Some People Only Want The Illusion That They Hurt You

It's a 15 minute break at work. A comment I made on a post in a Facebook group is a problem for someone else. The comment was not directed toward them, but they got offended. That person gets mad and starts calling me names. Usually in these circumstances they use phrases like, "You're ugly," and "Nobody wants you." I think of replying, but again it's a 15 minute break. I have to use it wisely, so I scroll through my timeline looking for posts that appeal to me until I have to get back to work. 

It's a post in a women-only Facebook group designed for women to compliment each other. I compliment a woman and she responds with gratitude. A few minutes later someone reports my comment as spam. I'm not sure if they had a problem with me or the woman I complimented with. However, it's just a post in a group. I move on. 

There are discussions about serious matters going on throughout the internet. The subjects can range from sexual assault to politics and religion. I comment sometimes. I read the comments. These subjects bring out lots of emotions and of course lost of online arguing. 

What do you do when people taunt you on the internet? Do you take their bait and argue? Do you log off? 

I prefer to log off. 

I spend a lot of time on the internet. Sometimes I spend way too much time staring at vacation photos of celebrities and people working regular jobs like me. I tune into their beautiful wedding photos and the photos of their bad hair days. I also give them glimpses of my life in the form of photos, tweets, and status updates. I allow them to jump into my inbox to have more private discussions and I share with them.  I also make enemies on the internet. 

You remember those enemies you made in school? The bullies? Their goal was to taunt you until you had a face full of tears . They threatened to beat you up and some were brave enough to actually do it.  I only got threats. They didn't like you and didn't want anyone else to like you either. 

Well, the enemies moved to the internet. They believe in being petty and giving the illusion they won a fight with you. They taunt you into arguments on the internet or try. If you don't respond back, they assume they won a battle. I'm cool with that assumption. They can have that illusion. In 31 years I've never been a physical fight, so I'd rather not engage in online fights either. 

Upgrading My Lifestyle

A college classmate recently got engaged and did a Facebook live video about it. She talked about how she went through struggles and one day decided to change her mindset. She started focusing on the future to make her happy. Part of that future involved a husband. Even though there was no man for her to marry at the moment, she would think about the kind of man she wanted and even window shop for things he might like. It set her mind up for how far she has come. I've been taking on a similar mentality.

I'm not where I want to be in life. I don't have the perfect job and I definitely don't have the man of my dreams. However, in this year of 2017 I started making baby steps to getting my life closer to my dreams. One of those adjustments was Valentine's Day.

I didn't have a man on Valentine's Day 2017. However, I did have a concert ticket to the Keith Sweat concert. The concert featured Avant, Bobby Brown, and of course Keith Sweat. It was something I could dream of doing with a significant other and also something I enjoyed very much. So I went by myself. This was actually the first time in my 30 years of life that I did something centered around love on a holiday about love. Maybe for year 31 I'll do the same and maybe I'll even have a date.

Okay, I'm lying a little. Although it would be good to have a significant other to go with me, I just really wanted to go. I was and am tired to waiting on a man, or even friends, to suggest events I love.

A few other things I've done this year are my NYC birthday trip, comedy shows, and most recently went to a Je'Caryous Johnson play for the 3rd time.

All of these things costs money, but they are an upgrade in lifestyle that I appreciate. For example, depending on the nightclub I could put on anything. But when going to a stage play I get to look fancy and be around other people that are looking fancy.

Now, I just have to figure out how to add more money to each paycheck, so I can afford to enjoy more of these activities.

P.S. I have baby fever really bad. That's normal at age 31, right? Anyway, my mom has said that I would have to slow down if I had a child. However, I was in a restaurant recently. A woman walked into the restaurant with two small twin boys. There's hope for me after all.

Have you been doing anything to upgrade your lifestyle?

Socially Burned Out

Before my birthday weekend trip I received a Facebook message that a friend was talking shit about me. "Talking shit" were the words the other friend used to describe how she was talking. The message was long and I didn't really feel like writing my feelings out, so I just called her. During the phone conversation she explained that the other friend had been talking about both of us to someone else we knew. I know all of these women from high school and still keep in contact with them because of social media. Anyway, we talked, she told me some things I already knew and a few things I didn't. Afterward I tried to shake the conversation off and focus on the fun I was about to have, but this conversation is actually part of a series of things that have happened this year that is making me want to take a break from friends.

It all started in February of this year when a former Facebook friend started making sub-statuses toward me after she found out about her ex and I. Well her initial thoughts, which she never came to me with, were that I was trying to get with her ex after she broke up with him. She made it seem like a man could never be interested in another woman after being with her unless some new woman threw themselves at him. Then on March 6th (yes, I still remember this particular date of being harassed online) she decided to let everyone know that I "fucked her man."

There were a few things that bothered me about her calling me out in this group. One thing was I had never discussed any specific man I was involved with in there. Actually unless they were close friends, not family, the people on my actual friends list didn't even know the name of any guy I had been involved with. Instead, I was focused on trying to sell my books in the group. I managed to make one sale before that happened. Other than that these women didn't seem to care about my strive to entrepreneurship. The other thing that bothered me was even though they didn't care about supporting me as an author, they jumped at the opportunity to call me every insult in the book in defense of her. Someone even went as far as posting a picture of her boyfriend and asking if I had slept with him too.

A few weeks later she sent a message to say that she was sorry for calling me out like that. She sent an apology in a message. She wasn't even woman enough to apologize that same way she trashed me. If she would have just come to me in the beginning she would have found out that my actions had nothing to do with her. My actions were about my own happiness. My actions were about me not turning every man down just to keep up the "men ain't shit" conversation.

However, apology or no apology, she trashed my name in hopes to make herself feel better. She trashed my name and other women and men joined in too.

Can you tell that the shit bothered me?

It's all hard to deal with because I need to make new friends. I have to meet acquaintances that are motivating. I have to surround myself around business people that'll help my brand grow. I need to be surrounded around people who we can bounce good energy off of each other. Instead the opposite has been happening.

I don't have a lot of examples of drama in my life because I spend a lot of time alone. There's this seafood restaurant in Houston that I frequent. It's a quiet spot and has a patio that I can sit on. The waiters have my order memorized. After they take my order I slide my headphones in and listen to music. Sometimes I type specific lyrics in the notes section of my cellphone for possible poetry inspiration later on. It works for me.

Honestly I'm socially burned out. I can't do anymore "Hey, I'm Lashuntrice" introductions at the moment. I can't deal with anyone else questioning whether I'm real or fake. I can't really deal with hearing about someone talking shit about me. I'd rather hear about someone helping spread the word about my very good books. However, since my books haven't been the topic of conversations I'm not there for, I'd rather not even know about the conversations. The best way to do that is to just say to myself.

One day I'll try this making new acquaintances and friendships thing again.

There's That Feeling Again-Baby Fever Problems & Awkward Conversations

Every time a photo of a newborn baby graces my timeline I get butterflies in my stomach. Every time a video appears somewhere on social media of a cute little infant laughing adorably with drool dripping from its mouth, my heart jumps with joy. Every time someone showcases their child taking its first steps, or running around the house giggling, I imagine whether or not that could one day be me. These feelings aren't new. For a while now I've had a strong case of baby fever.

My baby fever has gotten so bad that it's led to awkward conversations.

There's a man in my life, sort of. I say sort of because I'm still afraid to claim him. Part of me is saying he's mine. We've spent time together. We've been very intimate. But a part of me isn't ready to fully claim him, because I could wake up tomorrow to a text that he changed his mind. A guy broke up with me through text message before. Maybe he'd be kind enough to call or say it to my face. Either way, if I fully claim him as my boyfriend, or my man, it could all blow up in my face. So I'll just say there's a man in my life, sort  of, and the baby fever has led to awkward conversations with him.

Some of the conversations have involved him saying he's not ready for kids and me saying the opposite. My only explanation for trying to argue with him is that the idea of becoming a mom has been embedded in my mind for so long that it's making me a little irrational sometimes. However, we are on the page because he has thrown the idea out of me and then I was the one to say that I'm not ready.

Really, I'm not ready to become a mom. I just like the idea of wondering what my perfect family will look like. Maybe I'll be like Tamar Braxton, married and having my only child at 35 or older. Maybe it'll be a Kim K. West deal where once the babies start coming I'll naturally fall into motherhood. We love to hate Kim because her career started with sex, but she has also created that balance that someone like me would love in a wife/motherhood life. I don't really know. All I know is babies are adorable.

The Men That Proudly Confess Their Infidelities And The People Who Say Nothing

I've never wanted to be one of those paranoid women. I've never wanted to be one of those women that checks her man's call log, messages, social media accounts, and even knows his every move. Trust has been a very important factor when its come to meeting the man for me. However, being on social media makes it really hard for my mind not wander to those forbidden thoughts sometimes.

These Facebook groups and some of the people I've spoken with are why. There are people online putting there business out there about how much they love to sleep with people other than the person they promised to spend the rest of their lives with. There are friends confessing the messiness they've gotten themselves into. Of course if you've been following this blog, I've gotten myself into some drama too. However, this post isn't about my own person drama. It's about what I've witnessed. 

Well, in this Facebook group there are men proudly cheating on their wives. One particular guy has several kids with his wife. His personal page gives the impression that he's happily married with a beautiful family. However, in the group he's admitted to cheating and claims his wife doesn't know. Under one post he even confessed that he made one of his side chicks (I hate the saying side chicks) get an abortion. The abortion part bothered me more than the cheating because I've heard of the mental and physical affects it can have on a woman. 

Outside of Facebook, someone that I know told me about how she really connected with this man. They could talk for hours about anything. He understood her need for attention and how her past played into her feelings of being neglected. However, they couldn't be together as a couple. He already had girlfriend and he was very dependent on her. They lived together and the woman paid his bills. The only way the woman I know could be with him is if she took on the responsibilities of paying his bills. Very few of us want to feed grown mouths that we didn't take care of when they were wearing diapers, so that wasn't happening. She also recognized that she was a side chick in rotation of a number of women this guy was creeping with. His girlfriend knew he was cheating and was comfortable with it. However, it was a bad situation for any other woman that wanted him but didn't want to share. 

Then there are the women proudly arguing with side chicks. These women think they are special because they have the wedding ring or because they are the girlfriend. So they argue with side chicks online, have full telephone conversations with women their man is cheating on them with, and meet up for coffee with the women just to show them whose the boss of the house. 

I don't want to be one of those women though. I want to be that woman that trusts her man. I want to trust that I'm the only one he's thinking about, the only one he's sexing, the only one he's daydreaming about a future with. Of course if I were to find out he's cheating, I'd speak up to let him know that he's not the one for me. 

BTW, get your copy of Woman Manifested: A Poetic Tale today. 

Weekend Getaway/ 31st Birthday

It's been a while since I wrote regularly. I used to try to write a post a day. Then it became a couple of posts a week. Eventually the stresses of trying to balance a full time job, making sure to spend enough time with family, and watching my circle of friends continually change caught up to me. Of course trying to transition my love of writing from just a hobby used to keep me sane to using it as the start of my entrepreneurship hasn't been easy either. All of that became a distraction and I started drifting further away from the idea of putting myself into this world wide web.

See, this is a lifestyle blog and it has always been meant for writing about whatever came to mind.
Whether the topic was some celebrity's moment, a moment of success for me, my friends great moments, and even the drama, nothing was off limits. However, things started to be off limits. However, things started to change.

Conversations with people that are supposed to be friends started becoming more about drama and I started questioning myself on whether it was appropriate to write about that drama. I actually started to care about how they would feel if they were to read how I felt.

Also being in these secretive Facebook groups started stifling my creativity. These groups bring lots of topics. I discovered how comfortable men and women are with confessing their infidelities (especially the married ones), how casually women drops naked (and close to naked) pictures in a group and expect for the pictures to stay within those thousands of people in the group.

See, I allowed those to stifle my creativity when I shouldn't. Why? Because in trying to play the game of keeping messy friendships contained and not utilizing the juicy topics I was coming across, my voice was being lost. So maybe, just maybe, I'm back in the game. We'll see.

After some growth-filled experiences, I needed a break from the city of Houston. I also needed to limit my social media activity to uploading posts focused on me. The best time to do that was the weekend before my birthday, which happened to be October 27th- October 30th. The best place to do it was New York City, where my best friend currently lives.

Other than my best friend being there, NYC was a great spot because even though my plane landed a little after 10 pm, most of the food places near my hotel were still open. Actually a whole lot of people were walking the streets. The city was alive, which I really appreciated. In Houston, the streets are quiet after 10 pm.

After grabbing some food, I was able to get comfortable in my hotel and sleep. I stayed in The Nolan Hotel. The room was cozy for one person, but probably would have felt super small if two people were staying in it.

Back to running the streets. Although my friend was in the process of moving to a new apartment, she still spent a lot of time with me. We walked the Manhattan streets, walked to the Brooklyn Bridge, and partied near Central Park. Also, because of her a group of people sang Happy Birthday to me for the first time in years. College may have been the last time a group of people sang that to me. It was amazing. That Sunday it rained and I did a little walking in the rain. Later on after my friend left to finish up packing, I purchased an umbrella so I could do a little more walking and grab some food.

My NYC trip was great and turning 31 feels fabulous so far. Also, my social media was definitely filled with posts about me.

BTW my books are available for purchase.

This Is For The Lover In You


Woman Manifested: A Poetic Tale