I am an Erykah Badu fan, and even though some of her earlier fans may have fallen off throughout the years because of her ever-evolving sound, I am one of the remaining faithful. After listening to Bag Lady yesterday for about the millionth time, I realized that this song has to be one of the most selfish songs ever made in the history of selfish songs.

I know this may not be a popular sentiment since a lot of people can resonate with the song, but IMO it’s selfish. It’s selfish because it depicts a woman who has been done wrong by a previous boyfriend, who can’t let go of the past, and is now left to fend for herself by herself, who is also a victim that is unfairly cast to the side by her selfish new lover.

Now, this isn’t one of my generalizing women posts, rather a generalizing people post. This is a common scenario that I know happens to both men and women, so it would be unfair to focus on one or the other. The reason why I take offense to the song is not the song itself, but the scenario it describes. I think one of the most selfish things a person can do is get involved in a new relationship when they clearly have not dealt with the emotional, mental and or physical issues that were caused by the previous s/o.

Getting involved with someone and not giving them the choice to decide if they want to date you or not because you can’t let go of what some other person has done is the equivalent of entrapment. You’re basically setting that person up if they decide they are tired of fighting an uphill battle and choose to leave up for failure.

People that for whatever reasons can’t, refuse to, or won’t move on; instead, purposely choosing to hold on to the pain and baggage messes things up for everyone they come in contact with or date. Making it a lose-lose situation for everybody, that person may take the scars they’ve acquired from being with you into their next relationship, thinking that all women are emotional creatures who can’t think rationally or that all men are selfish and run at the first sign of trouble.

In my experience people like this are always negative when it comes to love and relationships; they either think they’ll never find someone that’ll treat them right or they develop an attitude that all men are the same (dogs) or all women are bitches and bitches aint shit, just because of what ONE person did to them. Instead of taking the time to heal or to be alone to reflect on what happened and how to not make the same mistake or just to grow as a person, they seem to be the most eager to be in a relationship even though they may say something different. And when things go wrong, instead of admitting their part in the relationship failing, they’ll normally place all the blame on the other person, failing to realize that they may have entered the relationship with one strike against them by not letting go of the past and taking time to heal.

That scares me. People that are the most damaged seem to be the ones that will hop into relationships quicker than a Kardashian, normally leaving emotional destruction in their wake.

What do you think? Is starting a new relationship when you know you haven’t gotten over the pain from your previous relationship selfish? Or is it something else?

Talk to me, I’ll talk back.
_______________________________________
Written by B. Taylor, Founder of Corner Politics