How to Get Out of Your Own Way

by Tyrese Gibson

  I don’t want to make anyone think I’m denouncing the way they really feel. I can’t tell you that you don’t love the person you’re with. I just want you to consider that the reason you may be so hurt and disappointed and let down by these personality traits and habits and the way he talks to you or the way he acts or how she embarrasses you sometimes, is because you’re so in love. Although it may be challenging, try your best to learn to love somebody within what you know about them, and don’t allow your emotions to go too far up the street too soon. I’ve learned to try and get to know someone at the same pace as loving them. In that way, I can try and love things that I discover, that might have frustrated me later.

  Be cautious and prepare your spirit for the things you don’t know about this new person in your life. You’re going to be so much more deeply wounded emotionally about their cheating on you or lying to you if you are in love with them than if you just like them.

  You’ll have contained your emotions as much as you possibly can so the things that you discover about their personality won’t impact you so strongly. You’re probably still going to be shocked, and whatever you discover will throw you for a loop, but you won’t be distraught or depressed. You can be in a place where you try your best to make a non-emotional decision about the best way to deal with what you discovered.

  Today’s Sexual World

  Sometimes a woman will feel like a guy acts differently toward her as soon as she sleeps with him. He’s not calling or texting as much, or it seems like she isn’t on his mind as much as she was before. From a man’s perspective, there could be few reasons for this: Either he was only in it for sex, or the sex wasn’t worth the wait.

  He wanted to have sex with her as soon as he met her but she decided to filter him out and get more comfortable and acquainted with him. He was patient and understanding that she wanted to take her time but now that he’s slept with her, he’s done.

  If sex is the one thing he’s after, when he finally gets it, he will just think, “Mission accomplished.” The smoke and mirrors he created—saying and doing all the right things to make her feel more comfortable about giving him what he wanted the whole time—disappear. When it finally happens, it’s over and done. You may notice an abrupt change in the amount of attention that you’re getting, because if he was only after sex he was probably willing to do, say, and be whatever he needed to in order to get it. You may feel used, taken advantage of, and dirty.

  The other side of it is, Was the sex worth the wait, for either of you? A woman will normally wait to have sex—that’s standard and I understand it. But in general most men are ready to go. I had a conversation with a woman who told me she made a guy she was dating wait five months before she slept with him and once she did, everything completely changed. He stopped calling, he stopped texting. When you make somebody wait that long and you’re both so excited to finally be going there, with someone you’ve been wanting to go there with, and he ditches you afterward, you have to wonder what went wrong. Honestly, my first thought was that the sex she gave him probably wasn’t good.

  If he was waiting for three months or five months he probably cared about her, but it also means that while he was giving her some quality time—and because he was not celibate the way she was—he was probably getting some action on the side while his focus was on her.

  This is the truth about the reality of today’s sexual world and it has been going on long before we got here. There’s a double standard: A woman is supposed to make a man wait, because the fact that she’s not running around having sex with random guys says a lot about her self-love and self-preservation. There’s a difference between men and women: If a woman is dating more than one guy, she’s not necessarily having sex with everybody who takes her out. As soon as a woman meets somebody and decides that she likes him, she’s not usually opening her legs and having sex with him right away. But a man is different—he is not going to ask for a woman’s number, open up doors for her, or ask her to dinner unless he’s trying to sleep with her.

  Some men are aggressively about sex in relationships because they feel like they have to overcompensate for their lacking in the “man’s man” department. He may want to have sex with a woman right away because he doesn’t feel he’ll be able to hold on to her for too long, because he’s not mature enough to keep her mentally stimulated. Maybe he’s not the intellectual type, or he’s not a charmer or the Romeo who knows how to say all the right things. Or he might not have a great job, or be confident about certain aspects of his life. But he knows how to please a woman in the bedroom—that’s the one place he’s secure—so he thinks that if he gets her into bed, she’ll at least be running around in a fantasy world with some little birdies chirping above her head.

  There’s a double-edged sword when it comes to deciding when to have sex with a man; you can’t win on either side. If you give it up too fast and nothing comes of it, then you’ll run around feeling like a tramp, and if you make a man wait, trying to get to know him, and he breaks up with you soon after you sleep with him, you’ll still feel like shit.

  If you make a man wait a long time to have sex with you, you have to ask yourself if your sex is good. What I’m saying could bother, confuse, and may even piss some women off, but I believe in keeping it real. You have to know whether you can please your man so he won’t go out and try to be with any other woman sexually. The same can be said for a man. If a woman decides to cheat, it may be because her man wasn’t pleasing her in some way, sexually or otherwise. These are some of the risks we take when we enter into a relationship. Clearly, if a guy ditches you soon after you have sex, then you didn’t know the real him.

  Unfortunately, I can’t give women a time frame of when they should sleep with a new guy—that’s different for each woman and each relationship. At the end of the day, if a man’s mission is to have sex and that’s all he’s focused on, then a woman is technically not meeting who he really is. She’s meeting the man who is saying and doing all the right things to get what he wants.

  Getting Past the Physical

  If you go through the filtering process of getting to know somebody, hopefully in the midst of their getting to know you, they will fall in love with the woman or man in you, outside of their initial sexual thoughts of you. This is the beauty of God’s plan, and I hate to include God in this discussion about sex, but there is nothing like meeting a person whom you only intended to have sex with, and discovering the woman in her or the man in him. You discover their heart, their integrity, that they’re loving and nurturing and they have a story and do not wear some of their horrific experiences on their spirit.

  Something like this happened with my ex-wife and me: We ended up connecting after we starting talking and sharing our stories. To be honest, all I wanted was so have some fun, get loose, and be seen with a pretty, sexy girl, but I ended up discovering her personality. She had this discernment and intuition about her that was so powerful, and it was those things that made me fall in love with her. I discovered her layers, so it became more than just physical.

  It’s possible that a person’s intention could be just to be seen with you and have sex with you, but they can discover the woman or man in you and your relationship can become so much more than just a rendezvous. So at the end of the day, just make sure you step up your qualities so you’re more than just a one-night stand.

  Don’t be one of those people who are not about anything—who have nothing interesting going on in their life, who are just going through the motions. People like that can’t keep someone’s attention when they’re having a conversation. So read, study, tap into knowledge, and hang out with people you look up to and admire. Allow yourself to grow beyond what you are, and that way you won’t just be seen as a physical, sexy being. Allow yourself to discover the layers within yourself.

  Be comfortable with who you are, and that way, when you go and have a conversation with a person you’re interested in, he or she can get past the
sexual and physical and actually tap into and fall in love with the woman or man in you, not just the external you.

  A woman has the power to get a man to see her differently than how he sees her at first. His initial intentions might be sexual, but because of her qualities and the content of her character, the things she stands for and her integrity, she can get him to look at her completely differently than the way he looked at her when he first met her. A woman has that control. A man has that control, too. A woman may think she’s already into a guy physically, because of his body—because he projected that image—but as she gets to know his thoughts and the way he’s thinking, her love for him can go to a whole other level.

  Figure Out You First

  Get comfortable with yourself and be confident in that. It’s a harsh reality because men and women are unpredictable. At the end of the day, just take care of your sandbox and if you invite somebody to play, be prepared for them to mess it up. As long as you have your sandbox in order, you don’t have to worry about anything else. Have your integrity, your spirituality, your morals, and the things you stand for all in order, so a person who comes into your life won’t be able to dictate who you are. If you don’t know who you are, then you’re leaving yourself wide-open and vulnerable for someone to come in and define you. If you don’t know who you are and you have no sense of direction, then you’re going to believe whatever they’re saying to you—even if they’re saying horrible things about you.

  A lot of men are great orators. They’ve got what I call the gift of the gab; they know how to talk you into doing all kinds of stuff. Because you believe you love your man so much, you can find yourself doing things, going places, dressing or acting a certain way that you would never in a million years have seen yourself doing before. You make all these adjustments based on his comfort zone and your being in love with him. This could be a good thing or a bad thing because no two relationships are the same.

  Here’s an extreme example of how a man can use his gift of the gab to influence a woman’s mind and thoughts. I’ve never been in the same room with or witnessed a conversation pertaining to this, but a pimp is going to have a conversation with a few different women and he’s going to be able to convince them to stand on a street corner, in rain, sleet, and freezing snow, to sell their bodies. These women will dress the way the pimp wants them to dress, and stand there on the corner for however long he wants them to, and they will bring all the money they’re making from selling their bodies to him. Anybody with any kind of common sense would say that doesn’t make sense, why would any woman be willing to do that? But it happens every day because of this thing called the gift of the gab, when a man is able to convince a woman to do anything he wants. All we can do is hope that you don’t fall in love with someone who is able to manipulate your feelings and emotions and get you to start doing things or being a part of something you could never see yourself doing.

  If you are so desperate to be loved and get affection and attention, you may be willing to do almost anything. The worst thing you can be is a woman or a man with no sense of self or direction, because if you don’t know who you are or have no sense of direction, when you run into a man or a woman who wants to present their directions, you’re going to do or say or be anything they want you to be.

  The gift of the gab can be a good thing or a bad thing. A man or woman who uses this gift in the right way can literally change your life. They can make you aware of something and pass along information or help you get through trying times, and you can come out on the better side of a situation. I’ve been in relationships and have had a few female friends that were trying to figure things out, and I guided them through with my perspective and ideas. Because I don’t have any malicious or vindictive intentions toward the women in my life, they trusted me, believed me, and rolled with my sense of direction, and for the most part they ended up thanking me and feeling great about decisions I helped them make. But not everybody is me. I know I’ve got the gift of the gab, and I’m a man with many layers—spiritual, mental, and emotional—that many women gravitate toward. If I had messed-up or malicious intentions toward them, I would be the worst-case scenario.

  Here’s another example: I’m a Christian. My feet and my heart are on solid ground with my relationship with Christ, even though I’m still getting to know Him by reading the Bible and furthering my dealings with Christ. But if I wasn’t solid or firm in my religious beliefs, if I were feeling lost and in need of direction, anybody who is a part of a cult or other religious group could easily influence me to be a part of their group. When you don’t have a sense of direction and someone presents their own ideas, you may immediately jump on board. Depending on what you’re into, that could end up being a good or bad thing. Ultimately, if you are insecure, if you don’t have a sense of direction or don’t love yourself enough, you could end up in a very dangerous, life-threatening position.

  Figure yourself out and define yourself for you as much as you can before you get into a relationship. That way, no one will have any wiggle room to manipulate your emotions. If you don’t know who you are and you don’t know what you think of yourself, once your man tells you what you think of you, you’re going to believe that, because it’s coming from somebody you think you love, who you think loves you. So when you go out to random clubs and go places where all these guys are giving you all these compliments, you won’t believe them, because that’s not the way your husband or boyfriend feels about you. If your man calls you a tramp, you won’t think you’re beautiful or sexy or intelligent or sophisticated. That voice will constantly play in your mind, because it’s coming from somebody whom you know and love.

  It’s not just a matter of knowing yourself, because you can know yourself but not know the person you’re with. You have to communicate and welcome honesty. Put everything out there. Make your partner comfortable. My approach is this: You should feel like you can go to sports bars together, you can go to strip clubs together, do anything together, because you’re friends and make each other feel comfortable about being who you are. You’re not trying to make each other anything other than what you are and if you want to make him or her aware of what you’re thinking about how they are acting or presenting themselves, then you can be honest and tell them. There is no need to hide anything, because you prepared each other with details about your life. With preparation and knowing each other’s reality comes a different comfort zone about who you are.

  Try and be more comfortable with who you are. Pimps say the way to break down a secure woman is to point out her flaws. Even a very confident woman will focus on her flaws once you make her aware of them. If you say one negative thing about her, she will brush it off, and come off thinking she’s beautiful, but she will think about that forever. The natural instinct is to be defensive and come back at you about whatever comment you made but she will be thinking about it all day and all night.

  Some beautiful women are attracted to thugs and run away from dudes who tell them they’re beautiful and fine all day. They want someone who will not be caught up in their looks. These women I’m describing are not used to thugs; they’re used to guys who make them feel beautiful, but they end up going for the thugs because they want to be challenged.

  Many women are so confused and they don’t even know it. They say that they want Prince Charming: the considerate and respectable guy, the most attractive guy, a guy they can take home to their mama. But then when they get him, they get bored because they’re trying to conquer the man and shape him into what they want him to be. They get him to stop doing all the things that irritate and annoy them and then they get tired of him, and want to go after a wilder party dude who will ignore them and treat them like crap and challenge them. Some women want to be the one who was able to slow that wild train down, to mold him, train him, and change him.

  Every mother tells her daughter to find a man who will treat her like a queen and give her the best that life has to offer. She could be the
first lady of somebody’s life, but she doesn’t feel challenged anymore. She’ll get bored, so then she ends up looking for that thug who seems more “real” and treats her like crap. She doesn’t really know what she wants and can end up in a relationship that has a lot of potential for danger.

  Some women and men try to take on the role of Jesus Christ and “save” women, and women try to “save” men. They think, He’s wild, he’s crazy, but that’s all gonna change and I’m gonna work with him, and their boyfriend becomes a pet project. You’re taking on this load, this full-on responsibility to try and change the man and you complain the whole time you’re going through hell, but it’s something that you signed up for. You knew he was a thug when you started dating. Remember, life is a menu. Whoever and whatever you order is what will be delivered to your table.

  In my opinion, most women who end up staying with a man they know is not good for them—disrespectful, condescending, evil guys—do so because these guys are familiar. They get in the spirit of believing everything he’s said about her. She believes him and has taken on the character of all of the negative things that he said about her, and she carries that with her everywhere. He has broken her down little by little until she feels small. He has her so insecure and he’s crushed her spirit to the point of no return so she’s not going anywhere. She’s going to stay right there, because he was on one mission—to break her down—and now that he’s succeeded, she’s not in control.

  When someone tells you that they love you and in the same breath they say all of the evil shit in the world, those are the people you will most likely listen to. Those are the people who shame you and mold the way you feel about yourself.

  We all have a little genius in us and we just have to take the time to discover it and nourish it and figure out exactly what we can offer the world. Most people are not on a mission to discover the genius within. They just want to duplicate and be like most of the things they see. Take the time to discover the genius in yourself. You cannot define yourself by your boyfriend or girlfriend.