I have a love/hate relationship with women. I love them when they are supportive, nurturing, loyal, honest and generous. I HATE them when they are catty, spiteful, vindictive, gossipy, jealous, frenemy-like and territorial. Having been betrayed more than a few times by women who have displayed the latter, I’ve learned how to better navigate a certain type of woman I must identify and avoid whenever I can help it.
“Boonquisha”
Boonquisha is the loud, neck swirling, bad attitude having, brawl-ready girl who thinks you don’t act black enough. She is the dream-killer of your nightmares. She wants you to date gang-bangers and drug dealers just like she does, and have a few of their babies. She likes you the most when you participate in nefarious things like smoking weed and writing bad checks.
The “Cling-On”
The “Cling-On” is the chick who thinks she should be your only friend. You say you’re going on a weekend trip, she says she’s off to pack her bags. You want to go to a movie with your man, she asks if she can come along because she’s never seen X-Men XXXXI. If you mention you want to go out with another friend, she tries to insinuate herself and jockey for your attention the whole time while conspicuously and deliberately making your other friend feel like a third wheel. Her goal is to isolate you completely so that you will be beholden only to her. Just say “no” to Miss Cling-On and she’ll move on to her next victim.
The “Vampiress”
The “Vampiress” is the one who calls you to talk for hours about some new, fresh drama happening in her life and always, ALWAYS needs to speak to you right then and now. She sobs and blathers on and on for hours, not letting you get a word in edgewise. She doesn’t necessarily need or want your advice–she just wants to use you as her emotional dump truck. She never asks about you, your hopes, dreams or fears, because frankly, she’s not interested. You’re more useful when she can just suck you dry and lifeless.
The Arsenal Gatherer
The Arsenal Gatherer wants to make you her best friend five minutes after she meets you. She pushes intimacy that should occur naturally with the passage of time and the cultivation of trust. She wants to know all your secrets and tries to reassure you how much she loves and respects you, and all the while she’s gathering enough information on you to use as a weapon. You’ll mostly find the Arsenal Gatherer at your workplace, because she lives to sabotage other people so no one notices how incompetent she is.
The “Emo”
Watch out for this one, she could be potentially dangerous because of her mercurial nature. She goes from jovial to furious as fast as a Ferrari goes from 0 to 100. She lashes out for something a normal person would perceive as a benign non-event, calls you names and is generally abusive. Once she’s blown her top, 20 minutes later she pretends nothing ever happened, and wonders why you’re sulking. A friendship with “Emo” is risking your sanity, so stay far, far away.
The “Clone”
The “Clone” is a Lifetime movie in the making (think of the movie, “Single, White Female.”) She wants to look like you–wear the same hairstyle, dress the same way, be into the same activities you’re in and comments regularly about how awesome your life is. She wants to be you, and she probably wants your boyfriend, too.
“Gossip Girl”
Yes she’s a great distraction, coming to you with all the juicy news about everyone the both of you know. Craig in shipping has herpes, Greta in customer service puts peanut butter is certain places of her anatomy so her cats can lick it off, your boss wears women’s thongs. But don’t, for one second think you are immune to this gossip’s reportage. If she talks about other people, best believe she’ll give up the goods on you.
Christelyn D. Karazin is the co-author of Swirling: How to Date, Mate and Relate Mixing Race Culture and Creed (to be released April 2012), and runs a blog, www.beyondblackwhite.com, dedicated to women of color who are interested and or involved in interracial and intercultural relationships. She is also the founder and organizer of “No Wedding, No Womb,” an initiative to find solutions to the 72 percent out-of-wedlock rate in the black community.
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