Can I just say something? This is Love, Sex, LA‘s tenth issue!! It is crazy to think that this little paper has grown and expanded so quickly. In honor of ten weeks of stories, laughter, and a whole lot of cringing, I wanted to write a special letter to all the women out there — single, taken, or otherwise — about being a strong woman in this very chaotic world. About being an independent woman in the world of dating. A letter to comfort you in the moments where you feel like you’re just too much for everyone.
To remind you that being “too much” isn’t a flaw — it’s your power. Your ambition, your heart, your desire to be unapologetically yourself are all the qualities that set you apart. In a world that sometimes tries to make us smaller, to conform or fit into a certain mold, I want you to remember that your strength, your independence, and your boundaries are what make you a force to be reckoned with.
Whether you’re navigating the dating scene, standing tall in your career, or just trying to figure out this beautiful mess called life, know that it’s okay to take up space. It’s okay to demand what you want and need without apology. You don’t need to settle for half-hearted love or people who can’t handle your light. So here’s to you — the woman who is never “too much” but just enough, exactly as you are. Keep being bold, keep being brave, and most importantly, keep being you. Because you are what makes this journey so damn special.
My entire life, I’ve been told I’m too much and I need to edit parts of myself so men do not feel intimated. But, after years of being conditioned to believe that my strong-willed and opinionated personality is a flaw, I realized it was the key to my success. I have a voice, and I’m not afraid to use it. Not everyone was built to be damsel in distress, and it was that lack of fear that motivated me to launch Love, Sex, LA — because writing about your entire dating life in a public paper for the entire city of Los Angeles to see means you have to be willing to face criticism, scrutiny, and cringe at yourself now and again. You have to be willing to face rejection. Failure. Trials. It’s hard trying to decipher between the idea that we are capable of so much, but when to realize that we have to put down all of the things people place on us and choose to carry the weight of things that we want.
Women are built to carry the weight of everyone around them, especially the weight that the men around them are not capable of carrying. From babies to emotions, the hearts of women are burdened with weight that the male species cannot hold. And when things become too heavy, we females are blamed for not doing enough. For not trying harder. Our whole lives are filled with contradictory ideations of how we are supposed to be — be strong, but feminine. Be smart, but not too smart, and definitely not smarter than your significant other. Keep a job, but make dinner too. Wear makeup, but not too much. Be available but unavailable. Let him take you for a test drive, but don’t sleep with too many men. If he calls act busy, but interested. In business, we have to be assertive but not too aggressive. Independent, but know your place. Dress professionally, but not frumpy. When things don’t work out, we blame ourselves, because we have been conditioned to think that everything is within our control as long as we follow society’s rules and play the part accordingly. We just have to bend over backward until we snap in half. Throughout time, in my romantic relationships, I have felt the pressure to carry the weight of the relationships I find myself in. And it becomes contradictory when we women are told to let the man take the lead but meet them halfway too. Which is it? Can it be both?
Maybe it can be both. We are not flawed for being able to keep up in a man’s world, but should we have to carry both our weight and theirs? We can’t control the hearts of others, or who likes us and who doesn’t. We only have control of ourselves, the decisions we make, and the thoughts we allow to consume us.
When you start a business, you have to carry the weight of a lot of things, especially in the beginning, when it is a one-woman show. You face rejection, just as you can in relationships. Not only do you face rejection, but, you also face people’s desires to attach themselves onto your projects and tell you how to run things. Boundaries are everything. I remember when I was preparing to launch Love, Sex, LA, there were a few people who really tried to latch onto my column, and assert themselves into my business. I kindly declined their involvement on this project. The minute I set boundaries, when I ran into one of them afterward, they told me off in the middle of the street on Charlesville & Beverly in front of a group of people with whom we mutually did business. I was not only taken aback, but completely mortified, but I realized you have to be a strong woman, not only in dating, but also in business. I stood up for myself, stood my ground, and it was a very liberating moment for me.
With the launch of Love, Sex, LA, and dealing with building it from the bottom up, I’ve learned that as women living in a man’s world where we have to work double the amount to be taken seriously, and to be perceived as more than just a body, but also brains and drive and personality, we are capable of carrying so much, anything we want. But we are not responsible for carrying everything for everyone. We are not to blame for the gravitational weight of the world when it was never ours to begin with. We constantly ask ourselves, What could I have done differently? Did I seem interested in him? Did I seem too interested? Did I speak well enough in that meeting? What should I have done differently? And the truth is, most of the time: nothing. Because we are not in control of every little thing that doesn’t go as planned. Sometimes the ball is in the other person’s court. And we have to accept that we only have two hands to hold it all together. Whether it is dating, a career, or something else altogether, we have to realize that we have so much power to accomplish what we want and dream of, but the weight we hold should be of our choosing and sometimes we have to learn how to put things down when they have become beyond our control. Because as much as the world wants us to believe it, we cannot be everything at once, but we can choose to be whoever we want to be. Not everything, but anything.
Xoxo,
Alexandria