Love. Or Tolerance?

I was reading the FaceBook status of an old male friend of mine, announcing the joys of his new-found romance and female acquaintance. He quoted the well-known cliche by saying, “Relationships are not about finding true love but about learning to love someone in their truest state.” I’ve heard this motif over and over and it would seem as though this has been tested tried and true.
Now what I’m about to say may be due to the innate “Hopeless Romantic” syndrome I acquired as a young girl, but I just don’t buy that logic. I cannot deny, I’ve been caught in my fair share of relationships where the romance was simply gone and I was just going with the motions. But that wasn’t happiness… toleration, to say the least. Yes I’ve sung the lamenting lines along with Luther.. “if you can’t be with the one you love… Love the one you’re with.” But I just don’t believe life ever gets that bad. Maybe its just the hopeless romantic in me but I’d never want to be with someone who just tolerated me or had to ‘warm up to’ the true me. Honestly, as much as I hate to say I’d rather be single than to be with someone who had to learn to care for me.
I think we live in a time in which the idea of black love is something that is slipping further out of our grasp. On YouTube you can see a myriad of videos from black people young and old downright bashing black love, black men, and black women. For a race so driven to overcome the stereotypes written for them, we have succumb to reiterating and adding validity to those very same stereotypes. Since viewing the plethora of YouTube videos I have been informed that since I’m a black woman I have a bad attitude, I’m loud, superficial, un-cultured, and that I ultimately possess no couth. This message being delivered is one that is not doesn’t seem to be offering any constructive criticism for young black people like me, rather it offers a message of lost hope.
As an advocate of all things black —black babies, black natural hair, black traditions, black love— I refuse be told that I can’t get married to a wonderful black man and have a beautiful black family that actually stays together. I refuse to believe that days of the “Cliff & Claire Huxtable” type of romance are over. I understand that things are definitely changing for all people in the terms of the standards of love and romance. And I am aware that long are the days of what we would consider the conventional gender roles of how one should act within relationships. It would be ridiculous to suggest that there is a certain mold everyone should follow to ensure a long-lasting relationship filled with romance and happiness. But I can stand confidently in assuring you— as well as the many black men and women on YouTube— that there are answers to their doubts about love.

Just thoughts. Definitely not the finish chapter on this subject… more to be developed..