Session 452: Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now? Romance, Identity & Online Culture

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor Joy hard and Bradford,
a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or

(00:32):
to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much

(00:57):
for joining me for session four fifty two of the
Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our
conversation after a word from our sponsors. Where were you
when it is having a boyfriend embarrassing Now? Article dropped

(01:19):
late last year. When the piece came out, it immediately
took Internet discourse by storm and had a lot of
people in heterosexual relationships questioning and taking a deeper look
into their relationships. The piece pushed a lot of us
to ask ourselves, what does it actually look like to
publicly claim my partner. I'm excited to welcome the woman

(01:39):
behind the article London based writer and digital content producer
Chante Joseph, whose Nuance commentary on culture had all of
us in quite a tizzy. Today we'll unpack the realities
of dating and the digital age, and how women are
redefining partnership as society shows further away from patriarchy. If
something resonates with you while in join our conversation, please

(02:01):
share with us on social media using the hashtag tpg
in session, or join us over in our patreon to
talk more about the episode. You can join us at
Community that Therapy from Blackgirls dot com. Here's our conversation.
Thank you so much for joining us to dash, I say.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yeah, I am so thrilled to chat with you.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
I feel like you have one of the articles that
were read around the world is having a boyfriend now embarrassing?
And so I would love to get some background from you,
like was there something in particular that you saw going
on that like was the origin for that piece or
where did it come from?

Speaker 4 (02:45):
I think I just started to notice that people are
being really weirdly kind of secretive about their partners online,
and not just people who are celebrities, but just like
regular regular people. And I kind of started to see
that just online and our conversation around relationships, particularly hetersexual relationships,
was changing quite drastically, and it didn't have this same

(03:08):
sort of sense of aspiration and achievement that it once did,
and so I was wondering if these two things were connected.
In the UK, there were like two quite big I
guess influencers or content creators who one got married and
one was proposed to and in both the wedding video
and in the engagement video, the partner's spaces were always

(03:30):
cut out of the frame, and I was like, this
is so weird. And also it started to become like
a bit of a mockery of itself, like people would
do things to intentionally cut out their partner's head in
order to make fun of or make light of people
who do it, and I was like, wow, why is.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
This actually happening?

Speaker 4 (03:46):
And so I just pitched it as an idea that
I would go out into the world and speak to
women about and try to figure out why this is happening.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
And yeah, it was just really interesting.

Speaker 4 (03:56):
All of the people who came back to me and
were speaking to me about the piece and giving me
their insights and sharing their perspectives, and they had like
a myriad of reasons while they were doing it, but
I guess the big thing was that there was this
idea of being in a romantic relationship with a man
indicated a politics or a way of being or a
person whod that I did not identify with, and it

(04:17):
just felt like fundamentally quite uncool. And so it was
just really interesting to see those experiences and hear from
those women and how they helped shape the piece, but also,
like you know, they were part of the wider conversation
that happened afterwards.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Everyone was sharing their opinions on the piece.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yeah. I mean, I think the title just itself.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
I don't know if you were responsible for the title,
if there was the editorial staff, but the title is
very joying, right, and so it is definitely something that
is going to get a lot of conversation. But it
also seems like there was a very stark response to
the piece. And you have talked about this whiplash almost
of oh my gosh, people are reading like journalism is bag,
but also like, oh, this is what's wrong with the

(04:54):
internet kind of thing. Can you talk about like some
of the response that you received post article.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
I think you had a lot of women who loved
the piece. They were like, this is amazing.

Speaker 4 (05:04):
A lot of women who, for most of their lives
they felt really bad about being single. Their singleness felt
like it was indicative of something more not nefarious, but
just something that was like lacking in them. And now
they kind of felt like, oh, this kind of identity
that I aspired to be someone's girlfriend, to have a boyfriend,
isn't actually as kind of interesting and magical as I
thought it was. And so there was a sense of

(05:24):
relief for them. And then you kind of had women
in relationships who felt really attacked by the peace, especially
women who had been single for a long time, who
would just say things like, you know, I finally got
a partner, and now everyone is saying it's uncle, Like
why are you doing this to me? And it was
just a bit like I hear it, But you know,
for them, it was like they wanted to cling onto
the I guess, the prestige that this identity gave them.

(05:46):
And then you had the men who were just human.
They were so angry they were not having it, sending
me a lot of hate, a lot of threats, just
really awful things. And I've been online for such a
long time and I've been writing for such a long time,
and you know, I used to write a lot around
like anti bacism, things like Black Lives Matter in the UK,
and you know, all of the stuff that happens here,

(06:06):
and I would get a lot of backlash and racist
abuse on line or whatever, and you get very used
to that.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
I mean, you're just terrible. But like I think, when
you're a black.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
Woman online and you have opinions and you're talking against
I guess the what is the norm?

Speaker 2 (06:20):
People don't like it and they get real angry at you.
So I was used that for a long time.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
But the energy, the hatred I got from these men,
these like in cells deep in the manisphere, that was scary.
That was petrifying. And it just taught me a lot
about where I guess a lot of men are politically
and how their sort of male loniness epidemic is manifesting

(06:45):
in this sort of like hatred and violence against women.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
And yeah, they couldn't stand it.

Speaker 4 (06:49):
And then I can say to you, there was like
another level of like racism in this in the sense
that as a black woman I am writing this piece,
is having a boyfund embarrassing now, And a lot of
white women are taken to it and they love it.
And then white men were seeing that and they were
kind of angry at me for being the person who
ruined the sanctity of like white Western relationships. You know,

(07:12):
I had a lot of women being like, I just
done my boyfriend, I just worke with my boyfriend because
of this peace blah blah blah.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
And then you would have boyfriends who would be angry
at me.

Speaker 4 (07:21):
And it was really, really, really wild, and the insults
were very interesting because it would be like the kind
of typical misogyny, but it would just be like, you're
a black woman, You're the least desired, no one wants you.
You're not even good looking. Of course you think having
a boyfriend's embarrassing. No one wants you, You're ugly. Like
it was just so it was just so personal.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
So vindictive.

Speaker 4 (07:43):
There's something about racism that is like somewhat impersonal, like
just because of the kind of my skin, this is
what you think I am.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
But it doesn't really have anything to do with me.

Speaker 4 (07:52):
But it's just like how I present, but it was
just like racism, it was misogyny. It was like me
being a woman, me being a black woman on line
with opinions, and it was like just layers and layers
and layers and layers of abuse, all kind of powered
up of people just really really angry about it.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
So it was a lot.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
And I think that there's something to be said about
a piece that it strikes so many cores for people,
kind of on the more positive in and on the
very negative in. But I also wonder, like, what are
your thoughts around, like just the psychology of people reading
like an article and like so identifying with it, right,
because in a lot of ways, like in the psychology world,
you became the bad object.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
For these men, right, like, oh, she's the reason.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
Why my wife hates me, not all the other awful
things I've done her, right this one article. And so
what are your thoughts just around like the psychology of
like why people reacted so strongly to the piece.

Speaker 4 (08:42):
I think for the women who are really upset, I
think it's because they too need to believe in the
privilege of the heterosexual relationship. And if you are someone
who doesn't have a lot of privileges in society and straightness,
and like your heteronormative identity is a privilege, then you
want to hold onto that. And that's not to say

(09:03):
that they hate everyone else, but I think there's an
element of like, oh, I might have to relinquish the
idea that this identity I hold, this performance is something
that will gain me more access to things or more
cultural capital. And then for men, I think their anger
was more to do with the fact that they are

(09:24):
losing power in so many spheres in life, in the workplace,
in education, even in the home. Like men do not
retain the same level of power and dominance that they
once had, and the only place that they can really
and truly exert that now is within the emotional space
in the dating world. Like as much as we have
progressed so much as women and we can open bank

(09:45):
accounts and work and be educated, I sometimes feel like
there's this sort of as reading the paper bag, like
a cultural lag where what we see as a normal
I guess ordinary for a woman to do today, like
being independent whateverever, has an necessarily caught up with the
ideas we have around singleness and womanhood. And there's still
I think people are at the court in this desire

(10:07):
to want something that's traditional while living a very modern life,
and so because of that, that's yearning to be in
these emotional dynamics with men. I think a lot of
women do relinquish a lot of power to men in
these emotional worlds. And if now having a boyfriend is embarrassing,
being romantically associated with a man is embarrassing, and you're
taking back some of your power, they don't like that.

(10:31):
Where else are they going to exert dominance? Where else
are they going to be able to prove and show
and display and masculinity if not in dominating the emotional
worlds in this way. And so I think on a
deeper level, it was an insecurity for men and women,
women not being able to have the privilege of a
head sexual partnership, men not having emotional dominance in the

(10:51):
dating world. And so I think that's what really got
people rouled up. And then you just had women who
had historically always felt bad about their singleness feeling like,
oh my gosh, like are the tables turning? Are things changing?
And that really shocked me the most because I'm twenty nine,
I'm thirty this year but I was getting messages from

(11:13):
you know, like twenty one year olds, like nineteen year
olds who just felt like because they didn't have boyfriends
in their lives, they felt less than they felt like
they weren't good people.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
They felt that.

Speaker 4 (11:22):
Something wrong with them, which really broke my heart because
I can't believe from such a young age, you guys
are conditioned to believe and think that because there is
not a man displaying any interest in you, you are
rendered invisible. It starts so young, and so for them,
it was affirming this idea that they are actually okay
and like being in a relationship doesn't necessarily make them

(11:44):
any better as people.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
So that was like a good thing. But I guess, yeah,
depending on your situation, you read it very differently.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
Yeah, And what was there like kind of taking care
of yourself in the aftermath of this virility, right, because
I think that's a piece that is not often talked about,
Like we have this piece that is red around the world,
and then you're having all this positive reaction but are
self very negative reaction. How did you find yourself reacting
and what did you need to do to take care
of yourself?

Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, I went right back to therapy.

Speaker 4 (12:13):
I had to think in therapy every single week since
that oh oh came out every single week because it
was crazy. It was so crazy because you're not only
are you kind of getting this like hate and abuse,
but then you're having like hundreds and thousands of people
following you online looking at what you're doing, engage with
what you're doing, wanting to know what you're thinking about

(12:34):
this thing. There's the anticipation of like, what are you
going to do next? And then there are people who
are prying into your life.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Do you have a partner, do you have boyfriend?

Speaker 4 (12:44):
Oh, you don't have a boyfriend, or that's why you
think that, you know, people becoming really kind of I guess,
familiar and personal with you in a way that can
just feel quite confronting. And then I think there was
just a lot around trying to almost protect and preserve
like my and my thoughts and my ideas and not
feel too invested in it.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
In some ways, I.

Speaker 4 (13:04):
Felt the leader of a movement almost and then I
felt a huge sense of responsibility to make sure I
was doing all of the right things, saying all of
the right things, showing up online in the right ways.
And that was really overwhelming, and so yeah, I had
to like go to therapy. I had to really work
out all of this stuff. And also because the comments
would be so personal, like they were hitting at like wounds,

(13:27):
they were hitting at old wounds that I was like, oh, okay,
this is really triggering something in me. I need to
find a space where I can have these conversations so
they don't affect the quality of my work going forward.
And so I had to really lock in and like
just deal with a lot of stuff that was coming up,
I think from people just trying to be really malicious
and evil towards me.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
You know, that's really interesting and I want to hear
more about this, like this idea that you know, especially
for a writer in this landscape, right, like to have
a piece that had hits like this, and then you
say like, oh, is this some like movement like people
are latging on too. It feels like there could be
the pressure like, oh, this is my lane, right like
now I got to like gear my career and my

(14:09):
writing towards this. But you were already writing your book,
like your book coming out later this year, So how
are you kind of navigating that pressure to kind of
be like oh, the boyfriend embarrassing woman.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
It's so true. They want you to be that thing.

Speaker 4 (14:23):
And I think it's difficult for me because I've been
writing for years and years and years, and I kind
of write a piece and then I move on, and
then I write the next piece, and then I move
from like, so it's really weird to be kind of
stuck in this place and frozen in with this idea.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
So I've had to really.

Speaker 4 (14:40):
Work hard to try and make sure I'm pitching ideas
or writing things that feel different, that show the kind
of breadth of my interest and my experiences and the
thoughts I have in the world beyond just sort of dating,
because I kind of feel like it becomes repetitive after
a while. Well, and because I am not a professional.

(15:04):
I am not like a mental health expert whatever. I'm
never going to be online doing like ten signs you
have a weird attachment style like six ways to That
is not my bag. So I can never go online
and start becoming a relationship expert. I'm just interested in relationships.
I'm interested in how we're doing dating. I'm interested in

(15:25):
the kind of divergence between men and women, and I'm
interested in exploring that I am not in the business
of giving advice because i'd have any successful relationships on
my belt for me to tell people or how's avaia relationship?

Speaker 2 (15:37):
I don't know what I'm talking well, but I.

Speaker 4 (15:38):
Am just inquisitive and nosy and curious and I want
to put out ideas and I want to heal people
have to say. And so I've been trying to remember, like,
that is what I.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Am, that is what I do. I will have.

Speaker 4 (15:51):
More interesting ideas, I will spark more conversations, and they
don't always have to be about relationships, even though I
have like written lots about relationships with on the past.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
But you know, I'm kind of interested in a bunch
of things.

Speaker 4 (16:02):
I'm trying to really give as much as I can
in terms of like, these are all the things I like.
I am more than just this one idea or one concept.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
More from our conversation after the break I love is
having a boyfriend embarrassing, but I probably love your piece
around low maintenance friendship, and like I'm giving this up.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
I'm not being a low maintenance friend even more than
the boyfriend piece. And it feels like.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
It's kind of in conversation with this piece right in
your earlier comments around it's kind of singleness having a
moment right now, and it kind of feels.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Like it is to me.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
But then I hear you say like, oh, nineteen and
twenty year olds or writing you saying, oh, I feel
like something was wrong with me because I didn't have
a boyfriend. What are your thoughts about like the moment
that singleness is having or not right now? Like how
do you think women are viewing that?

Speaker 2 (16:59):
I think it's like we're going through a moment, like
we haven't fully got there yet, but there is like
significant progress being made, and I feel like that progress
is going to be expedited because the way men and
women are doing this. At some point we're.

Speaker 4 (17:16):
Going to have to start figuring out what does truly
being content single look like? What are the other ways
that I can imagine my life that don't center around
I'm going to have a partner one day and this
is my have three hour after and not in a
way that is like depressing or immuseual life lacks or
there's nothing else going on.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
It's just like there has to be new ideas, there has.

Speaker 4 (17:39):
To be new scripts because things are not looking great
as they are, and as long as women are still
completely wrapped up and hung up in trying to partner
with a man, I just think there will just be
a lot of disappointment.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
So what next? And I think we're in our what next.

Speaker 4 (17:54):
Period where we're figuring out how we build these new lives,
these new stories.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
These new ideals.

Speaker 4 (18:00):
But I do think I think being online and seeing
the way that even to like single women, content is
becoming so much more common and loads of people are
talking about their experiences very candidly, like that shame is disappearing,
and because we talk about our negative experiences with men
so much more candidly, and I definitely credit a lot

(18:21):
of that to gen Z. They know how to discuss
what it was like to date someone or the ls
that they had to hold in their dating lives without
carrying the collective shame.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
And what that has done is it has more women.

Speaker 4 (18:34):
In conversation about the things that they've experienced, because before
it would be like, oh, this man treated me this way.
I haven't heard anyone else being treated like this, so truly,
this must be about me as an individual. There is
something about me that made this person treat me this way.
But what we're realizing is that, oh, no, he treated
all of these people this way, and all these people
receive this treatment, and it's not about me being uniquely bad.

(18:57):
This is just what men have been allowed to do
and how they've been allowed to behave in the dating space.
And so because of that, I think people are taking
things less personally. There's disinvesting slowly and slowly from these relationships,
and they're thinking about how expansive their life can be.
And I think at first that's that feels quite difficult
because we've been told this is what it means to

(19:18):
live a good life, this is what it means to
be happy, this is what means to be fulfilled, this
is what means to graduate into adulthood. And so when
you don't have those markers, you're like, what do I
do now? I'm really scared. But then on the other
side of that, it's like, Oh, I can do anything,
Like the world is my oyster. I can imagine any
sort of future for myself when I no longer have
these parameters telling me I need to exist in this

(19:39):
way to be happy. And so I think we are
on the precipice of something great.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
But I think there's.

Speaker 4 (19:46):
Also a collective grief that needs to happen, mourning the
lives that we thought that we would all live, mourning
this idea of like the couple being the center of
our world, of our society. Like so much is changing,
and I think, yeah, there's collective grief before there is
like a radical acceptance.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
What do you think those stakes are for black women
in this conversation? Right, because the article was kind of
globally relative to lots of people, But I do think
that there's a particular conversation and maybe response they are
black women here to the piece, Can you share that? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (20:19):
I think it was most of my platforms anyway, Like
most of my followers are black women, so I always
feel like I'm constantly in conversation with them, writing for
them to them, and I think their response from black
women across the board, it was definitely buried. I think
people who are more religious, people who grew up in
the church, people who are very I guess traditional ideas

(20:41):
around partnership, I think they found it in some ways
more difficult to accept.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
Like I just wrote this piece for Glamar.

Speaker 4 (20:50):
I assuming out yet, but it's about some of the
responses I got to my piece, and like a lot
of black men, those who are particularly in the church,
would call me like, oh wait, or you know this
is not of God, You're doing the devil's work.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
You know.

Speaker 4 (21:04):
There was that sort of thing of like insinuating that
because I had the audacity to question how accepting we
are of head sexual relationships and not actually questioning whether
those dynamics are always really healthy, like I was doing
the devil's work.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
So sure, so I think.

Speaker 4 (21:19):
For some women it was like it was confronting in
that way, but for a lot of black women, like they.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
Had already been on this right.

Speaker 4 (21:25):
I always think of Charlie's toolbox and her bringing up
this idea of decentering men, and that was like a truly, truly,
truly like transformative piece of information for me. I remember
coming across her maybe in like twenty twenty or something
like that, and.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
It completely changed my life. So people like.

Speaker 4 (21:40):
Her have always been ahead of the curve in terms
of like being quite inquisitive and questioning everything we know
to be a head sexualromantic relationship. And so I think
I credit a lot of black women for me having
the I guess even the bravery or the curiosity to
ask the questions I had to ask, and so in
some respects it was like people would be like, yeah,

(22:01):
one hundred percent with you on this all the way,
I absolutely love this, and then others would be like,
this is say tat Nick, and so it was kind
of like that sort of balance.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
And then there were also I think a lot of
black women.

Speaker 4 (22:14):
Who had like never been in relationships before and had
this sort of I like this, this feeling of I
can read this piece and I can understand it, and
I can hear all about these women's experiences and I
can understand why they feel this way. But I still
haven't fully been able to accept this as an idea
because I actually yearned for companionship in that way. And

(22:36):
obviously I was never really arguing or trying to argue
with people, but I was always really curious about what,
like how they felt and how this piece made them feel,
and their thoughts on what relationships could look like for
them in a different world.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
So yeah, there was a lot of conversations that I had.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yeah, it feels like that really speaks to the morning
piece that you taught about, right, like, you know, we
can make space for both of these things to be true,
Like there can be a yearning for companionship, and if
you find healthy companionship, I don't think anybody is arguing
against it. But can there also be space for all
of these people who may want companionship and for whatever
reason it doesn't happen, right, And how he can still

(23:14):
go on to have a very full and happy life, right,
Like both of those things can be true.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, but I think it's difficult.

Speaker 4 (23:22):
I think people struggle to The thing with like like
straight relationships is that there has to be some sort
of superiority to the form of the couple that makes
single life feel quite unbearable. Like we view couples as
morally superior, they are doing life the right way. There's
a book called Minimizing Marriage, and she was like, you know,
there are over one thousand sort of like laws or

(23:45):
regulations that are specifically.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Benefits for married people.

Speaker 4 (23:50):
And it's just like, this is the world that we
live in, right, So we see coupled them as a
aspirational state, and it can only be aspirational if being
single is not. And so I think it's so hard
for people to hold those truths at the same time
because one has to be elevated above the other in
order for it to be desirable. If that was like
relationship neutrality, I don't know if as many people would

(24:13):
actually even couple up.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
So, you know, one of the main arguments that the
piece was really making was around kind of like posting
partners right, So a lot of this kind of came
in the back end of the article. But like your
main comment and one of your central thesis is it
feels like, was why aren't people posting right? Like it
feels like there's a very intentional act to like not
post your partners But the other side of that is

(24:35):
that we have seen, you know, people who get into
relationships and then like they get brand deals or like
all of these like there's a real monetization of coupling
that also happens. Can you talk about like that piece,
like how you know, like just the idea of content
creation has also maybe reinforced these ideas of partnership being ideal.

Speaker 4 (24:57):
Yeah, I mean people are seeing love Island when it
and stuff like that. There's definitely a whole industry around
the couple and people definitely buy into it because they
think it's aspirational. But also I think the fallout from
those relationships are always incredibly messy, and in some ways,
I feel like a lot of people are sat on

(25:18):
the edge of their seats, like just thinking, oh, when
is this gonna go wrong? Like I think of Kirsty
Desmond and Scott Desmond their life day. Yeah, they were
social media couple and they used to dancing around and stuff,
and then you know, they suddenly broke up and he
had like cheered on her and then he was in
the club the next day and it was on TMZ.
And there is definitely something around also just the downfall

(25:41):
of these relationships that people are just obsessed with too.
But I think, yeah, there is a lot around. It's
still aspirational to be in a relationship, so people are
able to make a lot of money kind of creating
content from being with their partners. But I also think
after awhile does start to feel like super contrived, especially
people are starting to feel a little bit more like

(26:03):
you know, being irl with people and like not having
all of your ideals shaped by what you be on
social media, and like not feeling as if what you
see online has to be a reflection of your own life.
I do feel like things that are changing a lot,
and also just the rise in a single women content creators,
even just like single women focus community groups and spaces,

(26:23):
there is just a lot that is happening in.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
That world that is growing.

Speaker 4 (26:26):
I would say, like equally as big as that sort
of content too, and even just the amount of community
groups that have popped up, like people are desperate to
be in bigger communities with others. Like I think the
focus on the couple feels like it has less and
less of a group on people as they actually seek
to be a meaningful part of communities where they have

(26:48):
roles and responsibilities and they need to show up for people.
But yeah, for now, Like, if you are in a
couple and you are online, like you could probably make
some money from it, but you are also going to
be the subject of like prying eyes and opinions all
the time.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
When I think about like okay posting partners online, that
is what I see a lot is that people then
feel entitled to like commentary and like make suggestions and like, oh,
why are they doing these kinds.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
Of things anymore?

Speaker 1 (27:16):
But one of the women that you interviewed and the
piece also talked about like having to get rid of
twelve years of content after a breakup, right, Like how
much do you think? Like the idea of a potential
breakup also informs how people maybe share their partners online.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
Oh, one hundred percent.

Speaker 4 (27:34):
One thing that so many women said to me was like,
if this man cheats on me and embarrasses me, I'm
going to have to do this purge of my social
media platforms and that is going to be humiliating. And
it's just this idea of you've met this person, you're
in a relationship this person, but in the back of
your mind, you are anticipating this future embarrassment where you're

(27:57):
going to have to go and purgrole of your social
media because you.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Can't be seen to be with them anymore.

Speaker 4 (28:02):
It's almost like women just expect it as part of
the deal of dating men, and it's just so bad
that they don't even see the point in posting them
in the first place, Like why would I ever do
that when I just feel like something is going to
happen or something could happen, and I don't want to
put myself in a position where I have to walk
back this sort of declaration of love. Like so many

(28:24):
people are always Like you know, loving a man feels
like a humiliation ritual because you just feel like you
are just waiting, like when is the other shoe going
to drop?

Speaker 2 (28:33):
Like when is it going to go bad?

Speaker 4 (28:35):
And you are protecting yourself against that, and that protection
also looks like making sure they're nowhere to be seen
on your social media even if you love them so much.
You just know that it doesn't matter how much I
love you, you have the capacity to truly be evil, and
I can do nothing but just prepare for that.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
Essentially, you know so much.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
This wasn't directly addressed in Europeace, but I feel like
the conversations around like being romantic, couples being ideal and
all of that come from realmcounts, right, Like so many
of us are socialized to think about this and like.

Speaker 3 (29:06):
So many movies, so many pieces.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Is there any particular realm count then you feel like
really informed your ideas about partnership, or maybe a book
or a piece of media that has kind of shaped
these ideas for you.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
That's such a good question. I can't lie. I am
not a rom com.

Speaker 4 (29:25):
Person at all, Like I do not like rom coms,
like I don't like any sort of romantic and things.
The only time I will watch them if it has
gripped the zeitgeist and we're all talking about it and
it's like something that you have to watch because you
need to be a parplical conversation. I will watch it,
but never out of just enjoyment. Maybe I'm just dead inside,

(29:47):
but I really struggle.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
I'm like, this is not real.

Speaker 4 (29:51):
I'll watch Interstella and I'll be like, yeah, string theory
going through the universe to go back in time to
get his daughter and she's old at love believable. I'm
locked in a wrong com I'm like, what the hell
is this?

Speaker 2 (30:05):
This is not real.

Speaker 4 (30:06):
Obviously, I guess like Bridget Jones and stuff like that
I've always found like really funny and sort of like
relatable and interesting. Obviously, sex and theity, like I like
love sex and the cy down, Like definitely feel like
that has probably shaped maybe just I guess pessimism in
some sense around relationships and just like yeah, kind of

(30:27):
how I think about them.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
More generally.

Speaker 4 (30:29):
There was a film called Serendipity that I've watched that
I really really loved. I think those are the ones
I was like, oh, this is quite good. But outside
of that, I'm just like I cannot. I'm like skip next,
don't want to do it, Like, don't it cage with
me at all.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
I wonder how you balance for yourself.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
I mean because even in the piece you talk about
you know also your own yearning for a companionship, right,
like that is something that you've written about, but also
balancing with like I'm doing inside and I also.

Speaker 3 (30:55):
Don't love this. How do you strike their balance in
your every day Like I.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
Am in therapy.

Speaker 4 (31:04):
Everyone, I'm in therapy every single week, literally, I guess
every using week. I definitely feel like part of it
for me is like trying to be I think maybe
more optimistic.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
I think I think I've.

Speaker 4 (31:21):
Just read too much and I've heard too much that
I'm a bit like, you know, I wrote this piece
for Conde Nash Traveler that came on Valentine's Day, and
they were like, oh, we want you to write about
like love and travel and you know, like any experiences
we had abroad.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
And I spoke about.

Speaker 4 (31:34):
Like being in Brazil and meeting this American guy and
he was like so lovely and we went on a
day and we got along so well, and I was
like Oh my god, I actually really like this guy.
So I un followed him from everything, and I goes
to him for like more because I just cannot. I
just can't deal with any of those emotions. But do
you know I did then reach out to him, and

(31:55):
he was like that was so crazy that he goes
to me, and I was like, I know, and then
we like we went he flew me out to so
we went to the sea the Lordlines together and it
was so lovely. But I think that because there was
like six thousand miles between us, I was like, this
is doable. But I'm trying to learn how to engage
with that part of myself and be better. And that's
like what I'm doing in therapy, and I'm trying to

(32:16):
be like believe in love, like I'm I'm trying to
light that spark in me for sure, And I think
being in therapy helps me to like balance that it's
just so hard. I just read so much and I'm
like this is crazy, Like loving a man is crazy work,
what the hell? But I think people keep doing it

(32:36):
for some reason, so there must be some merit to it.
And I think, yeah, I think it just working on
what makes me feel really weird about this stuff and
learning how to like be better about it. I think
is helping me somewhat, But it is a journey. Like, God,
bless my therapist. Like I am so irritating, but she endures.

(32:57):
She endures every time.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
I'm sure she enjoys working with you through these things, right,
that's kind of the thing we signed up for.

Speaker 3 (33:04):
There.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
Oh, I love her.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
So it sounds like there have been a couple of
maybe spin off pieces and kind of follow ups to
the original piece. But if you were to like write
this article for the first time now in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
How do you think it would be different?

Speaker 2 (33:20):
Oh? I would be worse. Sorry, I was way too
polite in that piece. I was trying to respect the
sensibilities of people, sensibilities to be one, trying to be
quite down the middle.

Speaker 4 (33:33):
And nah, because I tried to do that, and you're
not still written to me a new one.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
So do you know what if I had to write
this piece again, Oh, I would be worse. Oh you
guys saw that piece was bad. I'm going to show
you what's bad for real, because it was just like, this.

Speaker 4 (33:49):
Is the most mild, tame piece ever, like and the
literature that I was reading around this piece. I read
Jane Wore The Tragedy of Head Sexuality banging book so fierce,
and she's a queer woman, and she kind of talks about, Oh,
I'm on the outside of straight this this is what
it looks like to me. You guys are insane, And
I was thinking, imagine, if I wrote one percent of

(34:12):
that energy in this article, you would have burned me
at the stake. I mean, you already called me a witch,
so we were nearly there.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
But it was just like, I feel like I could
have been punchier of for sure, before sure.

Speaker 4 (34:24):
If the piece would have been longer, you know, when
you write viewpoints for Vogue, it's only eight hundred and
fifty words, it's not even long. I would have made
it so much longer. I would have had a lot
more interviews. I probably would have also spoken to therapists
as well. Obviously I just collected the views of women
and I did a lot of reading around theory, but
I would have definitely loved to got the voice of

(34:47):
a therapist in that piece, to just to get their
perspective on how social media has changed the way that
we do relationships and so yeah, I think.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
It would have been longer. It would have been like
a longer feature for sure.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
In one of the pieces that I really appreciated you
introducing in that article was the boyfriendly and piece from
the tale that you still substick are the sociologists for
people who may not be familiar with their theory around boyfriendly,
can you.

Speaker 3 (35:11):
Say a little bit more about that.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
It's just the kind of.

Speaker 4 (35:14):
About women online creating a lot of content or creating
their entire online personas being about their boyfriend. And it's
like boyfriend land is just this wild and rich people
are like my boyfriend.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
My boyfriend, my boyfriend, my mom, my mom, my mom,
and my man.

Speaker 4 (35:29):
And it's like that's that you're just scrolling and you're
just hearing it all the time, and it is just
completely irritating. And then on top of it, it's like
men are not doing like my girlfriend, my girlf and
my girlfriend content in the same way. Like there isn't
as much I guess, like clout or desire or want
to brand your relationship with your girlfriend or the fact

(35:51):
that you are a boyfriend with the same vigor, Like
there's no demand for it, and so it's kind of
about looking into why that is and what does it
mean and how are we kind of even in this
age of being incredibly online and having access and being
able to see so much like we still fall prey
to the same kind of tired tropes of the wife

(36:14):
of the girlfriend, and it kind of just yeah, consumes
online identity, and it makes content really bland and staged
and boring and dull. And sometimes people it's not even
just boyfriends. Sometimes it's like my dad, my brother, like
just the my some man in my life, you know,
is always a theme on women's social media platforms as

(36:35):
part of women's social media identities, and it's just so
so consuming.

Speaker 1 (36:40):
More from our conversation after the break. So you've already
given us a couple, but I would love to hear
more about like some of the writers and thinkers that
you are reading and consuming that also feel like they're
in conversation with your work and have really helped you

(37:01):
to kind of shape your perspective.

Speaker 4 (37:03):
Oh okay, So I've been reading a lot of Eva Loose.
So she did the End of Love and Why Love Hurts,
And there was another book Consuming the Romantic, Consuming the
romantic Fantasy.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
I think it was another book.

Speaker 4 (37:16):
She wrote that I was reading Monachelette in Defense of Witches,
but yeah, Jane Ward's Tragedy of heir Sexuality another brilliant
book that I think really did give me the umph
to write this piece. Like it wasn't until I read
her book that I was like, Oh, this has opened
up a world for me. And then you know, then
I read Compulsory Head Sexuality by Adrian Rich and I

(37:39):
was like, it just my mind opened up and I
was like, I'm just completely obsessed with all of these.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
Writers and what they have to say because I'd never.

Speaker 4 (37:46):
Really thought about straight relationships in a particularly critical way.
I was just always like, this is something that we
just have to do, and I never felt like I
should question, like, why is this a norm? Why do
we feel like they in what ways are our societies
built to sustain and support these types of relationships above
all others? Into the conversations, oh letter Hong Fincher. She

(38:08):
wrote Leftover Women about like the women in China who,
after they're like twenty five, if they're not married or
or they don't have kids, the government brands them as
leftover women and basically just ran an entire media campaign
to scold them into getting married, which was just really
really wild. And then sarah La had a lot of
her studies around singleness A table for one brilliant book.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah, I've just been.

Speaker 4 (38:33):
Like deep in that world, like really understanding what does
it mean to be a woman in a relationship, aspiring
to be in a relationship, not in a relationship, Like
how did these things change how you're viewed and your identity? Sorry, yeah,
I'm just like going on.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
No, yeah, I'm like, oh, this is a long reading this.

Speaker 4 (38:55):
Yeah, yeah, gosh, I'm obsessed because we just don't I
just think not to go on a tangent, but sometimes
I think about singleness as an identity being seen as
this sort of like deficit state, this sort of like aberration.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
We don't know where to put you, we don't know
what to do with you.

Speaker 4 (39:14):
You're not fulfilling your purpose, you're not fulfilling the role
that is prescribed to you from the day that you're born,
and it kind of.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
Can just throw you into this spiral.

Speaker 4 (39:23):
And I'm always online, I'm always on TikTok, and I've
always seen these videos of like women like late twenties,
early thirties in floods of tears, crying. I've never had
a boyfriend before, I've never had a partner. I want
to have kids. I want this thing, and it's not
happening for me. I've done all the work. I go
to therapy, I go to the gym, I have a
good job, I take care of my family.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
I volunteer, I did And.

Speaker 4 (39:45):
They're listing of all the things they're doing and they're like,
I still can't find anyone da and like the pain
that they feel is like this visceral, deep pain, this loneliness,
this feeling of I'm not good enough.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
And I used to see this stuff and you would
always seen the comments.

Speaker 4 (40:01):
People would be like, you just need to love yourself,
like you just need to like say affirmations every day.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
And I'm like, I think is deeper than that.

Speaker 4 (40:10):
I think on a societal level, how we render single
women is doing something to our psyche that is making
us that sad. I don't think it's just because you
have low self esteem or you don't love yourself or
you don't do this like. There are other forces at
play that create a world that feels unbearable for some

(40:31):
single women. That just leads to these emotional outbursts like
and so I just, yeah, I'm just so obsessed with
understanding that better. And part of that is being able
to get women to just demystify the heterosexual romantic fantasy
and just feel like so much of what you feel
like you're lacking is stuff in your imagination, like it's

(40:52):
not even necessarily real. But also it's about understanding the
forces that make you feel the way you do. And
part of that is just the way we have prioritized
coupled them in society. And like, not that I'm like, oh,
we should hate relationships, but I just think we need
to be more realistic about them. The idealized view we
have of relationships is designed to make us feel bad

(41:14):
if we're a single.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
So how about we start to change the narrative a
little bit.

Speaker 4 (41:19):
And you know, these writers have been so instrumental in
me understanding that.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
And then there was when I spoke about the cultural lag.

Speaker 4 (41:26):
There's like a piece of study called like Caught in
the Cultural Lag, and it was about a study for
therapists basically trying to get therapists to talk to their older,
single female clients in ways that wouldn't like trigger them
even more and they kind of studied all of these
single women and how they felt about their identities and
the things that came up, the rhetorics that they would

(41:47):
turn to in order to self sue, but in order
to explain away their singleness, And it was basically about like, okay,
so how do you talk to people in this way?

Speaker 2 (41:54):
And that was like a really really helpful piece for
me as well.

Speaker 4 (41:57):
But yeah, I think there is some sort of I
don't think it's gonna fix all your problems, but there
is definitely a healing and really understanding singleness as an
identity and how it's constructed that I think would give
people a lot of I guess peace around their situations
because you know, it's not you, like you're not this
fundamentally unlovable and broken person, but like the world just

(42:20):
makes you feel like that sometimes.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
So yeah, yeah, I really appreciate you naming there, because
I do think there are so many forces that kind
of come together, like the church, like you talked about, right,
like our framing and our socializing around like coupled them
being like the peak, like it is the thing that
we are working toward. And when you think about any
other thing in your life, like there are steps to follow.

(42:43):
If you do these things, you are relatively assured success,
right going to school, buying a house or that's precarious,
but there are steps to follow for most things. And
I think partnership, I think we don't give enough credit
for how much of it is just look and like
being in the right place of the time, and like
personalities like and so there's this sense of like I

(43:04):
can't work hard enough that makes not finding a partner
and not having a partnership feel like a personal failure
as opposed to all these other things that need to
line up for that to actually happen in a healthy way.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
M h, it's crazy. And even other aspects of your life, right,
I know in the US, like it's a bit crazy,
but like you would have like programs that would help
people from like you know, underrepresented backgrounds get into specific places.
Like even in these things that you.

Speaker 4 (43:31):
Can work towards, if you are a specific kind of
person or you're in a specific kind of situation, there
are things set up to age you. And that that
doesn't exist when it comes to like finding love, it
is like a free for all and it's just the
wild wild West.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
Mm so I think the other thing that is likely
going to be the aftermath of this piece is that
other people will want to write and say like, oh,
I'm also interested in kind of cultural criticism and kind
of thinking through things. For people who are be aspiring writers,
what kinds of things or what advice would you have
for them, and what kinds of things do you feel
like they should be noticing to do this?

Speaker 3 (44:07):
Will?

Speaker 2 (44:08):
Do you know what?

Speaker 3 (44:09):
Read?

Speaker 4 (44:10):
Read, read, read, read, take in, take and take in.
But I think most importantly have conversations with people you
know well, people you don't know well. Get opinions. What
are people thinking about, what are they talking about? What's
interesting them. I think it's so easy to kind of
see a trend popping off online and then be like, oh,
I don't worry about this trend. But it's like what

(44:31):
extra layer can you add to it? What can you
use to help strengthen your argument, your reasoning, your theory.
Like I love like reading academics. Whenever I have an
idea about something, I'm like on Google scholar, what has
been researched, what have people said? What interesting studies are
they exploring? Like how can this help to you know,
dispel or to prove this thing I'm seeing, and then

(44:54):
who else can I talk to who's had real life experience,
who would share their story with me. I think a
lot of it is like having loads and loads of
loads of conversations and not being so sort of insular,
and when you feel like you have a really good
idea of something, then just putting it out there, whether
you are on sub stack or whether you're on Medium,
or if you're just like pitching to different platforms or
even newsletters, like find different ways for you to get

(45:17):
your words out there. But like I think, be super
curious in the world around you. Na sure, I know
it can be very hard. You know, we will work
from home now and people can be quite sailed up
and isolated. But as much as you can just get
in front of people, what are they talking about, what
do they care about? What are they noticing? Do you
notice it too? Do you have an opinion on that?
I think that is the best way to kind of

(45:37):
come up with some fun, interesting, compelling ideas to share.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
And so I also would love to hear more about
the book that we mentioned that you have a book
coming out later this year. Tell us about the book
that we can we expect Yeah.

Speaker 4 (45:50):
So the book is called Picky, is coming out in September,
and it's basically kind of a lot of what we've
discussed today, This idea of single women being like penalized
so much for their singleness and being made to be
the scapegoat for a lot of like social ills, and.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
How this is something that happens repeatedly.

Speaker 4 (46:10):
And if you're a single woman, it's like, you know,
you're too picky, you have unrealistic expectations, you need to
work on yourself. You're not looking hard enough, you're looking
too much, you're too desperate, you don't want it enough.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
Like, there are so.

Speaker 4 (46:23):
Many ways that we kind of like start to pathologize
just how single women are. And Peaky kind of seeks
to explain where all of that comes from, explain the
mechanisms through which women are demonized for their singleness, and
tries to provide a way out of that conditioning. But
it also acknowledges that these are huge forces that are

(46:44):
baked into our legislatures, baked into our legal systems, baked
in policy, into politics. You know, there's so much and
what we're experiencing now is not particularly unique. Every single
week we're seeing these stories about the birth rates falling
a fertility rates for you know, replacement rates, and it
always falls at the foot of women. And you know,

(47:05):
recently in France, they're sending a letter out to all
twenty nine year olds to remind them to have children
before it's too late. And they were like, you know,
we're sending this to men and women, so it's not
a big deal. But the only reason why they choose
twenty nine is because between like from twenty nine to thirty,
I think the government will pay for women to have
like any sort of fertility treatment that they want to have,

(47:27):
and so they're like trying to get into them early.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
And the whole idea of it.

Speaker 4 (47:31):
Being too late is something that we only ever apply
to women. And so we're kind of seeing the way
that this sort of like collective panic of like lonely
single men is becoming like women's fault. And because of that,
I think the sort of cultural pressure for women to
couple up is getting worse and worse and worse, and
so the despair of being single is also getting worse
and worse and worse. And so it seeks to explain

(47:53):
all of that just to provide some sort of levity,
I think to single women particularly, But yeah, it's been
like mind blowing.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Obviously.

Speaker 4 (48:01):
I love reading, I love having ideas and thoughts and
opinions and feelings, and I'm just learning so much. I'm
looking across cultures, I'm looking across time, and I'm like, oh,
there are things that are.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
Repeating here, and there are waves.

Speaker 4 (48:13):
And there are cultural experiences that we're all having and
none of this stuff is new. And so it's just
been like so much fun to write.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
If there was one piece of advice that you could
give to your eighteen year old silf, what would it be, Oh.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
God, oh god, eighteen year old Shande.

Speaker 4 (48:31):
I would say to her that doing less is more
and she doesn't have to prove herself to anyone, like
she is incredible as she is, So focus on what
it is she likes doing, and do that and it
doesn't matter if other people find it impressive. It doesn't
matter if other people find it interesting. What matters is

(48:53):
that it makes you feel.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
Good about yourself.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
So cut out all the noise a bit, and where
can we stay connected with you? Chante? I know people
will want to read the book when it comes out
and read more of your writing.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
What is your website in any social media channels you'd
like to share you So, yeah.

Speaker 4 (49:10):
I'm just across all social media at chante j and
i run an event series in London if any of
your listeners are ever here, called Strangers in the City,
and it is an event series where everyone comes solo
and you basically participate in some sort of activity. So
we've done you know, jiu jitsu, improv, We've done like

(49:32):
samba ring making, We've done quizzes, we've done candle making,
we do all sorts of stuff all around London.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
Everyone comes alone.

Speaker 4 (49:40):
You can only buy one ticket and redesign this space
so you can make friends. So you can come and
find me at a Strange in the City event. I'm
always there, always hosting, running it with my best friend's
a lab or you can just like follow me at
chante j across all social media platforms.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
Well, then that sounds like a very cool idea. We
will be sure to include all of there in the show. NOL,
thank you so much for spending some time with today.
I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (50:07):
I'm so glad Chantey was able to join us for
Today's Conversation, so learn more about her and her work.
Be sure to visit the show notes at Therapy for
Blackgirls dot com slash Session four fifty two, and don't
forget to text this episode to two of your girls
right now and tell them to check it out. Did
you know that you could leave us a voicemail with
your questions or suggestions for the podcast. If you have

(50:28):
topics you think we should discuss, drop us a message
at Memo dot fm slash Therapy for Black Girls and
let us know what's on your mind. We just might
feature it on the podcast. If you're looking for a
therapist in your area, visit our therapist directory at Therapy
for Blackgirls dot com slash directory. Don't forget to follow
us on Instagram at Therapy for Black Girls and come

(50:48):
on over and join us in our Patreon for exclusive updates,
behind the scenes content and much more. We can't wait
to see you there. You can join us at community
dot Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. This This episode was
produced by Alice Ellis, Indechubu and Tyree Rush. Editing was
done by Dennis and Bradford. Thank y'all so much for
joining me again this week. I look forward to continuing

(51:11):
this conversation with you all real soon. Take good care,

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Host

Dr. Joy Harden Bradford

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