Ambitious Girl: Part 1 - Our Men

Summer is coming! While I am thrilled about good weather and summer fashion, I find myself looking forward more toward the opportunities summertime tends to present me. My ambition has been my focus as of late. Long story short, I'm young, but getting older. I need to get my shit together. That (plus a few recent occurrences) is the inspiration behind this new set of posts. I dedicate these to ambitious girls everywhere.

When it comes to ambition, nothing is more important than your state of mind. Being in a mental state of optimism, positivity and certainty. So naturally, the best thing to do is to surround yourself with people who are like minded and will help motivate you and keep you on the right track. Perhaps no one person is more vital in this supportive role than the man in your life.

I can recall being with guys who, while talented and full of potential themselves, never truly had faith in mine. I'm attracted to ambition, drive, determination. That self-motivated attitude just does something for me. Why? Because I want to see in my man what I see in myself: greatness. It always starts off the same way; we first meet, they ask what I do (not an easy answer), and give that "Oh, that's dope," response. They may even read a thing or two that I've written and tell me how much they enjoyed it. But as time progresses, things begin to shift. It's so slow and gradual, that at first you don't even recognize it. It starts small, simple, and seemingly innocent. Usually it begins with careless dismissal. He doesn't want to hear about what you're doing anymore. Suddenly all the intellectual and business conversations revolve around him and what he wants to do. You find yourself constantly reassuring him that he's on the right track, he's doing fine, everything will work out, a lot of "just stay positive babe,". Try to insert an experience of yours as an example or analogy, he dismisses it as "not being the same". I can remember vividly having a bad day at work and coming home to my man. He asked me what was wrong of course, but mid way through my rant about how tired I was of working so hard for such little reward, he cut me off saying simply, "baby, I'm glad you're working so hard but I really don't want to hear all about work,". I never mentioned work again. But please believe he expected me to sit and listen to his tirades about everything going on with his work. Silly me, I did, and do you know where that lead me? I got so wrapped up in him, supporting him, reassuring him and consoling him that I forgot about myself. My ambition took a back seat to his! And imma keep it all the way real, I was the one with the REAL potential in our relationship. I lost myself and gave up my life to be his cheering section when all I wanted in the beginning was someone to cheer for me as hard as I cheered for them.

We're already expected to love unconditionally, support him & his dreams, understand that he's human & will makes mistakes and to forgive him for those mistakes. We are wanted at home to play the woman's part (which there is NOTHING wrong with, I want to STRESS that because we do serve an important purpose in gender roles that way), criticized and harshly scrutinized when we don't pursue our own goals for the sake of our men, by both men and women alike. We have to play two roles; the loving woman, mothers of the future and queens to our kings, as well as modern woman, free thinker, independent female, begging nothing from anyone. It's no easy task to wear all those hats. Especially when one lifestyle and the other clash.

Next comes the break up. Possibly the hardest thing any of us ever has to do. We all do it for different reasons, but the ambitious girl, she does it because her relationship is becoming a liability to her ambition. As mine did for me. I hate breaking up because using your ambition as the reason for leaving someone, seems to never be enough. It's as though we shouldn't be allowed to leave someone to focus and better ourselves. So you tell him, as sincerely as you know how, that you want to end it. You need time and space to breathe and think about yourself. When I was younger it was to find myself. When I had found myself and finally felt like I knew who I was, my breakup was to nurture this new sense of self. To feed my ambition and achieve the greatness I knew I had within me. You know what he told me? The same thing many men tell ambitious girls: "Whatever, you just want to breakup so you can go be a hoe,". This same thing had been said to me by 3 men. Three men who all had ambitions of their own, who upon meeting me claimed to love that I was motivated. Told me how sexy it was that I was so smart. Now these men reduced me to the lowest common denominator: pussy.

I will not lie to you (because I love y'all so), each and every time I heard that, I became so discouraged, so hurt and so broken by the statement. Why couldn't I just truly want something more for myself? Why couldn't it be that I felt held hostage by the man who claimed to want the best for me? Nothing I said had any bearing anymore. He had decided that ambition wasn't my motivation, but the pursuit of penis was. I felt small, inadequate and as though I didn't know myself. It made me feel as though regardless of who I chose to love and share my life with, my ambitions would always come after his because his were more important, more validated. I had no idea how untrue this was until I proved myself wrong. I decided to validate myself instead of allowing anyone to make me feel lesser-than. Possibly the most liberating feeling in the world is succeeding at something people tell you you can not do.

Now, there are fellas reading this now who may have been the ones telling a female that "she only wants to go be a hoe", and not to worry, I've saved a special section for you. Although the modern woman tends to be more self sufficient and motivated to independence, not every girl uses this reason truthfully. For some girls it's a nice politically correct way to end a relationship without being in the wrong. That way when you spazz out, she can say "look at him, I told him I need space and time to better myself and he's going ham," meanwhile she's happy as a pig in shit, using her new freedom to wear down her mattress... Bathroom sink.... Backseat of a car....VIP section of the club... Etc. I am, in no way, speaking about these trifling hoes who make life harder for ambitious girls who really just want no distractions, and the freedom to make life decisions without having to factor in her man. But that's for you as a man to decipher. Don't punish a real bitch for what a fake hoe does.

Truthfully, as women we need to understand that we are in a new age. While many things are changing, the mind sets of people are still slowly progressing. They need time to catch up. To accept that sometimes he needs to have dinner ready because you were actually busy being great, but that you will still put the kids to bed and make their lunch for school. We can't ignore our nature as women, but we shouldn't suppress that inner voice telling us that we are so much more than what any man, or woman believes we are.

The Articulate (and ambitious) Bitch