Personally, I don't believe in puppy love. At least, not in the traditional sense. It's been my experience that whenever people use that term it's a way to minimize a love relationship based on one's age. My first love? It happened when I was 18. He was a teenager too. And although we're both in our 40s now, we still run into each other from time to time and admit that our "young love" was one of the most mutually impacting, to this day.
My point? When we get involved with someone, we "fall in love" and things don't work out, I don't think it's smart to act like what happened wasn't love at all. Just because things don't turn out the way we want them to, that doesn't mean the experience wasn't real. If anything, I just think that each time we love and move on, we learn more about what love really is, in preparation for the bigger love that is to follow.
Me? Based on what I currently believe I know about love, I feel that I have loved four men. What hindsight has caused me to accept is that each one taught me something that has caused me to expand my view of love—love for a man and, more importantly, love for myself. Just because we aren't together, that didn't mean the love wasn't real; it just means that the season came to an end so that I could learn more about the vastness of love…elsewhere.
Honestly, I think embracing this kind of mentality is the first indication that you're ready to love again. When you don't look back and diminish what you had with someone else but, instead, you can see the beauty and divine purpose within it, that's when you can receive what's next.
If a past love experience wore you all the way out, what are some other pretty telling signs that you're in a healthy and mature place to love—again?
You’re Not Looking for a Man to Fill Some Void
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The reality is that all of us have voids in our lives; some are just bigger (or in different compartments) than others. But the reason why it's not the best idea to look for a man to fill a void in your life is because, typically, when you do that, the void has something to do with what you should be working to fill on your own. If that doesn't make sense, peep some indicators that you have a pattern of looking for guys to fill voids—you tend to rebound a lot; you hop from shallow relationship to shallow relationship; you rush relationships; you mistake sex for intimacy and you'd rather be with someone—almost anyone—than be alone.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to be in a relationship. After all, humans are relational beings. At the same time, one of the best indications that you've healed from the past and are truly ready for what is to come is you are happy and whole as a single woman. Also, a man isn't going to complete your life so much as he will enhance it. And until that man comes along, you know you'll be fine whether you're with someone or…not.
You Know the Difference Between Being Lonely and Being Alone
Remember how I said that people who look for void fillers, they would rather be with just about anybody over being alone? Let's look a little deeper into that.
One of the biggest lessons that comes with singlehood is knowing the difference between being lonely vs. being alone.
What sets them apart? People who are alone, they don't look at it like it's a death sentence or even anything to be ashamed of. People who are alone, oftentimes do it by choice because if someone doesn't have what they are looking for, they'd rather pass than settle. People who are alone have such full lives that they don't have a ton of time to reflect on whether they are lonely or not. People who are alone don't see the need to wait on a date or even their friends before going out; if no one else is available, they will head out anyway.
Lonely individuals? They read all of that and broke out into a cold sweat. To them, being in a relationship is the solution to their chronic loneliness. As a result, a relationship doesn't really serve as a support system; it's more like a crutch.
When You Think About Your Ex, You Have Peace About the Situation
This one is big. Some of my exes, we're actually pretty cool with one another; not besties but definitely not afraid to run into each other at the mall and give an earnest hug. Then there are those who, I am totally fine with never seeing again. EVER. But something that both categories of men have in common is when they randomly run through my mind (or someone brings them up), I don't feel any type of way about it. I'm not mad. I'm not plotting revenge. I don't even feel the need to rant or vent about their qualities that caused us to end things in the first place.
We shared an intimate season and so, that's a part of me. At the same time, nothing about what was is going to affect—meaning infect—what is or what will be. This means that the next guy doesn't have to worry about me comparing him to my ex or judging him based on what my ex did or didn't do. He's got a totally clean slate. Just as it should be.
Your Reason for a Relationship Is Not to Prove Some Point
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I promise you, the older—and wiser—I get, the less things I feel like I need to prove to anyone. You should feel the exact same way. I mean, just look at what prove means: "to establish the truth or genuineness of, as by evidence or argument". If you're walking around trying to make the things in your life appear true or genuine, either you've been out here fakin' the funk for a long time now or you need to find some new people to be around.
This is especially the case as it relates to matters of the heart. No matter how much you loved your ex, how long you were with him, why the two of you broke up or how quickly he bounced back and got with someone else (shout out to Nino Brown's insight on this topic right here), you are absolutely NOT ready for a new situation if your only motive is to prove that you can move on too.
The last time I had a boyfriend is when I was 32. He's since lived with someone and some other stuff since then. Chile, I don't care. The love I once had for him hopes he'll find his fit; he deserves it. In the meantime, I'm not gonna get myself into something that isn't the best for me just to prove that I can.
When you've truly healed from a relationship, you know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that you have nothing that you need to prove. To anyone.
You’d Finally Prefer the Man You Need vs. the Man You Want
Did you know that only 14 percent of men in the United States are over 6' tall (maybe that's why a lot of celebrities are so short; tall is the exception and not the rule)? This means that my preference for at least 6'3" or up is going to make finding Mr. Right a bit of a challenge; especially since I'd also prefer him to be in the Godiva chocolate range (preferably someone who resembles the lead in one my favorite web seriesMind of the Single Male; he's dope and so is his real-life wife. I love Black love!). On the physical tip, those are some of the things that I want; they are not necessarily things that I need.
That's a part of how I know that I'm ready to love again because I used to have a pretty counterproductive habit of putting my wants before my needs—attractive before committable; funny before mature; sexy over spiritual (hey, I'm just being real). But after having to nurse my heart back to life, more times than I can count, needs are a whole lot more important to me.
By no means am I saying that I'm going to settle for the short and hefty pastor who has absolutely no sex appeal (I broke down how I got over that in "My Eureka Moment for Why I'm Not into 'Nice Guys'"); I'm saying that rather than just focusing on what I desire on a semi-surface level, I'm now open to what's truly necessary for my next relationship to remain healthy, strong and able to go the distance.
Character is the "cake", the need. Sexiness is "icing", the want. Cake before icing (but yes…icing is much appreciated too).
A Relationship Will Enhance Your Already Amazing Life
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You wanna know how you can truly know that you're ready for the next—and, if all goes well, final—love of your life? It's when, if the perfect man entered into your world right now, you'd have to stop and consider if he is going to cramp your style because your life is already so full and fulfilling.
Recently, while talking to a male friend of mine, he asked me if I was freaking out (on any level) since it had been so long since I've been in a relationship. I thought about it and said:
"My hormones have those moments, for sure, but you know what? Until a man can love me in the way that I know I can love a man, I need to remain single. I'd be settling otherwise."
That's basically my motto these days. I want to find love again, but not just so I can be in a relationship. What all of the past loves have taught me is until—and unless—someone can top all of what I've already experienced, my life, as it is, is pretty darn good. I'm in love with it and myself. "He" will have to get in where he fits in. And honestly, that's how I know that I'm about as close as I can get to being ready to love…again.
Featured image by Getty Images
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak