Listen to The Snob Talk About "Where Did Our Love Go" on Atlanta's KISS FM

The Snob is back talking about love, black love in particular on this March 17 interview. It aired on Atlanta's 104.1 KISS FM and featured myself, Edward Garnes, and book editor Gil Robertson about his new book Where Did Our Love Go?, released in February. I contributed to the book, which is about the state of black love and marriage, featuring several essays on singlehood, marriage and divorce. (Mine was in the divorce chapter, called "The Problem with Marriage.") You can check out the full interview on Atlanta's 104.1 KISS FM here.

Clutch Magazine: On Why You're Not Married and Why That's OK

In Clutch Magazine Online, I talk about why I wrote the chapter I did in Gil Robertson's book of essays, "Where Did Our Love Go." My chapter in the divorce section called "The Problem with Marriage" asks people to free themselves from the burden of societal expectations and find the kinds of relationships that work for them.

Here's a snippet:

I know some of you badly want to get married and many of you actually will. But many of you will also get divorced. And some of you will live with someone. And others will have kids, but not be married to the father. And you will feel guilty because you failed at finding “forever” with a “soul-mate.” But that is the wrong way of thinking.

Love can be for a reason and a season.

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In Celebration of Passive-Aggression, My Choice Form of Aggression

In honor of Women's History Month I'm dedicating various posts to the ten different women who I've called my "best friend" at different times in my life, as well as the dozens of other women who are my close friends as well. Who've been there for me. Who have even saved my life. This one goes out to two women I'm not friends with anymore because fighting is not a way of life for me:

There wasn't a follow up conversation when I decided it was over.

No negotiations. No back and forth. No drawn out accusations. It was just over. In email form. Two years of intense friendship cracked under the pressure of one person too aggressive and another too passive aggressive.

I was the passive aggressive one.

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Clutch Magazine: When the So-Called "Nice Guy" Isn't Nice

Thursday for Clutch, The Snob tackles the legendary "Nice Guy." AKA, the dude who swears he's nice, but then calls you a bitch for not saying hello. Yes. Yes that does sound like something a nice person would do.

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In Celebration of Difficult Women: She's Not Crazy, She's My Friend

In honor of Women's History Month I'm dedicating various posts to the ten different women who I've called my "best friend" at different times in my life, as well as the dozens of other women who are my close friends as well. Who've been there for me. Who have even saved my life. This one goes out to the half of you my guy friends won't date because they're convinced you'll reign terror on them for imaginary slights when you only attack when provoked by cheaters, liars, abusers and other horrible people you may date:

"I don't think you should do that," I tell her ... or should I say, I tell the 1,001st version of her I've known. She's a friend. She's a very good friend. She's a best friend. I love her and she loves me more. She's funny and loyal and caring and always there. 

She's also the one all my guy friends call "crazy."

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The Snob In New Book "Where Did Our Love Go?"

The Snob recently got published in Gil L. Robertson, IV's new essay compilation book Where Did Our Love Go? It's a book about black love and marriage and what has changed about both those things in recent years. I contributed a chapter on why marriage is less popular than it used to be under the "divorced" section called "The Problem With Marriage." As long-time Snob readers know, I was briefly married in my early 20s and watched that bake, crack and dry up in the hot West Texas sun. It hasn't made me bitter, but it did open my eyes to some realities about myself and what marriage is and isn't.

Extended snippet after the jump.

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Clutch Magazine: When Love Is Confused With Violence

Last week for Clutch Magazine (while I was adjusting to living in the Big Bad City of NYC), I penned another story on Evelyn Lozada and her newly estranged, soon to be divorced hubby, Chad Johnson. Recently Johnson decided to deal with his break up by getting a tattoo of his future ex-wife's face on his leg. To put it mildly, this sounds incredibly ill-advised. For this post I touched on the romanticising of violence and pain out of love, when it's the one you love doling out that violence and pain.

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Clutch Magazine: The Fixer-Upper and the Disappearing Dad

Last weekend on Clutch I had not one, but two stories running about relationships. Namely how the New York Times' forgot all about fathers in a piece about single mothers and how looking for a Fixer-Upper is a romantic fallacy foisted upon us by Hollywood to make women (and men) miserable.

First up: Fathers! I have one. And he raised me to the best of his abilities, continues to love and support me and defines himself by his ability to be there for his wife, adult children and now, brand new grandchild. You know? He's basically a "responsible human being" who "values the people he loves and who loves him." Typical decent person stuff.

Yet, for some people a man shirking his parental responsibilities is just "a man being a man," which is an insult to men like my father and countless other men who stand up and do what they're supposed to do.

It's more like "Humans being humans and some humans are crappy and should wear condoms."

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Clutch Magazine: Ladies Can Have It All (If You Get A House Husband)

For the extremely career-oriented like myself (I've always wanted to be a writer. This is what livin' the dream looks like), career v. family is a battle constantly being waged within ... as I have no immediate family without. I have some adult sisters and verging on elderly parents, but no children or significant other of my own. This has left me lamenting why-oh-why I can't have the kind of marriage my father had -- where you get your spouse and kids and you get to keep your great career too. 

For Clutch Magazine Online, I examine my desire for what my father had ... and the realization that getting either side of the deal in my parents' marriage will be hard to come by. (It's not like I'm turning down a bunch of awesome bread-winning males left and right, I'll take what I'm compatible with, whether that's Joe Ambition or Joe the Cool Dad.)

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