It was a heated discussion that had me shook.

My godfather, a man in his late 40s with a six-figure salary, recently kicked his mid-30s girlfriend to the curb and yelled “good riddance” when she asked him for an iPhone. If you ask me, I thought my godfather was justified in dumping her – who the hell did she think she was asking him for something that cost an arm and a leg?

“Tell her to get her own damn iPhone!” I said while giving my godfather a high five.

My father, on the other hand, didn’t jump on our bandwagon. He said, “You are one cheap fool! What’s an iPhone to you? You can afford it!”

And that night, I fought tooth and nail to defend my godfather. For the record, my godfather is cheap. He won’t give you a damn thing for your birthday but would scowl if you arrived empty-handed for any of his gatherings. He’d whip out some Tupperware to pack up all your food at parties, but wouldn’t spare a dime to get you take-out if you were hungry.

Yes, he’s cheap AF. But that doesn’t mean he should allow some gold digging heifer to take advantage of him, right? I’m #teamgodfather.

The next day, I was having dinner with my sorority sisters. It was eight of us having a little get together at a Black-owned restaurant called Chocolat in Harlem. I couldn’t help but bring up iPhonegate and all hell broke loose.

No one agreed with me.

I didn’t care, though. In my eyes, I was right and they were wrong – you shouldn’t be asking anyone for an iPhone. If you want it, you buy it yourself. Period. (If you’ve read my previous piece, you can see I don’t take kindly to people asking for expensive things!)

But then, suddenly, someone knocked me off my “I’m right” pedestal. My most vehement opponent, let’s call her Amy, had me speechless:

“How come when men demand sex, no one bats an eye? No one insults them, no one calls them names, no one drags their name through the mud. But when women ask for resources, we’re gold diggers and prostitutes?”

“Yes, but-”

“Let me finish,” Amy said. “We both have very specific needs, don’t we? Down to biology, males want to spread their seed and females want resources. So how the f*** is it fair that when we ask for our needs, it’s a big problem and we’re called every bad name in the book, but when they ask for sex, I don’t hear anybody calling them derogatory names?”

Hmm. That got me thinking real long and hard about my stance on the matter. I knew what she meant. Giving it up for free is somewhat – though not by much – more accepted than laying down on your back in exchange for “stuff” because the latter makes you a “prostitute” and therefore discourages women from requesting something of value in return.

“When I do decide to sleep with a guy, in society’s eyes, my value goes down. My ‘mileage’ goes down, I’m a ‘thot,’ I’m ‘used goods,’ whatever, right? So yes, I should absolutely be compensated for that loss with what women need – resources! So why the hell can’t she ask for a damn iPhone for all the work she’s been putting forth in meeting his needs sexually?”

Well sh**. I ain’t thought of it like that.

 “Men want sex and women want resources. What’s wrong with having a fair exchange?” she added.

Wow. I had to admit that she made some valid points. Whether we like it or not, from the lens of our effed up society, Amy is right about sex “depreciating” a woman’s so-called “stock” – you’ll see sexually liberated women constantly having to defend their worth as we spit on their quest for respect.

So as a woman gives and gives to a man, is it so wrong to ask for something in return?

Now I’m still not going to go around asking men for iPhones – it goes against my principles of never being materially dependent on anyone, especially a guy. In my eyes, relying on someone to provide for you creates an ugly dynamic in which the woman is “indebted” to the man (but that’s another essay for another day).

But I do see a new perspective for why the woman may have asked my godfather for an iPhone – maybe she felt the “give and take” in the relationship was unbalanced whereby she was giving so much of herself sexually, but he was offering nothing materially.

Or maybe she’s just a gold digging heifer.

What do you guys think?

Kimberly Gedeon, founder of The Melody of Melanin, is a content creator with nearly 2,000 professional articles published online about everything from beauty and business to politics and pop culture. You say hello to her on Instagram or Twitter – she doesn’t bite!

The post She Asked Him For An iPhone — Is She A Gold Digger Or Getting What She Deserves? appeared first on MadameNoire.

The post Girl, Bye: 11 Quotes To Remember When You’re Dealing With Bad Friends appeared first on MadameNoire.

The extension game as we know it has changed over the years. Weaves are getting longer, no one cares if they look less than realistic, and the more inflated the more embraced. But another major change in terms of extensions is the growing popularity of textured hair to match natural hair, and when it comes to that, KinkyCurlyYaki is a name you need to know — if you don’t already.

KinkyCurlyYaki is a company started by Vivian Kaye, which sells high quality, 100 percent human hair that’s textured. It was one of the first companies to make hair extensions solely for our actual hair, and was created out of Kaye’s desire to have options that would fit not only her style, but her actual hair texture. Kaye was working in the wedding industry and in an attempt to always look her best at these events, she realized she needed better options. This was way back in 2010, 2011.

“I was doing research and realized at the time, nobody is really selling just kinky hair.”

So she decided to step in and dominate that lane, and KinkyCurlyYaki was born. It has since expanded into six different textures (afro coily, afro kinky curly, kinky curly, light yaki, coarse yaki and kinky blow out), full wigs, head wraps from Ghana, styling accessories and more. Clientele for the hair (which starts at $95) has grown exponentially, as have the styling options.

“It’s 100 percent human hair. You care for it like you would your own hair,” Kaye said. “You can dye it, twist it out, Bantu knot it. Pretty much whatever you do with your hair you can do with this hair.”

“We have the largest variety of how you can wear the hair,” she added. “If you want to weave it in we have wigs and we also have clip-ins.”

And while other types of extensions of the Brazilian, Peruvian and Malaysian persuasion can bring about a lot of questions and side-eyes (especially from your non-Black co-workers), you won’t have those same issues with hair that blends in perfectly with your own.

“It looks like you,” she said. “No one is asking you where you bought it, how much is it — you don’t get that with this.”

After dealing with questions of “Who wants to buy kinky hair?” when she was starting her company, KinkyCurlyYaki has brought Kaye a lot of success. However, that doesn’t mean she’s necessarily interested in expanding to your local beauty supply.

“It’s because of the experience,” Kaye said. “People DM us and say, ‘This is what my hair looks like when it’s wet. This is what my hair looks like when it’s twisted out.’ So we can tell them, ‘Okay, so this is what you should wear.’ I don’t want it to end up in a beauty supply store with the rest of all of the yaki. Those people are not going to help you out.”

“I have that unique experience, I am my own customer, so I have that unique point of view as a customer and as a business owner,” she added. “It would be ideal to have this out in Africa and in the Caribbean because they don’t have the shipping access that we do in North America. But other than that, no plan to get it in stores.”

If you’re interested, as you should be, you can check out the wide variety of offerings at KinkyCurlyYaki.com, and see the many styles and ways to wear the KinkyCurlyYaki hair on the company’s Instagram page.

Images via KinkyCurlyYaki

The post Vivian Kaye Of KinkyCurlyYaki Extensions On Her Dedication To Keeping It So Kinky, It’s “Kanky” appeared first on MadameNoire.

For the past week or so, Mo’Nique and a portion of her stand up routine, where she said that Tyler Perry, Lee Daniels and Oprah Winfrey had blackballed her from the industry, have been the talk of the town. The clip was even more memorable because Mo’Nique took the stage and told Tyler Perry to “suck her d*ck” if she had one.

I took the whole thing with a grain of salt. For several reasons. One, Mo’Nique has been expressing those grievances for some time now. And more importantly, while she is clearly hurt by the whole thing in real life, this was a comedy show. While there is a layer of truth, comics use hyperbole, exaggeration and straight fiction to express their feelings, tell a funny story and hopefully make people laugh. Therefore, it’s difficult, as an audience member, to decipher what’s true, what’s not and what’s being said just to get a laugh.

In reality though, the reason this clip has gone viral is because of the language Mo’Nique used. People aren’t used to hearing women, comedians or otherwise, say “suck my d*ck.” And they’re certainly not used to hearing those words directed to people held in such high esteem in the community, Oprah Winfrey specifically.

But, as Brande reminded me, in our discussion of this topic, Mo’Nique and Oprah already have some less than rosy history. After all, it was Oprah who brought Mo’Nique’s brother Gerald, the same brother who molested her, and Mo’Nique’s parents on her nationally televised talk show. While Mo’Nique said that she knew of her brother’s appearance and warned Oprah that it was on some “scamming sh*t,” she never knew her parents would be in attendance.

In a recent podcast, Mo’Nique says that Oprah played a “crucial part in the dismemberment of my family.”Mo’Nique said that she eventually confronted Oprah about bringing her family onto her show. And Oprah said, “If I did something to offend you, I’m sorry.” Interestingly enough, according to Mo’Nique’s interview with Barbara Walters, it’s strikingly similar to the apology Mo’Nique’s brother Gerald offered for molesting her. “If you think I did something wrong, then I’m sorry.” If Oprah had exposed me to this type of trauma, allowing my assaulter to tell my story, inviting my family to discuss my pain without me, and then never fully acknowledging your role in it, for the world to see, I wouldn’t hold her in the high regard most people do either.

Perhaps Adrienne Bailon was in the Oprah Winfrey realm of it all when she began discussing Mo’Nique’s comments on “The Real.”

“Now, I have an issue with people thinking that every time someone is loud or boisterous or saying something negative, that that’s them keeping it real. Why does it always have to be that, just because you’re all over the place being loud and making a lot of noise, that that’s the truth and that’s real? Why can’t keeping it real be classy? Why can’t keeping it real be, ‘let me hold my peace and let me move on?’ Why can’t keeping it real be, ‘you know what – they may have done that but I’m going to respect that and move forward.’ Why can’t that be keeping it real?”

Chile.

I can understand where Adrienne is coming from. I don’t agree that this was likely the best way for Mo’Nique to go about airing her grievances. Hell, I didn’t even want to report the story initially because I felt like we’ve been talking about it for a full calendar year now. She and Lee have a problem. She hasn’t been scared to address it. At this point, she’s essentially talking to and for herself.

But I’m certainly not here for someone telling her that she should hold her peace and move on quietly. There are already too many women, Black, Brown and otherwise, both in and outside of Hollywood, who have suffered either in silence or senselessly because they felt it was “inappropriate to use their voice.” And we can’t advocate for women using their voices and then the next minute shame them for the way they decided to speak.

It’s clear that Adrienne didn’t understand the full ramifications of her words. As a lighter skinned Latina, who likely doesn’t have a firm grasp on issues Black women face, specifically darker skinned Black women, she might not have been aware of the stereotypes associated with us. The fact that darker skinned sisters are consistently dismissed as loud, boisterous and lacking tact is a problem and it was a problem for to characterize material from her comedy show as such.

And I know there are people who will feel a way because I made this a race thing, but it absolutely plays a factor. Because White women, who’ve said far worse, don’t become topics of week-long conversation like Mo’Nique did. And for Adrienne Bailon to have spent so much time around Black folk, I’m a little disappointed that she didn’t see that her words could have worked to perpetuate a stereotype, against another woman of color.

Like Loni Love said during the discussion people were so taken aback by this clip because they’re not used to female comics using this type of language. While no one would bat an eyelash or think twice about a Black male comic telling anyone to “suck their d*ck” from the mouth of woman, it’s perceived differently. And therein lies the problem, we’re not used to women being raw and candid about their emotions and when they are, it’s other women who participate in telling them to be quiet.

And when Mo’Nique heard of Adrienne’s comments, she wasn’t quiet about them either.

@theGrio @AdrienneBailon My loves. This BABY gets a pass. She is to young to even begin to understand. However @AdrienneBailon if you would like to discuss we open.

— Mo’Nique Worldwide (@moworldwide) May 24, 2017

@theGrio @AdrienneBailon @AdrienneBailon we await your reply sister. This is Mo’Nique. I hope I’m not being to loud for you. Lol.

— Mo’Nique Worldwide (@moworldwide) May 24, 2017

@theGrio @AdrienneBailon @AdrienneBailon by the way I am fighting for young sisters like you who haven’t won an Academy Award.

— Mo’Nique Worldwide (@moworldwide) May 24, 2017

@theGrio @AdrienneBailon @AdrienneBailon if u really want 2tell us something, my husband and I would b more than happy to come on the show, you can tell us directly.

— Mo’Nique Worldwide (@moworldwide) May 24, 2017

Well, there you have it. The producers at “The Real” need to scurry and book her for the show. I would love to see this discussion take place in person.

Veronica Wells is the culture editor at MadameNoire.com. She is also the author of “Bettah Days.” You can follow her on Facebook and on Instagram and Twitter @VDubShrug.

The post To Be Real, Adrienne Bailon Should Have Never Called Mo’Nique Loud & Boisterous appeared first on MadameNoire.

For many, Memorial Day weekend signals the unofficial beginning of summer. And when this season hits, it’s not just the wardrobe where many are looking to add some color, it’s also our hair. But what happens three months down the line when fall hits and suddenly you’re more in the mood for amber highlights instead of blonde? And then three months after that you have an itch to go totally dark for the Winter?

We love being color chameleons as much as we do kitchen beauticians, but if you’re switching your hair color up that much — especially at home — you better make sure you’re doing it right. To make sure you are, we reached out to Dark and Lovely Style Squad Member Stephanie McLemore for advice on keeping dyed strands vibrant and healthy year-round, no matter what colorful mood you’re in.

MadameNoire (MN): What should every woman know before attempting to color her hair at home?

Stephanie McLemore (SM): You have to give yourself a healthy hair check. If your hair is dry, brittle, and lackluster you should use a deep conditioner such as Dark and Lovely Au Naturale Moisture LOC Deep Conditioning Delight before coloring. Color reacts better to healthy strands with the cuticle in tact. A deep conditioner will rejuvenate your strands and give your hair the moisture it needs.

MN: Which shades are most popular this spring/summer season?

SM: Blondes from light to dark are trending this season. Dark and Lovely’s Fade Resist offers a variety of blonde shades. Chestnut Blonde, Golden Blonde, Honey Blonde, Light Golden Blonde, and Luminous Blonde. Or if you are looking for a vibrant pop of color use Dark and Lovely Go Intense Golden Blonde or Bright Blonde.

MN: So many women experience breakage when they color their hair, can you give us a weekly and monthly hair care routine to prevent/lessen breakage after coloring? 

SM: Always read manufacturer’s direction before coloring to avoid any mishaps. Use Dark and Lovely Color-Gloss Ultra Radiant Color Creme, there are 3 nourishing ingredients (Shea Butter, Coconut Oil, and Pomegranate) to keep your strands from drying like most boxed color. After coloring you must be sure to keep a moisture regimen. Dark and Lovely Au Naturale Moisture LOC Collection helps to layer the moisture from the shampoo to the styling products and it smell delicious.

MN: What do naturals have to be concerned about when coloring hair?

SM: Maintenance is important. If you let your coils get too dry you will be susceptible to dry, damaged, and brittle hair. Also regular trims are important. Dark and Lovely’s Fade Resist, Color Gloss and Go Intense hair color has natural oils infused in their colors which will help fight breakage during the coloring process.

MN: How can you keep color vibrant for as long as possible?

SM: Sulfate Free Shampoos are great for color protection, as they do not strip your hair from moisture nor does it fade the hair color. Dark and Lovely Au Naturale Moisture LOC Sulfate-Free Shampoil will not only protect your color but leave hair you’re feeling soft and supple.

MN: What steps should you take if you’re a person who likes to switch up her hair color multiple times a year and is that healthy?

SM: Yes, it is okay to switch it up a bit!  A girl gets bored with the same color, if you follow these tips you will still maintain a healthy head of hair. Healthy hair maintenance is especially important. Be sure to get regular trims and find a healthy hair regimen that works for you. Moisture is important and Dark and Lovely Moisture LOC provides a system that will lock in the moisture into your beautiful strands.

The post Color Chameleon: What You Should Know About Switching Up Your Hair Color All The Time appeared first on MadameNoire.

Overall, the STEM stats regarding Black women are grim. Specifically, minority women comprise fewer than 1 in 10 scientists and engineers in the United States, according to the National Science Foundation (NSF). But at Florida A&M University (FAMU) the tide is changing. There, three female students, who also happen to be best friends, recently received their doctorates in engineering, bucking the current trend and helping to close the gender and race gap in STEM fields.

According to a news release:

On April 29, Miami native and Fulbright Scholar Renee Gordon received her doctorate of philosophy in mechanical engineering; Miami Beach native and Winifred Burks-Houck Professional Leadership awardee Shannon Anderson received her doctorate of philosophy in civil engineering, with a concentration in environmental engineering; and Birmingham, Alabama native and NSF International Research Experiences grantee Marcella Carnes received her doctorate of philosophy in civil engineering with a concentration in structures.

Each woman earned her doctorate degree at FAMU’s School of Graduate Studies and Research and was a participant in the FAMU-Florida State University College of Engineering Title III Funding Program.

“I feel proud to be an African-American woman in the STEM fields,” Carnes said. “There’s not that many of us (women). We’ve been challenged because STEM is male dominated, (but) we are examples of the things that you can set your mind toward and finish. We are no longer ‘Hidden Figures.’ We have definitely been revealed.”

Sadly, there could have been four Black female FAMU doctoral grads were it not for the sudden loss of colleague Tarra M. Beach, an environmental engineering doctoral candidate, who passed away in 2014 before she received her doctorate.

“She would have been the first woman to graduate with her engineering Ph.D., from the Title III program at FAMU. So, we were next in line to just follow her example, her dedication, her passion and drive,” Anderson said.

“Losing Tarra was very hard,” Carnes added. “She was driven toward education. She was so close to finishing and to know someone worked that hard and not necessarily reaped that benefit was emotionally draining for us. But it also let us know we are blessed to be here and that we can move on. Her legacy is that she believed in education and through us, and all women, she is here. Through our eyes, she has her Ph.D., because she was such a scholar.”

Our hats are off to Anderson, Carnes, and Gordon for their amazing accomplishment. Watch as the graduates speak more about what their degrees mean to them and to the STEM field as a whole in the video below.

The post 3 Florida A&M Students, Who Are Also Best Friends, Receive Doctoral Degrees In Engineering appeared first on MadameNoire.

Apparently, today is “The Real” day on MadameNoire. After Jeanne Mai, Adrienne Bailon and Mo’Nique, the show recently tweeted that there would be a bit of a 3LW reunion. Well, a reunion between Adrienne and Naturi.

For those of you who weren’t are aren’t aware, the group broke up for several different reasons, mostly management issues, but the final nail in the coffin was an argument between Michelle Williams’ (Kiely’s mom), Adrienne Bailon and Kiely herself.

In an interview with MTV, Naughton said,

“There was an argument between me and Michelle [Williams],” referring to the group’s manager, who is also member Kiely Williams’ mother. “And Kiely and Adrienne [Bailon, the group’s third member,] are cursing me out, and before I know it, Kiely throws her plate of food all in my face — mashed potatoes, macaroni all in my hair, down my clothes, messing up my [hair]do! Nobody has the right to hit me. That’s not what I’m here for, … to be physically abused. So I said, ‘Get me a flight back to Newark, New Jersey,’ and they wouldn’t even help me get a ticket”

Naturi felt like her group members, who she was once very close to, were being pushed and pressured by management to get rid of her.

“For a long time the girls of 3LW were tight — that wasn’t the problem. It was a push by management, who always had something about Naturi. They said, ‘We need to get her out, you guys would be better off.’ As if I’m bringing the group down and holding them back. All this stuff about how I don’t fit the Girl Can Mack image. But I think it’s crazy that they were trying to split up what was strong, what was successful. And they did it.”

Naturi and Adrienne have spoken privately about the way things went down between the group but now that Adrienne’s on “The Real,” they invited Naturi to come and hash things out.

Check out a clip from the episode that will air tomorrow below.

Adrienne Houghton: I think it’s crazy ‘cause when I look at you, I really think about my teen years. We literally grew up together in bunk beds in New Jersey.

Naturi Naughton: We did. We did.

Adrienne: And I thank God for the time that I got to actually talk to you a few years back, we had seen each other at an Us Weekly party.

Naturi: I remember that… it was like years ago.

Adrienne: See, years ago. And we sat down and we talked everything out. And I was able to apologize to you if ever, you know, there was a lot that went on in that time that now looking back it’s like we were so young and it was crazy.

Naturi: Yeah.

Adrienne: And that I genuinely from the bottom of my heart never meant any harm towards you.

Naturi: Thank you.

Adrienne: And that I think you’re talented and beautiful.

Naturi: Thank you.

Adrienne: And yeah. No, we had that moment together, privately, you know.

Naturi: Yeah, no. It was… it was crazy ‘cause when you know, going through what I went through with the group, it wasn’t easy, it was a hard time. And everything with being a teenager and being criticized, I went through a time, where I didn’t really think I could make it. And I appreciate your apology because it’s just humility. And at it the end of the day, we have to love and support each other.

Naturi: It’s not an easy business and we have to uplift, particularly young girls.

Adrienne: And I think looking back, a lot of that was fear. There was so much fear put in us and just all around and that when we look back we were like…

Naturi: Oh girl, I know!

Adrienne: Exactly.

Naturi: They had me scared, they had you scared. But the truth is we were kids and you know, the adults in the situation you know, did what they did. But thank God I’m here.

Adrienne: Yes.

Naturi: And we’re just you know, living life and moving forward.

The post Adrienne Bailon Apologizes To Naturi Naughton On “The Real” appeared first on MadameNoire.

The post 10 Memorial Day Nail Designs For Your Weekend BBQ appeared first on MadameNoire.

Dear @Newsweek, 2011 called and it wants its headline back. We ain't using Black women's dating habits for pageviews in 2017, fam. pic.twitter.com/bcJdHOLaP6

— britni danielle (@BritniDWrites) May 24, 2017

Not sure which was worse in that @Newsweek interracial dating editorial. The headline or the outdated data provided in the article.

— Black Girl Nerds (@BlackGirlNerds) May 24, 2017

This woman at Newsweek had the nerve to pull statistics from 2010 when the Atlantic just ran a great article on BW and marriage 2 weeks ago

— LeValkyrie (@LeValkyrie) May 24, 2017

@Newsweek THIS HEADLINE IS TRAGIC! LET ME FIX IT FOR YOU.... "RACHEL LINDSAY PROVES LOVE IS LOVE IN THE MOST DIVERSE CAST IN BACHELORETTE HISTORY" pic.twitter.com/7JFgQ6Nsxn

— Kels (@zaynlove2016) May 24, 2017

@Newsweek Your claim is false. She doesn't "prove" anything statistically simply because her personal choice is hypervisible via television.

— Trudy (@thetrudz) May 24, 2017

@BritniDWrites @Newsweek As far as I know (don't have the stat so I may be wrong) most people don't date out of their ethnic and/or religious group #TheBachelorette

— Sally Spirit (@Sallyspirit) May 24, 2017

@BritniDWrites @Newsweek How keen of them 2 type all their taglines in all caps

— Monica Guerra (@monaloca) May 24, 2017

Some people are nostalgic for the 1950s. Newsweek (and Yahoo!) seem to have managed to go back to living there. https://t.co/4RJbP4LuvH

— Tom Megginson (@CreativeTweets) May 24, 2017

@BritniDWrites @Newsweek pic.twitter.com/mXj6VF9xZh

— Marissa D (@marissad415) May 24, 2017

Newsweek has removed a story posted on May 23 about the Bachelorette. We apologize for any offense it caused.

— Newsweek (@Newsweek) May 24, 2017

The post Black Twitter Responds To Newsweek’s Interracial Dating Article appeared first on MadameNoire.

The troublemaker speechmaker

Keeping speech time fair

Who will walk you down the isle?

Picking your bridesmaids

Picking his groomsmen

Keeping the guest list “fair”

Inviting people who invited you

Including all in-laws, equally

The father daughter/ stepfather daughter dance

Budgets and bachelorette parties

Who can come to the rehearsal dinner?

Religious locations and their rules

Picking the date

Releasing the engagement photos

Registries and budgets

The post Wedding Politics Nobody Prepares You For appeared first on MadameNoire.

Do Your Homework

Be Open To Anything

Keep Your Venue In Mind

Try On As Many Dresses As You Want

Don’t Feel Pressured To Have An Audience

Buy The Dress For Your Body Today

Be Open To Something Unusual

Give Yourself Enough Time

Set A Budget

Bring Shoes/Accessories

The post The Perfect Fit: 10 Tips To Choosing The Right Wedding Dress appeared first on MadameNoire.

Am I to awkwardly fiddle and fumble around with my phone?

Am I to wander away and let ’em have their moment?

Am I to butt in on an “A and B” conversation that’s clearly not intended for me to “C” into?

How does one “be” when some random guy approaches your friend when you’re in transit – either while walking on the sidewalk or sitting side-by-side on the bus/train to a destination?

No, seriously – I would love to know.

I want to swat away that unpleasant third wheel feeling, and at the same time, it’d be nice not to be falsely perceived as some cockblocking green-eyed monster who cannot bear the thought of being overlooked for a good ol’ unwelcomed street holler.

If you ask me, when a stranger suddenly has my friend and I coming to a screeching halt in the middle of the street, my usual go-to is to stand off to the side like an awkward dingleberry and mind my own damn business. I mean, isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?

And of course, I’m also eavesdropping here and there because – y’know – we’ll probably be cackling at his clunky pick-up lines and her snarky replies later on.

But for the most part, as the approacher shoots his shot with my friend, I’ve taken a sudden interest in rummaging through the flimflam on my phone so I’m not standing there twiddling my thumbs like a third-wheel twat.

Then I wondered something – how do men, the approachers, prefer their target’s friend to “be” when they’re on the hunt for their next bedroom romp? Curiosity got the best of me and I hit up some of my most brazen guy friends – the types who aren’t afraid to approach women on their daily travels – to hear what they had to say about it:

According to my friend Aaron, ideally, the target’s friend would be both a participant and a wallflower – engage in the discussion to help him look like a suave conversationalist who can entertain a room, but also know when to back off during the sorry-you-ain’t-welcome-no-more part of conversation so that he can, erm,”bag,” – New York lingo for snagging a chick.

Interestingly, another friend of mine, who wished to remain anonymous in this piece, co-signed with Aaron:

Both seem to want the target’s friend to join in, but she’s got to have enough discernment to know when it’s time to ease off and allow that one-on-one conversation to go on smoothly. Good to know.

But unfortunately for them, it’s not my job to go out of my way to cradle their path into my friend’s pants; I’d rather continue being the awkward turtle on her phone, thanks. Besides, we’ve got somewhere to be – I just can’t see myself encouraging a conversation while I stand there like an impatient imp.

What about y’all? How do you conduct yourself when a stranger approaches your friend?

Kimberly Gedeon, the mastermind behind The Melody of Melanin, is a content creator with nearly 2,000 professional articles published online about everything from beauty and business to politics and pop culture. You can say hello to her on Instagram or Twitter – she doesn’t bite!

Photo: Bigstock

The post How Do You Act When Your Friend Is Approached On The Street? appeared first on MadameNoire.

A miscarriage

A sick parent

Depression

Sudden success or fame

A dispute with in-laws

Having children

Struggling to buy a home

One person becomes bedridden

Exes who must be in the picture

Financial hardship

Other couples

Uprooting for work

Troubled teens

A sex drought

Divorced friends

The post Life Challenges That Will Put Your Marriage To The Test appeared first on MadameNoire.

“Are you going to cum?” asks your dude of a few months, breaking the momentum of going down on you to rub his neck once again.
“Yea. I’m close.”
“You said that 15 mins ago.”
Sigh.
“You can’t have me down here all day.”
“Ok. So what’s the cutoff time?” you ask.
“Hunh?”
“What’s a decent amount of time that you feel comfortable?” you repeat.
“15 no more than 30 mins.”
“That’s plenty!”
“But you already used up 30,” he says.
“That can’t be right,” you frown.
“You do it all the time.”

The next morning you’re running the numbers through your head. On one hand, 15 minutes for your guy to go down on you seems like a lot. But what about the times when it takes 15 just to get warmed up? Are you supposed to throw in the towel because you’ve hit the 15-minute mark? Even if you push it the extra 15 you still might not cum because of the pressure. Uh oh. Did you make a bum deal? What if you never cum again? The only way to know if this is going to work is by finding out the average cutoff time. For this, you rely on your trusted friends.

You text Girlfriend #1: Hey, how long do you like a guy to go down on you?

Girlfriend: Anything more than 10 minutes is a waste.

You: A waste?

Girlfriend: Yea, by then I probably already came no less than three times so I’mma be ready for some D.

Good God In Heaven! Who cums three times in 10 minutes? Who cums in ten minutes? Apparently, Girlfriend #2 who adds, “10 minutes is all I need. My man knows my body so well.” When you tell her that you’ve been known to go 30, sometimes an hour, she starts laughing.

Girlfriend #2: Well, if you can hold it that long. I know I can’t.

It’s funny because your man’s biggest complaint going down on you is that you hold it. But isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? You could cum in 10 minutes too if you really want to, but why would you? The way you see it, when a guy goes down, that’s your time to kick back and relax. Of course, you wanna cum, but you ain’t sprinting to the finish line.

Male BFF: Oh, so you’re that greedy chick that don’t care that her man’s tongue is about to fall off. I get the job done in less than 10 mins every time. (He brags)

You: 10 minutes?

He explains that it’s not just him, a lot of women aren’t much into oral sex after that. Some aren’t into it at all. He thinks expecting a woman to want you down there forever is the same as thinking she wants to get banged for hours. You agree with him on that. Banging for hours is so young. Who stays wet that long? But what about the fact that some dudes love going down? Is that a myth too?

For that answer you go to your buddy from back in the day that you know loves to go down. At least, that’s all he used to talk about. If he says his limit is 10 minutes too you’re done.

He shoots you back a text…

Old Homie: I don’t have a timer as long as we both in sync. That’s when it’s perfect.

You KNEW it! A man with no time constraints!

2nd text…But a good rule of thumb is that after 10-15 minutes you’ll know if success can be reached or you need to stop.

Okay, so even he has a cutoff.

What have you learned? You seriously need to get it together because ain’t nobody, not even your man, gonna eat you like it’s his job. In fact, he’s been saying that he’d rather not have sex with you at all then have to go down on you after –you thought he was being lazy. In light of this new info you’re going to take the “15-30-minute deal” that your guy offered you and run like hell because it’s a steal!

Photo: Bigstock

The post Serious Question: What’s The Cutoff Time When A Guy’s Going Down On A Woman? appeared first on MadameNoire.

I see you grays and that is A-Okay Trailer Chronicles.

A post shared by tiamowry (@tiamowry) on May 23, 2017 at 2:27pm PDT

Positive vibes only. Happy Monday!

A post shared by tiamowry (@tiamowry) on Apr 24, 2017 at 12:52pm PDT

Don't allow someone to make you feel like you aren't good enough.

A post shared by tiamowry (@tiamowry) on May 8, 2017 at 4:45pm PDT

My heart and joys!! My ride or dies! Watch tonight a NEW episode of #tiamowryathome on @cookingchannel as we laugh the day away! 5:30pm PST/8:30 EST! @missjessica212 @traciblackwell

A post shared by tiamowry (@tiamowry) on Feb 19, 2017 at 5:15pm PST

You think you know, but you have no idea. Hair- @kendragarvey Makeup- @juliannekaye

A post shared by tiamowry (@tiamowry) on May 12, 2017 at 12:05pm PDT

Pizza Pizza Pizza

A post shared by tiamowry (@tiamowry) on May 15, 2017 at 10:05am PDT

What a joy working with these power houses! You each radiate good vibes! My Nutella princess @skyepmarshall and my angel @thesarahdrew keep me laughing for days! #moviemaking #actorlife

A post shared by tiamowry (@tiamowry) on May 17, 2017 at 11:11am PDT

What could be better than kicking off Memorial Day weekend on a sunset cruise in NYC? So excited to be celebrating the launch of @DrinkLemonLemon! #LemonLemonEscape #LLAmbassador

A post shared by tiamowry (@tiamowry) on May 24, 2017 at 7:42pm PDT

Positive vibes only. Happy Monday!

A post shared by tiamowry (@tiamowry) on Apr 24, 2017 at 12:52pm PDT

Grey's I see you, but guess what, that's okay. Because with grey hair, comes wisdom:)

A post shared by tiamowry (@tiamowry) on Jan 3, 2017 at 1:59pm PST

We will always have her. Repost. Her- Statue of Liberty. Guy- my amazing agent.

A post shared by tiamowry (@tiamowry) on May 25, 2017 at 3:09am PDT

The post 10 Times Tia Mowry Embraced Her Gray Hair appeared first on MadameNoire.

While a majority of my close friends (okay, pretty much all of them) are Black, I do have a Vietnamese friend from childhood who I was able to reconnect and have a pretty great relationship with. When I went back home to visit for the holidays a few years ago, I was able to meet her boyfriend, who is White. They’d met online and managed to really hit it off. While partaking in dinner, we sat together and chatted about the usual — work, interests, dating apps. It was nice. But I asked him what I’d been thinking about for quite some time, hoping it wouldn’t sound like a disrespectful question, but feeling like it was necessary to put it out there:

“So is __ the first Asian girl you’ve dated?”

You could tell her boyfriend was taken aback. More than an hour into dinner, I felt we were all comfortable enough to be honest, and as a minority, it’s not a random question. Also, for my friends’ sake, I wanted to make sure she wasn’t messing with someone who might be fetishizing her. You never know. His answer was no, but he also told me that he’d dated women of a variety of backgrounds, including Black ones. It was a little odd to me at the time, but I gave the guy the benefit of the doubt. He seemed really nice, he adored my friend, and he didn’t say anything that might be, you know, oddly racist. Fast forward to now and the pair are preparing to marry at the end of the year. Obviously, that worked out well.

But the “Am I a fetish?” question is something I know quite a few women worry about when entertaining the idea of dating someone of another race, particularly a White man. It’s what my girlfriends say when conversations come up about being flirted on by White men in the club and not knowing how to deal with it. It came up in a conversation in Season 2 of one of my favorite show’s, Master of None, when Dev goes on a date with a girl named Priya, also Indian. While sharing stories about the online dating app struggle, she says that the last guy she dated, who was White, dated four other Indian girls before her. Priya took it to mean that the guy wanted to be with Indian women for reasons that weren’t 100 percent pure.

It also came up as the topic of an old article I found on HelloGiggles called “As a black woman, I’m tired of being fetishized.” In it, she said that she’d received her first red flag about an ex-boyfriend, who was White, when he thought it was funny to tell her that he, along with his friends, often joked about him having “jungle fever.” And even when she moved on from him and dated other men, she had to deal with “racist, sexist language from white men over and over again,” including questions of whether or not she could twerk and being told that her skin is “exotic.”

But I also met a young woman on a recent press trip who told me she was skeptical about the guy she was currently entertaining because he told her that he “only” dates Black women. According to her, he said that he has a “thing” for them. Aside from that, she just wasn’t feeling much of a spark, but his affinity for Black women definitely made her feel some type of way. As it should.

I guess the question here is when should you be on alert and when are you being paranoid? Because the truth is, we all have preferences and there is nothing wrong with that. But there is something, let’s call it “interesting,” about having a preference for another race and there is something odd about saying you “only” date them. Still, I think it can be pretty clear when someone is interested in you for reasons that aren’t purely about beauty or personality.

For instance, I went to Brooklyn Bowl with a friend years ago when I first moved to New York. While there for a show, I was approached by a White guy. I had never been hit on by one before so I just assumed he was being friendly, as some people tend to get friendly when drinking in a crowd of people. My friend tried to put me on notice that he was flirting with me, but I didn’t know if I was interested. Still, I tried to be a little more open and warm. He seemed cool. But then, he started talking a lot about my hair and how he loved “afro hair (which I wore before locs).” It was a weird comment. And then, in similarly weird fashion, he took his hand, reached out and grabbed a fist full of my hair without asking, rubbing his greasy fingers through through and marveling at it. I jumped back with an “Ok! Dude, don’t touch my hair. For real, that’s f–ked up” and tried to steer clear of him for the rest of the night. I didn’t consider it a form of fetishism then. But looking back on it, his interest in my hair, more than me in general, definitely give me a fetish-y vibe.

I say all that to say that if someone truly seems into you for you, whatever their race, and you are just as into them then, you can feel it and will know it. In those cases, I don’t think who’ve they dated in the past and seem to have a preference for is something to run for the hills about. But if they make you feel objectified or unusual and say they “only” date women like you for reasons that are pretty much bullsh-t, you will also know. And if you’re not sure, any comments that include “jungle fever,” “exotic skin” and “afro hair” should be a dead giveaway…

But as always, that’s just my opinion. What say you? Is it petty to not want to date someone of another race who has only dated women like you?

Image via Bigstock 

The post Is This Petty? He’s White And Has Only Dated Black Women And I’m Worried I’m Being Fetishized appeared first on MadameNoire.

Gina Prince Bythewood is making moves out here.

According to Deadline, Bythewood, the director of Love And Basketball, Beyond The Lights, The Secret Life of Bees and the Fox series “Shots Fired” is set to direct Silver & Black. The film is based on characters from the Marvel Universe revolving around Spider-Man.

Deadline reports that Bythewood will rewrite the script originally crafted by Christopher Yost, the man behind Thor: The Dark World.

So about these characters. Silver Sable owns a company that hunts war criminals and Black Cat is an acrobatic cat burglar who had a romantic relationship in the Spider-Man comics.

In directing the new film, Bythewood will become the first Black woman and woman of color, period to direct a superhero movie.

Silver & Black is scheduled to hit theaters in October 2018.

Photo by WENN

The post Gina Prince Bythewood Becomes First Black Woman To Direct A Superhero Film appeared first on MadameNoire.

Winnie Harlow

Chris Tucker

Cindy Bruna

Nicki Minaj

Joan Smalls

Maria Borges

Tracee Ellis

Jeremy Meeks

Will Smith

Dionne Warwick

The post The Array Of Stars Who Stepped Out For amfAR’s Cinema Against AIDS Gala During Cannes appeared first on MadameNoire.

May is known as Women’s Health Month, as well as National Physical Fitness and Sports month. In order to celebrate all things health and wellness that have to do with women of color,  we’re launching Fitness Fridays for the month. We’re hoping to share stories that help others embrace the importance of taking care of themselves both inside and out.

When it comes to fitness, many things motivate us to change our bodies. Sometimes it’s a health crisis. Other times it’s a wake-up call from seeing what you really look like in pictures. In Lita Lewis’s case, it was depression, better yet trying to rebuild her body due to the effects of it. Since then, she’s made strength her priority over skinny and made a name for herself. Lewis has created successful body blast boot camps that she does around the country, started a fitness apparel line called Thick Athletics Apparel and recently completed an eight-day wellness retreat experience in Bali helping women not only be healthy but have fun during getaways.

While many people don’t know where to go after meeting their fitness goals, Lewis, trainer and health advocate, has found a way to make fitness her business and become a brand. She’s established herself so much that she even recently teamed up with U by Kotex Fitness to help them launch their line of fitness tampons, pads and liners. We talked to our favorite Aussie fitness enthusiast about how she has gained wealth from wellness and made healthy living her livelihood.
MadameNoire: How did you go from changing your body through hard work following depression to wanting to help other men and women do the same?

Lita Lewis: When I first adopted an active lifestyle and was hitting the gym 5-6 days a week, I saw my body morph. I was channeling all my spare time and energy into my workouts. My goal at the time was to put myself through enough strenuous exercise so that I could redirect the pain I was feeling mentality and emotionally to pain that my physical body could endure. After time, my body transformed but my emotional state stayed the same. I was looking different but I would still go to bed depressed. I knew then that “health” wasn’t solely about the way I looked but also about how I felt. It’s then that I decided to do some inner work. I traveled abroad alone, I read endless books, I began to meditate and pray daily, and I would create vision boards and use post-its to write positive words of affirmations to myself.  Self-care and alone time became priorities. Life started to change for the better and how I looked on the outside finally reflected how I felt on the inside. After much soul-searching, I was so happy to be in a great place in my life that I was inspired to share how I was able to get through battling depression by finding peace and purpose, living a holistic and happy lifestyle.

Many people share their fitness journeys online, but not a lot of people take advantage of the opportunity to create merchandise to sell to their followers, or to put together boot camps around the country to get closer to them. How did you do it and with such a genius tagline like “Thick Thighs Save Lives”?

It never was my intention to build the brand and business I have today. Initially I used online social platforms like an open diary, sharing what I was learning, how I was training and what I was eating. I think for me, because the brand was growing organically and my following was more like an extended friend network, it was a natural move to share and offer more. People loved the movement and the sense of pride I was sharing regarding body image that folks began to ask me questions about training, dieting and kept telling me that I should put my tagline, “Thick Thighs Save Lives,” on a tank. My audience wanted to represent the movement so offering merchandise was a natural move. Folks wanted to know how I trained so offering training programs soon followed. The business aspect came from demand, a demand I wasn’t expecting or planned for, not from me having an intent to make money from sharing my journey. I consider myself one of the lucky ones.

How does traveling around to train people and to do your wellness retreat impact your own training schedule and eating patterns? How do you make sure you get your workouts in?

Like anything you find important to your life and health, I make my own training a priority. I typically schedule my client sessions around making time to get my own sweat session in. No day goes by that I don’t have the time to work out! Eating however is a different story. Because I’m usually on the go, I find it difficult to eat clean throughout the day the way I like, so it’s a daily habit to prep food for days that I won’t be home to cook for lunch and dinner. I carry snacks with me at all times. Fruits, mixed nuts and granola bars are always floating around my backpack.

How do you balance healthy eating without depriving yourself of sweets and goodies? We all know that a majority of good health and fitness is about food, but boy is it hard.

For me a balanced approach to eating clean and treating myself is key. I don’t stress myself out about avoiding a craving, I usually answer it with a serving of cake or ice cream! I do that because I find that fighting a craving for sweets for a long period of time will typically result in some type of sugar binge. Instead, if I’m feeling like having a little treat, I’ll go for it in moderation. However, I’m thankful that my sweet tooth isn’t overly active. I might have one or two sweets per month.

What’s next for you in terms of fusing business and fitness?

I’d love to expand my apparel line by incorporating more designs and items. I definitely plan to do so in the next few months. I am also gearing up to lead my own curated retreat in Mexico this Labor Day weekend. Super excited about all the things involved in producing a phenomenal experience for my guests. I also plan to pursue other ventures in entertainment. I’m in the early stages now of creating digital content that would be a health and fitness-related talk show format, which I am equally excited about turning into a reality.

Visit UByKotex.com for more tips from Lita, including her on-the-go workout routine, or to request a free sample of new U by Kotex FITNESS. And you can follow her at @followthelita on Instagram. Check out the rest of this month’s Fitness Friday features with yogi Jessamyn Stanley, CrossFit competitor Elisabeth Akinwale and bodybuilder Tokini Bilaye-Benibo.

Images courtesy of Kotex and Lita Lewis

The post Fitness Friday: Lita Lewis On How “Thick Thighs Save Lives” Went From A Tagline To A Brand appeared first on MadameNoire.

A few weeks ago, being the unofficial “event coordinator” of my group of friends, I got to planning some of our summer adventures beginning with an expensive surf and turn dinner for my sister’s birthday at the end of April. Since then there’s been a trip to D.C. to visit the National African American Museum of History and Culture and a simple movie and dinner date at my best friend’s request to celebrate her 31^st birthday. Spending so much time together has allowed me the opportunity to affirm a few behaviors my BFF has been exhibiting for the past year or so to determine if I’m just being a petty friend or if they really are as annoying as they appear. Annoying behavior number one? Her conflicting relationship with social media.

Whether we were standing in front of an authentic Jackson 5 costume from their 1971 performance at the London Palladium or watching the opening credits of the latest installation of Alien on opening weekend, I would always look over to see my friend with her head in her phone telling her Facebook friends exactly where we were, what we were doing and the great time we were having. The only catch was I felt that “great time” was a lie if she was referring to anything but scrolling through multiple social media feeds which was what she spent most of our outings doing.

“If anyone was trying to rob my house, they’d know exactly when to do it because old girl stays tagging me in every move we make throughout our travels,” I texted my sister after viewing a caption that read, “Living the good life,” no less than five minutes after my friend’s Chilean sea bass had been served in the 5 star restaurant we were seated in. I love social media as much as anyone else, and I enjoy sharing my experiences of travel and fun with my friends and followers BUT I think it’s important to actually HAVE the experiences first before you start posting about them.

Sharing is caring is cool if you don’t necessarily care what others think, but it does make one question, “Then why are you sharing it? The truth is social media has grown so immensely because a small piece of each of us cares what others think, wants accolades, wants attention and wants to be accepted and liked. The problem begins when you want to be accepted for being someone that wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t a wi-fi signal.

When I came across the NY Mag post, “When You Love Your Friend But Hate Her Social Media Presence” I knew I had to add to the conversation by documenting my own experience. Author Hayley Phalen vents about a similar situation that led to her eventually ghosting a friend because her staged profile pics of love and romance became “insufferable”. She also uses a few other folks’ stories of how social media gradually destroyed real life friendships because of how dramatically different friends can appear when they’re in person vs. when they’re posting:

“As her friend, I’m faced with this uncomfortable conundrum of questioning whether the real-life her — the one I love and connect with — is the fake, or the one on Instagram is who she really is, or at the very least, who she really wants to be. The discrepancy between the two is sort of just … uncomfortable.”

It was a reflection of how I felt in my own friendship. Here was the roommate I had since college who held my hand while I got my nipples pierced and one of the first visitors I had after my daughter was born when I was rocking a fresh set of sutures from a c-section. In a year’s time she had went from being quiet (but honest at least when there was liquor being served) to posting vague captions about how men ain’t ish over Keisha Cole song lyrics only to answer, “We’re good,” whenever I asked her in person how things were with the guys she was seeing. “You do realize I can see the s**t you post?” I would question in my head. It made me feel like I wasn’t being met half way. Here I was being authentic about all the good, bad and ugly in my life from hating my job to barely having sex with hubby since my baby girl was born while my BFF went out of her way to maintain a perfect appearance with me only to be transparent to people she would’ve never known existed if not for Mark Zuckerberg.

In Phalen’s article, a few people comment that with all of the connections that social media has afforded our generation, we just may be sacrificing our integrity to make them:

“…when there’s a disconnect between the person I know and the person mugging for that selfie or purporting to love something I’m pretty sure they don’t (and if you’re true friends, you know the difference), it leaves me feeling a mixture of disappointed and embarrassed.”

If you think about it social media has a way of making us all a little more obnoxious than we actually might be. And before anyone begins a comment with the word “hater” anyway it, the truth is anyone who isn’t in love with your social media presence isn’t necessarily hating. It could be that some folks really are obnoxious, even if it only shows through a status update. It has a way of highlighting what you prioritize and think is worth sharing, even if others don’t necessarily agree. Phalen shares:

“We all know people aren’t one-dimensional, but thanks to the ubiquity of social media we now have to contend with just how disparate those dimensions might be.”

If a friend was having a particularly self-confident day where her hair is laid and her face is more beat than a Quest Love set you might cheer her on as she holds he head high getting numbers and stopping traffic for a day. Now you have to be subjected to a thousand selfies, an Urban Decay tutorial, a random tweeted quote about “real beauty” and a SnapChat video of her driving and singing to Beyonce’s “Flawless”. It’s a lot and social media is making it harder and harder to enjoy things from movie spoilers to the quirks in your close friend’s personalities.

It’s a lesson that I learned in shortly after turning thirty. I began to be a tad bit more guarded about my thoughts, feelings and relationships. When it came to certain experiences in my life, I started to feel a need to protect them. I didn’t want experiences like my first trip to Toronto or my newborn daughter giggling in her sleep at just anyone’s disposal. I didn’t give a damn if the girl I studied with for my college freshman “Population Problems” course knew that Charlie Puth’s “One Call Away” makes me get emotional about motherhood. And most importantly, all the people I wanted to share my random thoughts and epic adventures with were usually right beside me while I was having them. I no longer felt the urgency to give all 308 friends I shared shallow connections with the play by play of my adulthood. I’ll still share a few pics of our first trip as a family to the zoo or use a status to throw subliminal shade at an in-law, but for if anyone wants to subscribe to my random musings for entertainment they can follow Madamenoire, and not my personal Facebook page.

Still, it seems my BFF hasn’t gotten the memo and it’s starting to make me look at her differently. I feel like she’s slowly being absorbed by a culture more concerned with looking like they’re having a good time more than actually having one. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel slighted at the fact the she seems more comfortable sharing her feelings with Muhammed in Bangladesh who friend requested her two weeks ago, than with her best friend she’s known for years. Social media has a way of making you feel close to people who you’re actually the most distanced from, and I’m not sure that’s always a good thing especially when one of those people is yourself.

As I enter this next phase of my life I feel a need to get to know myself a little better and I find it’s easier to do without the alert on my phone going off for every like or new follower. While I still enjoy social media I do miss not being so plugged in to people’s every thought or action. I’ve liked what I’ve learned about some folks who feel comforted to be themselves by the distance social media can provide. For others I just find myself scrolling by and thinking, “Please STFU and stop trying to prove how lit your life is.” But as Phelan points out, our reactions to what folks’ post say as much about us as what they’re posting says about them:

“Social media is a digital maze of fun-house mirrors, a hall of distorted images; it may reflect certain truths about a person, but you won’t know if you can trust them until you glimpse the real-live person behind the reflection. It also might reveal more about ourselves than we care to admit: how quick we are to judge, for instance, or how easily we buy into an oversimplified version of someone, how ungenerous we are with our likes.”

There’s more to friendship than a selfie in front of a perfect sunset and a check-in to a dream vacation. There’s the guy whose lap I almost fell into when the Greyhound bus threw on the brakes on my way to the bathroom. There’s being lost together in a new city despite Google maps and directions from the locals. There’s a shared look of shade because we know our waiter is drunk but we’re going to tip him anyway because he hunted down sweet and sour sauce for our chicken sandwiches. There are things about friendship that a Snapchat could never capture. Because the fact is once I felt that social media was making me dislike some of the very people I’ve shared meals with, been kicked out of clubs with and stopped in customs with, I knew that I had to unfollow them on Facebook so I could continue to ride for them in real life.

Toya Sharee is a Health Resource Specialist who has a  passion for helping young women build their self-esteem and make well-informed choices about their sexual health. She also advocates for women’s reproductive rights and blogs about  everything from beauty to love and relationships. Follow her on Twitter @TheTrueTSharee or visit her blog, Bullets and Blessings.

The post Unfollowed: My Friend’s Social Media Presence Irks My Soul appeared first on MadameNoire.