Swag: The Biggest Cause of the Relationship Decline

I could bore you to death, and talk about the horrifying myth that at least 70% of black women are single, and most will remain that way, in a country that has a divorce rate of over 50%. But what would be the point? We all heard about the “statistics,” yet, we’ll spend the majority of our lives trying to beat them, and prove that in a country where society continues to attempt to label black women as the least desirable, or least likely to walk down the aisle unless she marries a white man; deep down inside, there’s a part of us that isn’t willing to give up on the concept of black love. So we’ll endure the bad dates and horrid relationships, hoping to beat the numbers, and be the exception to the norm.

But as a young black woman in my mid 20s, I’ve seen a lot of stuff to make me question if we as women even honestly know what the hell we should even be looking for. I mean, even the woman who has a wealth of options tends to choose the wrong one.

And even that sister who hasn’t had a relationship for years, can’t seem to find a way to be even remotely interested in the nice guy.

Drama has gotten the unworthy reputation of being the standard in most relationships, so we tend to look for the man with flair. We need that spark, but have we forgotten that a spark is a flicker, and just a momentary flash of light?

It appears as if we prefer to sit in darkness…and completely disregard any truth in love and relationships.

We’re taking self help books written by divorced comedians as the relationship gospel, yet, we won’t even include the real gospel and only true self help book in our daily lives and relationships. Some of us require big penises and hefty bank accounts, but rarely do we require that a man has a relationship with God.

We may say a man better know God to be with us, but in all actuality, we’ll give our sacred hearts to the man with no self-control or respect for his woman. We love the men who don’t know God.

As a result, our approach to love, something so Godly, has become ungodly. Who knew we’d have to sacrifice our own morals for the sake of finding love?

And now, there’s an even bigger epidemic in the deflation of black relationships: swag.

Yes, swag is the biggest cause of the black relationship decline, and a huge factor in the surging increase of black single women. This four letter word has totally confused black women in what qualities we should look for in a man.

And this same word has duped black men into being conformists, and merely hip hop clones.

Swag was introduced as an innocent concept to promote self-esteem, confidence, flyness, and individuality. But it’s actually become a movement marked by arrogance, superficiality, and conformity.

Most women are quick to say there’s a shortage of good black men, but the truth is, most of us aren’t really looking for goodness. We’re looking for swag.

Swag is the it factor, that extra thing, that thing that makes a man intriguing…that spark (there goes that word again).

A nice guy needs some flair, something extra, some type of character trait that solidifies his willingness to conform to the current society.

We want him to dress like everyone else, speak like everyone else, adopt the morals of everyone else.

In essence, we don’t want an individual. If he’s considered different from our Hip Hip culture…he’s a total snoozefest. Therefore, he lacks swag for daring to be different.

Now let’s examine the other side of swag…the ladies’ man factor.

Women tend to want the man that every other woman wants. It’s like to know we have a good thing, everyone else must be able to see that we have a good thing. We must make other women jealous of the man we managed to pull, and if they don’t want him, we don’t want him.

Now this may seem perfectly harmless and logical, but we must keep in mind that we’re the same people who prefer a spark, a flicker, a momentary flash of light.

In that case, we prefer to sit in complete darkness, and conform to the ignorance of our environment.

Society wouldn’t know a good man even if he engraved good on his forehead, but we only want a man that society deems good enough? Why is that?

Now I don’t say this to somehow say that chemistry isn’t important in a relationship, but the kind of chemistry we obsess over determines the type of relationships we’ll keep attracting.

You have to get past the superficial to have the official.

When swag became part of Soulja’s Boy vocabulary, that in itself should have been proof enough that just maybe it isn’t something we should include in our quest for love.

If we’re looking for a man, he ought to be the light in a room full of darkness.In essence, he’s the original in a room full of clones. He’s the truth, he’s unique, the one person who wasn’t willing to conform. Because if he’s anything like everyone else, he’ll value what they value, and disregard what they disregard. And it’s clear our society has a vague depiction of what love truly is, so it’s wise to refrain from loving a product of society.

These people are looking for sparks, when love is the light.

These people are looking for momentary, when love is constant.

So let’s not look for swag, but instead, goodness. Individuality begins the moment you stop allowing society to dictate what kind of man you should be looking for.

Besides, swag is so overrated.

swag

A subtle way for a man to say that he finds another man attractive, or to talk about fashion or other such topics that were previously a no-no for heterosexual males.

A term popularized by the new wave of metrosexual rappers.

A: You heard that new ‘Pretty Boy Swag’ by Souja Boy?

B: No. I was busy listening to that new Nas album and some old 2pac. I see the agenda to emasculate black men is going well though. smh.

(Taken from the Urban Dictionary)