A short YouTube dating-advice clip by Anwar White (dating coach for Black and brown women) diagnosing a common pattern — seeking connection with anyone who is merely "nice" — as a 'neglect inner child wound' stemming from emotionally unavailable parenting. He warns that niceness alone isn't sufficient for a partner (consistency, dependability, boundary-respect, protection required) and prescribes daily self-reparenting: routinely (morning, noon, night) check how you feel, identify needs (use an emotion wheel if needed), and intentionally meet those needs yourself to heal the wound and avoid unhealthy attachment.
Say I have a type all day, but I have a crush on anybody that's remotely nice to me. Like, I don't know what the fuck is wrong.
Hey, girl. So she's not the only one that feels this way. I work with black and brown women all the time. My name is Anwar Wide. I am a dating coach for black and brown women. I hear this all the time. This is what I call a neglect inner child wound. So when your parents were either emotionally unavailable or they didn't seem to have a true interest in you, where parenting felt like an obligation and not a joy to them, we felt neglected. Yeah. And what happens is that when someone gives us an inkling of kindness or niceness, we want to like, grasp onto them because we're so thirsty for that nurturing that we didn't get while we were growing up. Here's what we need to do though, because that's a dangerous path. When you do that in dating, what happens? Because these guys will always be a little bit nice to you because they're going to strategically present themselves so that they can find some sort of connection. But you'll grasp onto them if they're just a little bit nice. We have to be looking out for. Can they do the job of a boyfriend, of a husband, which is different than just being nice. Being nice isn't enough. Right. We have to be consistent. We have to be dependable. We have to be. We have to respect boundaries. We have to protect. We have to do a lot of other things than just be nice or chivalrous or give a lot of money or generous. Okay. What we need to do is actually re parent ourselves. We need to. And this is what I tell my clients to do, which has been really helpful for them every day. We're going to need to ask ourselves, how are we feeling and what do we need? Right. And I generally ask my clients to do this for every meal that they have. I hope they're eating three meals a day, and I hope you all are as well. But morning, noon and night. How am I feeling right now?
Get an emotion wheel if you need it. This will help you to identify your emotions. If you don't have one, get girl. Download one on your phone so that you can know how you're feeling at all times and then ask yourself what you need and actually fulfill that need for yourself. This is how we reparent ourselves. This is how we slowly let that neglect wound subside. I hope this helps.
