Best Thing I Never Had

Late last year, I crossed something off the 'Things I'd Never Do' list. I made a conscious decision to date a man who was already in a relationship.

Do I feel guilty? No. Do I regret it? No. Am I so unbelievably happy it's over? Yes.

I use the term "dating" quite loosely in this situation. He lives 3.5 hours from here; as a result, we only saw each other on 5 separate occasions. We held phone conversations quite often early on, but those fell back to 1 - 2 times a week after that.

But despite the infrequency of our face-to-face contact, he still turned out to be the 'Best Thing I Never Had'. (If you've turned on the radio at any point over the past month, you'll recognize that as the title of Beyonce's latest song.)

Yes this is a blog, but I honestly find it impossible to find the words to explain why I was drawn to this man enough to do something I previously thought I'd never do. Truthfully, I don't want to find the words. He also felt the magical connection between us and I actually like the fact that no one will be able to understand why we did what we did. "Why" actually doesn't even matter.

What does matter is that I can walk away with from this situation, a) with my head held high (and tears fully dried), and b) with the confidence that this will never happen again.

Have an honest conversation with any single Black male or female and the topic of "the ratio" will eventually come up. But even though the number of available Black men is disappointingly low, never again will I feel the need to share one. The situation is just not that dire.

You'll never hear me spew even one bad comment about him. He truly was the best thing I never had; to this day I think he's thoughtful, humorous, intellectual, kind, and unbelievably yummy.

But so am I.