more vocal about their emotional journeys more closely aligns us with Nature, and I\u2019m a tree-hugging nature-freak-hippie.<\/p>\n For me, Black women are by far the cream of the crop \u2013 the most beautiful, intelligent, fortitudinal (is that a word? Who cares, I LOVE it!) women in the world. Everyone wants to either be us or be with us, but not carry our burden \u2013 cue Papa Peachez (self-proclaimed “big black woman trapped in a little boy’s body”<\/a>), Kim Kardashian’s obsession with black men<\/a>,\u00a0and Alexander Wang\u2019s use of MadTV’s racist black women stereotype, “Bon Qui Qui.”<\/a><\/p>\n But regardless of how mainstream society besmirches us, black women are the beginning; everything that is, came through us. Instead of making peace with that fact, develop severe irrational feelings of inferiority. So to make up for it, the privileged and\u00a0unenlightened\u00a0feed their envious, empty egos by dishonoring us.\u00a0Some of us deal with this dishonoring better than others. We’re more capable of deflecting, letting it roll down our backs, because we\u2019ve done the healing work.<\/p>\n Unfortunately \u2013 and understandably, some of us internalize<\/em>\u00a0society’s disdain for black women’s bodies until it turns into a fetid, rotting tumor. After millenniums of denigration, disrespect and emotional, psychological, spiritual and physical torture, how can you not?<\/a><\/p>\n Now throw being queer on top of that, and we carry a heavy load–queer black women are a lot to handle. Thus, dealing with my own baggage, and then trying to help my partner unpack hers without putting it in my own closet, so to speak, is quite a struggle.<\/p>\n [pullquote3 align=”center” variation=”purple” bgColor=”#ffffff” textColor=”#660099″]In order for queer black women to really<\/em> love, there needs to be some pro-active emotional, spiritual, psychological healing in our community, some internal reconstruction.[\/pullquote3]<\/p>\n