Tragic Crush Tales #4

If you’ve read any of the lovey dovey type poems I’ve posted as of late they are all about crush L. The only words I can use to describe this man is: intelligent, caring, cool, laid back, artistic, and the perfect match for me, truly.
I met him at my first job in Chicago back in 2009. When I first laid eyes on him I just knew he was someone I was going to click with. The romantic feelings didn’t start off right away. I still had an overwhelming feeling of nervousness because I’m in this big city by myself and hadn’t been there long, I was starting this job where most people had been for a long time, were a tight knit family, and I know I’m not the easiest person to get to know, and when I did start this job I was given a heads up that the store was closing in less than a year. With all of those feelings swirling in my head I had no time to stop and listen to my heart pitter-patter.
I quickly started to fit in and especially when months later a girl from another store came to work at ours. I instantly clicked with her, even though we were total opposites. By this time I had started looking at L in a different way. One day me and the girl were talking and she told me that she had liked L. They had known each other a while so I never said anything about my feelings. All my life I’ve only had one friend not go after a guy I liked and I’ll be damned if I do that to someone else. So from that moment on since L and I had the same interests, sort of the same attitude I started to call him my big brother. When I think about it the first time I called him that he looked kind of crushed. But I had to put that label out there to make my feelings subside so that I don’t make a move on my friends crush.
As months went on L and I got closer. Not in a romantic way, but in a sort of best friend way. I don’t have many people where I feel just opening up my soul too, but he was one of those people. He made me feel completely comfortable from the first conversation we had. There were a few times were after work we’d go walk and talk for what seemed like hours. A few times I’d be on the verge of tears because of whatever we were talking about and he would be the type of person to grab my hand and just listen. I never got any judgmental words from him let alone looks. I’d never gotten that feeling from any of my girlfriends let alone a guy.
One summer night we decided to meet up and go to this reggae club and no one else wanted to go with him. I really liked hanging out with him , but I was kind of nervous to go because he’s a real cool dude and I’m a black chick who can’t dance for shit. When we arrived everything was fine and fun, but he slowly started to get agitated that I wouldn’t dance. I’d try to do the minimal, but it seemed to annoy him that he kept trying to get me out of my shell and I refused to. We only stayed a few hours and I guess he got tired of watching me pretty much just stand around. When we left, I don’t know how it happened, but all of a sudden we were in a screaming match as we walked down the street. I don’t know if he felt like I ruined his good night or if he was upset that I didn’t let loose, but I do know we were literally screaming at each other. It was weird though, once we got on the bus we were mad at first then we kinda looked at each other and that anger was completely gone. Once we got downtown we decided to just keep the night going since the buses that would take us home all the way to the south side had long since stopped running for the night. We bar hopped a bit and then decided to go to the beach. We climbed onto the lifeguard stand and talked for hours until the sun rose. I couldn’t tell you what we talked about, but it was one of the best nights I had in Chicago. Honestly, I lived there for over 4 years and the only other awesome nights I had was seeing Paul McCartney for the first time, seeing U2 for the first time, and seeing Coldplay, RHCP, and Jack White at Lollapalooza. Still my night with L ranks above most of these events.
The only downside to my night with L is that the sexual tension was high and nothing happened. We did the most romantic thing in the world like watching the sunrise and absolutely nothing happened. I was torn. I didn’t know if his anger from earlier that night was because he liked me and didn’t know how to say it (because that’s definitely where my anger came from) or if he didn’t like me in that way at all. It could’ve been possible that he didn’t think I liked him in that way. Either way it was an opportunity lost.
Another opportunity happened when we went to see “Hot Tub Time Machine” after work one day. Afterwards we went for a walk and talked again for hours. At one point I could feel him lean in, but again nothing happened. I had even looked into his eyes, not backing away, and still nothing. In the back of my mind was always that my friend liked him and the only way I was going to act on anything is if he acted first, but we never got to that point.
 By summer of 2010 I had found another job, which the girl who also liked L helped me get, in just enough time before this job closed shop. My new job worked me like a dog, so I barely had time for me let alone trying to keep in contact with other people. L and I would talk here and there and then slowly it turned into the occasional “Hello” or “Happy birthday” on Facebook. As of late he’s really been on my mind. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m at a point in my life where I want to settle down and build something with someone and when I think of the perfect mate it’s his face that pops up. I’ve tried talking with other men whom I do like, but in the end of the day it comes straight back to him. Just as in “Hot Tub Time Machine” I really believe he was my great white buffalo.
I know most of my Tragic Tales are about asshole exes and crushes in my life who had done me wrong in some way, but this is a different type of tragic. It’s tragic because perhaps we would’ve been great together. Perhaps we would have flourished. He very well may have been the one and I ran from that because I chose friendship over possible happiness. It’s even more tragic because to this day I’m still terrified to tell him how I feel. How do you tell a person you haven’t said much to in 3 years that you can’t stop thinking about them? The shy girl in me posts obscure statuses on Facebook hoping he’ll see and get the hidden meaning and say something. Most likely I know I’ll post this with that same foolish hope. I tell myself that if it’s meant to be it will be, but I know that there is no way he will ever know what is in my heart unless I actually tell him and I know that’s something I don’t have the courage to do. I don’t want to face the rejection of him telling me he’s with someone, or even worse, married, or even worse than that, him telling me he never saw me that way at all. As much as I think about him it’s a risk I should be taking, but it’s a risk I’m just not willing to take yet. Just another opportunity wasted.

Tragic Crush Tales #3

        Crush G was the shit sprinkles on top of a shit sundae that 2013 was starting out to be. I had met G on Twitter of all places. We noticed each other through a mutual person we were following. The weird thing about it is the person we were following was the girl who was the main person in the Catfish finale of season 1. That should have been a sign. Well, one day she was tweeting about not being able to find love (this was all before her episode even aired) and we both at the same time were trying to give her encouraging words. We both saw each other and liked what we saw and it all started from there. We’d message each other all the time and send little flirtatious tweets back and forth.
        As sad as it sounds during this time he became my everything. Just a few months earlier I was kicked out of my place in Chicago and had to move back to Dayton. People that I called my very best friends were super excited I was coming back home, but when I did land in Ohio I never heard from these people (and now it’s almost 2015 and I really still haven’t). Losing my place and returning to hell was depressing enough, when my friends completely abandoned me when I needed them most made my world crumble. I had no one else, so I latched onto G. He said all the right things and made me feel cared for. Soon we were texting to get to know each other better than what 140 characters can hold. We talked about likes, dislikes, exes, and family. Something that always stuck out in my mind was once when I asked him about his last relationship he said they had broken up that summer (I started talking to him in January 2013) because she was just “crazy” but that she was still in is life because they had kids together. I asked how many kids, and he stated he had 3. One kid that was his, one that was hers from a previous relationship but since the father was not around he stepped up to assume the role. He never described the third, which I thought was weird, but I ignored because I was just happy to finally get to know him better.
We talked everyday for weeks, whether it was by text, Twitter, or a few times talking on the phone. During those few weeks there were a few times where he started to act really strange. I could say something really simple or tweet about something that had nothing to do with him and he would completely lose his shit. We wouldn’t talk for a few days and then everything would be back to normal. He would go back to leaving cutesy tweets about how much he liked me and things of that nature. By late January we were still messaging each other everyday and talking about meeting each other soon and he had even told me that he was looking for jobs near me so that he could move here. I was happy about the news, but I knew he would have to be insane to move here from Detroit and only be able to see his kids probably a few times a year. I still thought it was a nice gesture seeing as by that point my friends were still nowhere in sight. One day in February I texted him because I hadn’t heard from him in a few days since he had started a new job. He replied saying he was busy with work, as I had assumed, and that he was scared of his feelings for me. “I’m falling for you hard, Asia. It’s crazy.” I was shocked, but honestly I was feeling the same way. “There’s three words I want to tell you so bad,” he said. I cared for him a lot, but saying “I love you” wasn’t in my vocabulary at that time. I don’t throw that around lightly. We talked a bit more and he was understanding as to why I didn’t want to rush those kinds of feelings since we hadn’t met yet.
For a few more weeks things were going great. Not even a two weeks later he sent me a text saying that he’s getting back together with his kids mom to make their family work. I wasn’t upset about that. If you both care about each other and want to make it work for the kids then you should do that. I was upset because not too long before he’s practically saying he loved me and days after he continued to tell me how much he wanted to be with me. I was totally confused by that. Instead of trying to help me understand as to how feelings like that can be turned off like a light switch, he decided to subtweet me on Twitter like a juvenile saying I was trying to break up his family. I was extremely pissed by that point. How dare you spring this news on me and then talk shit about me like I’m the bad guy?
A few weeks later I received a message on Facebook from an account I had never seen before. It was his kids mom. At first she tried to get huffy with me until I had to keep drilling into her head that I knew nothing about her other than they had kids together. She first told me she found out about me by seeing some messages of mine on his phone and when she questioned him he just told her that I was “crazy.” I told her it figured since he said the same of her. We started to compare notes. He told me that they had broken up summer ‘12. She said they had, but got back together by November which means a month after that he started talking to me. I put two and two together that the few days I didn’t hear from him or the few times he went ape shit on me for no reason are times that his gf was probably coming over and he had to find some way to get rid of me for a few days. She told me they had the one kid together and one on the way. It started to click of that time when he told me of his kids and only described two, I do suppose it’s hard to describe a kid that isn’t born yet. It wasn’t as if she was a few months pregnant either, she was about to burst by this time. She said they were pretty much married. Not sure if she meant legally or they were “FB married.” Either way I didn’t give a shit. I told her I had 90% of all our texts and tweets saved. She wanted me to text them to her, but I’m sorry, if he was nuts then most likely she was too. There was no way in hell I was going to give her access to my number (the phone I had wouldn’t let me screen shot so I couldn’t have messaged her on FB with them).
I blocked both of them on all social media. As I searched to see if they had any backup accounts that I should block as well I found old ones of theirs on Twitter and most of the timelines consisted of them arguing back and forth. So it’s possible they’re both “crazy” and are the type of couple who will continually break up every 6-8 months while popping out babies.
I’d like to say that after this happened I brushed it off in a “Fuck him” sort of way, but I didn’t. The way my year was already going I just saw it as another person who felt the need to use and abandon me and for that I say “fuck him”. It’s things like this that make me put up a wall with people. I don’t understand someone who can lie about something like that. Either be with your girl or not, but if you’re going to be with her don’t emotionally cheat on her with other people and hurt multiple people in the process. Yes, I’m sure there were other girls besides me. And yes he is a dick for that.

-Asia Aneka Anderson, 2014(c)

Tragic Boyfriend Tales #4

I met boyfriend L through a mutual friend. I thought he was very attractive and asked my best friend to set us up. To this day I still believe our first date was the best first date I’d ever been on. We went to dinner and a movie and since we didn’t want to leave each other we went back to his place and stayed up all night watching movies. I was leaving Ohio for Chicago not even two months after we met, but we decided to give a relationship a go anyways. We became attached to the hip instantly, making sure to spend every minute together until it was time for me to leave. I fell for him hard from the start. Very hard.

One day he was over at my house. We got tired of packing and decided to take a movie break. The movie started to bore me halfway through so I started playing a game on his phone. All of a sudden he takes the phone from me and tells me he wants to show me something. He flips through his phone for a few minutes and then shoves it in my face once he’s found the picture he’s looking for. He pushed the phone so close to my face I had to back up to see what it was. When I saw it I was actually dumbfounded. It was a photo of him making out with the very friend that hooked us up. “Why would you show me this?” I asked him. I wasn’t even snooping on his phone so why go out of the way to show me something like that? He just shrugged, “I don’t know.” He assured me that the pic was before we met, but I was still puzzled as to why he would show me that as if he was proud. You don’t show a girl a picture of you kissing her best friend nor do you keep it saved on your phone. I was upset with him, but I have to say I was more upset with my friend. She should have told me beforehand that they had either liked each other at one point or something. Whether or not she would’ve given her blessing I wouldn’t have dated him. That’s girl code. If I had a man in my life that I’d never dated, but maybe we tried for a short period of time or fooled around I’d tell my friend beforehand if she wanted to date him so that info doesn’t come out later and make things awkward.

Looking back on the situation I feel like he only dated me to get back at her. A sort of “Well if you don’t like me I’ll date your best friend”. Possibly he was hoping to make her jealous and to want him after seeing him with me. Sort of backfired on him. I look back at little things he used to say. In the beginning I remember him saying “A long time ago I liked H, but she would blow me off then she told me she had a friend that liked me (moi) so I thought ‘Hell yeah’.” Stupid of me to not question that further. Even though we stayed together almost a year after that I honestly didn’t feel like I could trust him anymore. I turned into the girl who would check his phone when he left the room and I am honestly not that kind of girl. There were many questionable things L did throughout our relationship, but this was the first in a long line of “WTF?” moments.


-Asia Aneka Anderson

Another Naturally Me

I haven't posted much about it since I started the castor oil challenge. It's a 3 month challenge to help promote natural hair growth. Well the challenge is almost over and I couldn't be happier with my hair. I can definitely tell that it's growing and it's incredibly soft. A new challenge is starting up December 7th and you should definitely join. Within the next couple of weeks I'll post updates of my hair growth progress as well as reviews for the castor oil I have been using as well as a new coconut oil I purchased recently. I wanted to share a few pics with you guys of my hair pinned up. My twist outs never go as planned so I've been playing around with different styles. I don't feel like my hair is long enough or the texture to do a lot of styles I'd like to, but I'm learning.

I was messing around with my hair the other day and was able to get my hair to do hat I wanted for once. So I'll try my best to get these updates posted soon and again you guys should definitely join the challenge. The deadline to register is Dec. 7th and runs until March. There may be another challenge come summer, but I'm not 100% when that will start, but I will post once it's known.
Bye guys! :)
Asia Aneka Anderson

Killing Myself To Be Pretty

I’ve never been the pretty girl and the world would always remind me.
As a young girl I learned that no one liked ugly.
I’d stare into mirrors and ponder why God would do such a thing.
Picked on by the boys in class.
Treated like the outcast at home.
Ugly duckling.
Black sheep.
I grew into a woman constantly wanting to feel pretty.
Self conscience of everything about me.
Pulling, tugging, and sucking it in.
When my hips expanded the world was sure to point it out.
When I didn’t wear makeup the world turned up its nose in disgust.
Skip a meal or two or three.
Create homemade mask that could burn away the ugly.
When my waist started to shrink and my skin began to clear the world struggled to find the words of praise as if the words would burn their lips.
Backhanded compliments of “You’d look better if….” and “You look nice, but…” were the norm.
Genuine words of encouragement were far and few in between.
Still I felt unpretty.
Still I stood in the mirror asking “Why?”
Why can’t I be beautiful?
Why was I raised believing that being pretty was necessary?
Why can’t I be loved for simply being me?
People appear out of nowhere with compliments.
Some social media notification of a stranger calling me “beautiful” catches me off guard.
My beauty is now measured in likes and views, but these people don’t like me.
They like the girl with the bright smile, painted mask, and clever filter that appears in a newsfeed.
That girl is pretty, but she is not me.
I have never been pretty.
Many made sure to tell me that from the moment I could create memories.
That little girl who’s always felt ugly and out of place will forever be a part of me.
All I’ve ever wanted was to feel pretty but whether I wanted it for myself or others is unclear.
I’ve never been the pretty girl.
That is a girl I’ll never see through my eyes.


-Asia Aneka Anderson
Tumblr: AsiaWrites

Who I Am.

I know exactly who I am. I have no idea where I’m going, I don’t know what life has in store for me, and I don’t know what I want to be, but I DO know who I am. I don’t think a lot of people truly know deep down who they are. When I say that I mean I know how I act, react, my flaws, I know my strengths and my weaknesses, and I embrace all of this. I feel like that’s rare. I feel that way because I don’t know many people who embrace their weaknesses and flaws. Honestly I probably embrace those parts of myself more than my strengths. I think weakness and flaws mold you more than anything because you learn from them.

I know that I have a horrible habit of treating my shitty friends like gold and my golden friends like shit. I’ve always been like that and I don’t know why. I see it. I recognize it. I try to catch myself when I see myself doing it, but sometimes it’s too late. I’ve been accused of being an overprotective friend. It’s true to a point, but it’s because I don’t want my friends to get hurt. I’m motherly in that way. Honestly I’m overprotective because that’s how I wish people were with me. I know that people use me and sometimes I just let it happen because it’s better than being alone. I know that I can be very irritable and mean for no reason. People ask me simple questions and if I’m not in the mood to talk instead of saying “I’m sorry, not now.” I snap, or huff, and roll my eyes. I know that when it comes to the things I want to do in life if the path to reach this goal isn’t clear and planned out I just give up entirely. I won’t even try. I know that I need things to go as planned and if it doesn’t I go into a panic. I don’t believe in myself. Not 100%, but a good portion of me is shrouded in doubt. I just don’t feel like I’m as talented as I used to be despite my great ideas. I know that deep down I am very sensitive and I put on a tough guy persona. I know that sometimes I can hold grudges. It’s not that I hold onto them, it’s just that I have trust issues. I have had moments where I try to forgive and forget when someone has done me wrong only to have to break that trust again so now I have a habit of keeping my guard up with everyone. A big flaw I have is I don’t point out my flaws to people. If I do something unintentionally that hurts someone and I know that I did I won’t say anything unless the other person says something. If they do I’ll explain and apologize, but if they don’t I’ll pretend it never happened. People tell me that I’m negative, but I just feel like I have a realistic outlook on life. Death, war, racism, homophobia, terrorism, suicide, etc happens every day. Just because I acknowledge that doesn’t make me negative. It makes me too aware. I can’t really express love the way I want to. I wasn’t brought up with a ton of hugs and kisses and “I love yous”. Sometimes I pull away when people try to hug me because I’m not used to it. That reaction isn’t me being mean, it’s just very awkward for me. But I do have a lot of love to give I just have a hard time showing it because I don’t know how. I have a horrible horrible habit of being mean to people I don’t find attractive. That’s something I’m really sorry about. It’s a habit I grew up watching and just like with my habit of not treating my great friends as great as they treat me I try to stop myself when I see it happening. I know a lot of my bad habits are things I watched from family growing up and they are tough habits to break, but I do try.

I am a true believer that my flaws are lessons I learn from, but not everything about me is moody, depressing, and bitchy. I am the type of person who doesn’t like to see people hurt. Even if I’ve only met you once or only met you online and you seem sad I always tell people to talk to me if they need someone, and I truly mean it from the bottom of my heart. When I made a decent amount of money I was the type to help friends and family. My thoughts are “what’s mine is yours”. I tried to help the homeless when I could and I wish I had the means to still do so. I don’t like to see people without. I try to take tragic events and make people laugh about it. That may not make the hardship go away but at least with a joke or two I can take your mind off it. I never forget people who help me. For instance, when I got kicked out of my place a few years ago a co-worker I wasn’t really close with opened her home to me. If (WHEN) I win the lottery or Publisher’s Clearing House I will give her a large amount of money because she didn’t have to help me at all, but I am more than grateful that she did. I am happy when I see really talented friends or followers of mine making moves and I’m more than happy to push them to get there. Even if it’s just a share, retweet, or reblog I like doing my part and it makes me proud to be able to say “I know this person, they are great, and you should think they’re great too.” I just kinda wish most people did that for me as well. Even though the past few years have given me a beating some days I just sit and smile because I’ve made it this far.

I’m not a good person nor am I bad. All I can do is take life’s lessons and learn from them. I can only try to mold myself into a better person. I can only strive to be the person I want to be. For now I’m just Asia and I’m okay with that.


-Asia Aneka Anderson

Tragic Crush Tales #2

When I was a freshman in high school there was this guy who was absolutely gorgeous. G was this sexy chocolate dude, who seemed sweet, his family was religious, and he had an amazing voice. We were in choir together. We didn’t talk TOO much, but he was always nice when we did. He was very easy going and I have always been very shy. Somehow my best friend got his number and we would call him often, giggling like 14 year old girls usually do when you talk to the cute boy in class. One day after school I decided to stay behind with my best friend and roam around our new school. We watched the boys practice basketball, bugged a few of our favorite teachers, and we came across G roaming the halls. As soon as we saw him my friend pushed me towards him and bolted to “give us time alone to flirt” cause she knew I wouldn’t do without a metaphorical, or in this case, physical push. We only chatted for a few minutes and before I knew it he pulled me off into this little nook and pushed me up against the wall. He clawed at me, trying to lift up my shirt. I tried to pull away from him and told him to stop, but he wouldn’t. Finally by the time I said “No” for the 5th time and kept struggling, he let me go.

Sidebar: To people who think when girls are assaulted or raped it must be because they were dressed provocatively, I was in a big baggy Tweety Bird shirt with those huge skater men’s jeans that were popular in the late 90s/early 2000s which were written and drawn all over by me and my friends. No cleavage or skin tight pants. I was in men’s clothes. So stop it with the victim blaming that it must be how the girl is dressed. K? K.

Well once I got away from him I ran to find my friend and told her we had to leave immediately. On the walk home I told her what had happened and that I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t want people to make a big deal of it. The next day I told a few friends of mine and my guy best friend who wanted to kill him by that point. One friend I told looked at me strange when I told her and she confessed she had the same run in with him too. Once she found out he did it to someone else she pressured me that we both had to tell someone before it happened again. It took me a few days to tell my parents and when I did my dad showed up at the school mad as hell. There was a meeting between him, both our parents, and me, where his mom, in so many words, said I was asking for it because I liked him and called him a few times. After the meeting was over his dad pulled my dad aside to apologize and to tell him that he completely believed everything I said. I thought it was funny that his dad understood the pain I was going through, but his mom, another woman, wanted to point the finger. As time went on he showed up to school less and less. After I told my story I think one or two other girls came forward which ruined his image as a good christian boy, I guess. I’m not sure if he ever graduated or dropped out altogether because by sophomore year he was never seen again.
Years later I realized that possibly this one person had an effect on my dating life for years. After this happened I stopped dating black men altogether. I don’t know if it was because of this, but I do know for a fact that’s when it stopped. I even stopped finding black men attractive at that point. I had to sit back and change my whole thought process when it came to men and dating. Without even knowing I let his actions influence me and I knew I couldn’t do it any longer. I don’t know what he’s doing with his life now and don’t care. Last I saw him was about 6 years later. There was a competition at our local mall for American Idol and I went to try out. I saw him there scoping out the high school girls at the mall. Once a perv, always a perv, I guess.


-Asia Aneka Anderson, 2014(c)