According To Wale…

“Love is overrated and underrated because it seem like a placebo when it be done.”

Overrated adj. have a higher opinion of (something or someone) than deserved.

Underrated v. To rate or evaluate too low.

Placebo n. A measure designed merely to calm or please someone.

Maybe Wale is on to something, maybe Love is overrated and underrated. How many times have a love that you thought would be forever ended and your left feeling … depleted? To be in Love means what? To be in a haze of feelings? To give your all? To what? Is it something you do? Feel? Are we not giving Love its due? Do we not place it in such a high regard? Are we too lax about it? Should we make more of a bigger deal when it felt? When it’s said? When it’s realized and shown?

Is love really as underrated and overrated as we make it?

Tristan Jonez.

Song Lyrics from Set You Free ft. Kelly Price

According to Wale …

“Met a lot of women, got a lot of niggas, but everybody full of shit, that’s why we back and forth again. My heart severely scorned and you the cause of it.”

Oh Wale, there’s so much to unpack here, with just two sentences. So you’re willing to stay in a “relationship” with this person, although she’s scorned your heart because everyone else is full of shit? Isn’t that how it works tho? Especially in this age of companionship? How many times have we met someone, started to get to know them, then the red flags pop but instead of falling back, we fall deeper into?

If I’m honest that was my plight with my most recent ‘love’. Shorty has been hurt before, probably more than once, but he refuses to seek assistance on how to move forward past them. Then here I come into his World, showing him something different from what he’s used to, being consistently consistent, but he’s hesitant to fully give me a chance. He’ll continue to entertain other women, cuz then he really doesn’t have to face his past traumas or give me his whole heart but I’m not here to ‘heal’ him if he’s not willing to do the hard, frustrating but necessary work. He’ll rather go back to what he’s used to cuz how can you get hurt when your able to control the experience?

Tristan J

Song Lyrics from LOVE… (Her Fault) Ft. Tiller

According to Wale…

“I don’t really know a damn thing about this love thing but I’m tryna try.”

In the past, telling me you are willing to try this ‘love thing’ may have excited me. Wow! Here we have a man, he’s willing to try but nah, I need specifics. The goal is to organically fall in love, I’m definitely for that, but how you do plan to accomplish this goal? Have you gone to therapy to not only acknowledge your past traumas but to work on finding root causes. How do you show love, how do you want love shown to you? What does being vulnerable look like to you? How comfortable are you with expressing yourself? Your emotions? How can you positively express your disappointments? Your grievances?

I’ve been short changing myself by only accepting the bare minimum from a man as I wouldn’t want to push him too much. I want him to open up when he’s ready, all in due time, create a safe space where he can feel comfortable enough to want to express himself. However isn’t that where we go wrong? Not having those conversations early on so we know what to expect. OMG! The dreaded expectation word! As much as we want to steer from creating expectations we HAVE to. You and your partner need a flexible guide to follow so miscommunications are kept to a minimum.

Elle Varner Pour Me (thinking bout u) ft Wale

Tristan Jonez

According to Wale …

“Thought you’d keep me from cheating with your abundance of Love, thought I’d keep you from cheating I kept you cumming so much.”

Isn’t this the classic case of miscommunication? She’s showing love, thinking it’ll keep him satisfied. He’s showing sexual pleasure, thinking it would keep her content. And in both scenarios, they both cheated. As much as we don’t want to have those necessary conversations we must. We have to. To end up from putting our all into something that we are not ready for emotionally or physically. There are times in my past I had the courage to ask for what I wanted, and the confidence to walk away when what I wanted wasn’t what was on the menu to be had. As much as we want people to want what we want, it doesn’t work that way. I do believe a man will tell you the truth the first time you ask, but after that, he’s going to tell you whatever he thinks you want to hear.

I cant love you into loving me. I can be the perfect girl, the ying to your yang and I still won’t be what your looking for. I can love you in ways, you’ve never felt, never imagined you could feel and you’ll still not be ready for me. I can literally show you why it didn’t work with anyone else, you can KNOW I am the person you would like to take that leap of faith with, but if you aren’t ready you will create excuses. So my question, how do we determine when we should fight for someone who has signs of trauma, who can’t seem to let go of the past hurts, and move forward? For me, I need to see some signs that you are attempting to seek out the help that’s necessary for you to move on from what you’ve been through, more than telling me, “I’ll think about it.”

To do List, how to communicate with the intention of comprehension.

Jonez

Song Lyrics Break My Heart (My Fault) Ft. Lil Durk

According to Wale.

“She gonna find her solace, in knowing a nigga is damaged. She gonna take my heart, cuz a nigga took her for granted.”

Solace n. Comfort or consolation in a time of distress or sadness.

Now Wale, I can’t speak for all Women, but being with a damaged man, makes EVERYTHING that much fucking harder, especially anything surrounding emotions. I’m sure if we knew PRIOR to catching feelings for this man, that he was damaged, we would exit stage right immediately. Black men hardly want to identify the triggers that caused damage, barely want to explore how to correct those triggers so he isn’t ‘bleeding’ on the next, or acknowledge that he is damaged at all! IF and when, a man gives us his heart after he’s been damaged, its a struggle, it stays a struggle because he stays on guard, just waiting for the moment we screw up then he can retreat back to his shell.

Vulnerability adj. susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm.

Falling in Love requires vulnerability. You are literally placing your heart in the hands of someone who can hurt you, but you are placing faith and confidence that they won’t. You can’t be in love and have one foot in, nah. Love requires both feet, and all body parts including your brain. You have to be more than okay handing over the most sacred part of yourself over to someone. I’m sure not Love can work otherwise, damaged or not.

Tristan Jonez.

Song Lyrics from Break my heart (My Fault) Ft. Lil Durk

According to Wale …

“What if Love is nothing more than a fairytale?”

What if? In all my disappointments in Love, what if I was doomed before I had even started? Doomed before I could really have the opportunity to explore what Love was, What it means to be Loved in a way, that positively changed my life? As I get older I think I am in agreement with Wale … “What if Love is nothing more than a fairytale?” Then I’ve wasted so much of my life, looking, and waiting for the perfect love story. My first love is starting to feel like a story that didn’t really happen. As most of y’all know, my first love committed suicide so I do feel robbed. Sometimes I wonder if I felt the things I really felt, if the love we shared was real, and if it was, why did he make the choice to leave me, knowing all I had been through.

Emotionally I’m not ready to finish this conversation.

Jonez.

Song Lyrics from Cliche, ft. Ari Lennox & Boogie.

WALE!

Even though I am a Baltimore Chick through and through, I Love Wale!! I know I know, he’s from DC and this is a forbidden love, but I can’t help it. There’s something about him musically that I can not get enough of. It’s like he knows everything about me so he writes songs that speaks directly to me. There hasn’t been an album released by my boo Wale that I didn’t love and rock until I couldn’t listen anymore.

I’m currently obsessing over his latest release, SHINE. I believe this is his best work to date. However I always feel like he continuously pushes himself, with each album release. I love that he has incorporated more of the sounds from his country, although he does have more features this time around. I honestly couldn’t pick my top three but I forced myself to do so.

Top Three: My Love, Fashion Week and My PYT … honorable mention CC White.

Tristan Jonez.

SideNote: Wale’s Summer on Sunset (Mixtape) is Fire. It’s unfortunate that I haven’t been able to put the album on my phone and Spotify is not up on game. If you get the chance to listen to the album, Please listen to Day by the pool, its ridiculously sick!