Listen to your feelings, it may be time to step outside of the Safe Zone.

Greetings to the ever Angelic Young BW Determined to Live Well! I thought about something this evening and wanted to share:

As I am sure many of you can agree with, the circles in which many black women spend their time are generally all black. If you observe close enough, the girlfriends tend to be all black as well. I don't find anything wrong with this as it takes time to develop a friendship. Dismissing what many have found to be a solid support system of friends is very risky. All people need support from friends in life. Without it, we would lose the spark and desire to keep going. However, for some young bw determined to live well, their group of girlfriends may not be interested in socializing in a way that allows her to meet different people, or different men (wink* Wink*).

Things usually look like this:

While she secretly feels like this: "Hmmm...there are so many cute guys here I could be getting to know right now...but if I leave the group it is going to be obvious...and if they realize who I'm checking out (the cute non-bm over there), they would most certainly have 'something to say' about it..."

Meanwhile she wishes her public outings looked like this:

Maybe you want a more diverse group of people in your sphere, or you want an even distribution of men to women in your outings. The primary difference in these images are the inclusion of men in social circles, and people from different backgrounds or ethnic groups than yourself . I think you will also notice that when people of other racial/ethnic groups go out, there is a mix of men and women. If not, a conscious effort is made to mingle with members of the opposite sex by all groups. This seems to have grown very rare with the groups of black women I have seen while out.

Dropping your girlfriends and going it alone is quite unthinkable to many. Fear plays a large part in things remaining as they are. However, if you have ever spent time with a group of girlfriends in a public setting of many eligible men in the room, some of whom are a different race than yourself, and felt uneasy about getting up to mingle . . . or if you've ever spent the entire night in the same area of ________ (insert any establishment with a large concentration of single men and women), speaking only to your girlfriends, simply to end the night without having met one new person . . .  or if you went home thinking you dressed up for what could have easily been a girls night at home, you need to listen to what your feelings are telling you. Step outside of the safe zone, and seek out women who share similar desires as yourself. They are out there. Finding them takes a little more work, primarily because of the racio-political dynamic that exists in the country concerning Black women who have interests that "black people/ black women are not supposed to do." BUT!  It is indeed possible and just one more step that could bring you closer to living well. Remember to believe in yourselves ladies. You can do it!