🔵 By Lorenzo Hutson. Photo by lauragrafie.
My name is Lorenzo Hutson, I am 41-years old, and have been incarcerated in an United States Prison for fifteen years, with only under three years left to go. With that being acknowledged, what I am about to express is based off of experiential knowledge. In the dating world, there are an array of hurdles that people will jump through, in order to make it to the desired destination. Some of us will endure the normative approach, which is when prejudice is influenced by society and situations that either encourage or discourage the acceptance of minorities alike. Also can be applied towards interdating, which can sometimes become a double standard on one side, but not in the other direction. For example, I am an African American male, and I do not allow my cultural origin define who I am or whom I decide to date. Yet, there are African American women who would beg to differ.
Even though the country displays the motto of “the melting pot”, often there is judgment on who a person falls in love with. Jenna Fischer who portrayed “Pam” on “The Office” once stated “Sometimes the heart doesn’t know what it wants until it finds what it wants”, meaning that as human beings we do not always choose our choices, sometimes, our choices choose us.
For the duration of my imprisonment, most of the women I have encountered usually are interested in dating or corresponding with a bad boy, who’s smooth talking and slick with his words, with multiple degrees from college, and possess the expectation he will be faithful. I apologize to the readers, but some of these ideologies do not match. A person can change their ways and no longer be the bad boy, but a person cannot mix what the desired traits they want with what’s broken their hearts in the past.
It is okay to correspond with the person who’s shy and timid, because that may be the person who is out of practice, yet struggling to come out of their shell. So when I began to initially correspond with women from other cultures, an entirely different world was opened up to me. Love emerges in the form of love, no matter who the sender or received is.
Dr. John Alan Lee had created the different types of love, along with the colors to match. Eros means that “I’m crazy about you”, while Agape means that “I want to honor our love”. Storge means that “I can count on you,” and Ludus is defined as “This is fun, isn’t it?” Agape is the color of purple, Eros is the color of red, Storge is blue and Ludus is yellow. Love should not painfully recollect what we no longer desire, instead, Love should remind us of why we still are willing participants, due to the collectivism that has compelled us to feel complete. It takes a mind and personality that is filled with patience, acceptance and unconditional positive regard. I would like to propose a challenge to the readers, to introduce yourself to someone whom you would normally never give the time of the day and initiate contact with him or her. To keep an open mind, and look for the good within that person before you make a decision to give him or her their walking papers.
For we all possess far more similarities than we have differences. In that context, we begin to minimize the hypocrisy and blur the lines that do not need to exist because “Love has no boundaries”.