LOVE IS LOVE: JOURDAN ASH USHERS IN A NEW SPACE FOR THOSE WHO DATE.
Admit it, we’ve been fed a grand illusion of what love is supposed to be. We expected chariots and diamonds, and ended up with Groupon dates (btw don’t sleep on those) and strategically sent text messages as young adults. Jourdan is one of the women helping bring a new perspective in dating with her new podcast, Dating in NYC. Bringing in voices from across different backgrounds, the aim is to bridge the gaps we’ve created and help understand each other’s kinks and experiences. We spoke with Jourdan about her favorite love movies, the podcast, and being a friend to someone in a toxic relationship.
F: You’re born and raised in New York City, right?
J: Born in Detroit, raised in New York City. I’ve been in New York since I was eight.
F: Would you consider NYC to be a romantic city, like Paris or Milan?
J: Not at all, New Yorkers are always busy. I noticed it more after I left because I went to school in Baltimore. When I came back and actually began dating it was like, outside of the fact that no one knows what romance is, New York is not a romantic city. Everything we know about romance is based off what we’ve seen in our lives or on TV. People make that shit happen, there’s nothing romantic about walking in the cold or the snow.
Every stereotype I’ve seen about romance in New York I’ve seen in real life and I’m like, ‘Nah, I don’t fuck with this.’ What I found to be more romantic was when I was in Baltimore because things don’t happen as fast as they do out here. There’s not much to do in Baltimore, you actually have to find things to do vs. being in New York I can walk outside and fall into something. In Baltimore you plan things, and I found it to be more romantic because you’re going out of your way.
F: On your blog you began doing a series of other people’s dating experiences. How did that come about?
J: I got out of a good relationship with a bad break up in the beginning of 2016. Because he had a brand new girlfriend two weeks after we broke up, I thought I could do the same thing. Instead of doing the things I usually do like taking my time and get over it, I was rushing the process. I was forcing myself to go out, and this was when I really got a grasp of how to do my hair, so every time I went out it was big and curly, and the guys would be into it so whenever I’d go out I’d bag a different guy. Maybe two or three guys in the same night, and I felt nothing. I consider myself to be an emotional person, so when I felt nothing I felt like a fucking robot. I didn’t want to go out, but I still forced it. They’d text me and I’d ask ‘Who the fuck are you?’ At the end of the day, they were all the same person in different bodies to me.
I had never dated like that before. Because I started dating in college, I mainly dated friends or somebody I met in class. That way I’d at least know the person before I make a decision if they’re the one I want to take things forward with. A few friends told me I was being destructive because they’ve never seen me like that before. So after two months of destructive shit I asked myself, ‘What are you missing?’ I thought back to my relationship and everything I liked about it and started giving myself the things I was missing. From there, I went inward and everything I did was a step up in self-reflection.
I went through the men gave my number to and began thinking about what the disconnect was. Let’s say there were 14 men: of that 14, 7 only texted me and that was when I texted them first. Of those 7, maybe two I liked? The disconnect would be simple shit too, like one would lie about where he works. You know how guys would wear a Roc Nation hat and say they work there? I ran into a lot of those, and I’d tweet these things out and would get responses like, ‘Yeah girl, that’s the norm,’ and I’d be like ‘Are you for real?’ Like it’s not easy for me to Google this? I used to work in hip hop and media so I could have gone onto Roc Nation’s site and found out. I’m also an investigator so I look through tagged pictures too. Your first and last name is already in my phone so I can Google you. If it wasn’t that, they were lying about secret girlfriends. So when I was tweeting it and getting responses like I got I realized it wasn’t just me. I decided to talk to other women and get their dating experiences. Everyone I interviewed, I connected in some sort of way. That’s kind of how Dating in NYC was born.
F: How did you transition that from the blog posts to the podcast?
J: One of the women I interviewed said it should be a podcast, and I was like, ‘Shit, why not?’ I took a couple of radio and broadcasting classes when I went to school in Baltimore, learned Garage Band, how to edit audio, and how to use my voice. Whenever we made an audio or random podcast in school, they always made me the voice cause I could speak clearly and people can understand what I say when I speak. I asked a friend who directed me to a studio and that was it.
F: One of the most recent episodes you had discussed BDSM and the fetish life. How important to you is it to spotlight things that are taboo?
J: It’s very important to me, mostly because everything that I use as a topic on Dating in NYC is something I’m curious or learning about too. I always want to learn with my listeners, which is why I chose BDSM. When I was growing up a lot of things were deemed “white people shit.” Now that we’re in 2017 and getting older and growing out of that taboo attitude, why not explore these things that we may have had misconstrued?
F: How necessary is it that people share their experiences with love and relationships?
J: I think it’s very important because you learn something from each one of your relationships, which is why I had to stop entertaining guys back to back because I learned nothing about or from them. I didn’t know their names, they would send me pictures of themselves and ‘I’d be like I still don’t know who you are.’ But when I look back on my relationships I remember them and the times we had, good and bad. I’ve also learned to not take the bad into any other relationships. Relationships aren’t always sexual, they’re friendships, how I treat my dog, and people on the street. Everything that I’ve learned from my relationships, I’ve taken into my personal life and I grow from that.
F: Think to when you were younger, and the ideas you had about relationships and expectations at that time. Do you find that your experiences mirror the expectations you had?
J: No, they’re completely different. I didn’t really date until I got to college and my first real relationship was around my sophomore year. When I was younger, I had a skewed image on everything. My mom raised me in the way that we weren’t friends. So, I’d see things with my friends or I would read books in which the characters were in relationships and I didn’t know if that’s really how its supposed to work or if they were abusing one another. I couldn’t go to my mom for it because she made the line very clear that we were not friends, so I ended up going to my friends for a lot of things, which skews the view cause, it’s the blind leading the fucking blind. I saw a lot of things when I was younger that shouldn’t have been normalized.
We were younger but developed early, so we were in like 6th or 7th grade and guys that were 18 or 19 would stop by the school and try to bag. We were in 8th grade and there was like an abortion epidemic cause nobody was teaching us about sex, nobody was teaching us about relationships so we were going in blind. When I was younger my friends would think things like a man is supposed to pay for everything, he’s supposed to take you out, and if he can’t do that he can’t provide. Whereas now, I pay for my own things because it makes me feel good about me, it’s one of my self-love things. If a man can pay for that then sure, but I don’t expect these things from you. When I was younger we had a lot of expectations that some were random, some were things we wanted our fathers to do that they weren’t. A lot of my friends were searching for their fathers in their men, and now that I’m older I don’t look for that.
I’ve dated as an insecure young woman and now that I’m the most confident I’ve ever been, I date completely differently. I don’t expect anything from a man, even something as simple as compliments and words of affirmation because I can do that for myself.
F: Have you had friends who were in toxic relationships? How did you navigate those?
J: Of course. I had a lot of friends, especially when I was younger, who would get a boyfriend then go ghost until he fucks up. As I’ve gotten older I have a lot less friends who go ghost, but the thing about dealing with a friend who’s in a toxic relationship, especially as the single friend, is that you can’t say much. I’ve learned to be less, ‘You should leave him,’ and more, ‘I’ll be here for you, we can pull up on him if you want.’
I’ve learned to give less advice and just be more open because sometimes when a friend is venting they don’t want advice. They just want to be heard. I think we’ve all been in toxic relationships. So now, I’m judgment free and I’m just here.
F: Do you think that we as women are progressing in being sexually autonomous? If not, what do you think is blocking us?
J: A lot of women are on their way to sexual autonomy, and a lot of women are there. With my experiences (because we were younger), there were things we were taught about sex where it’s for your man.
So for example: You might do something you consider freaky, but you do it because that’s your man not because you enjoy it. That’s how I viewed sex in my relationships. My first was at 20, maybe 21, and he wasn’t open to trying many things. He wasn’t open to even listening, because you know guys know it all. So he would be like, ‘I’m a man, I know it all, and you can’t tell me this isn’t pleasing you.’ Even though it wasn’t.
But in my last relationship, we allowed each other to explore different things and it was fun. But in the back of my mind, I was still thinking I’d try new things not because I want to or am curious, but because I’m a freak for my man. Now that I’m out of that, I’ve reached this mindset where I’m doing things because I like it, and the man just gets to be there and enjoy it. I’m not doing it for you. A lot of women are getting that way, and it comes from growing up. You explore more and unlearn a lot of things, and I had to unlearn a lot of shit from 7th grade to maybe 2 or 3 years ago.
We’re growing into ourselves and learning to be more sexually explorative and not give a fuck of what someone says. You can call me whatever you want, but I’m going to do what I want. You might fuck with it or you might not, but it’s for me.
F: What’s your idea of a perfect date?
J: The perfect dates always include some kind of food; I like to eat. I like exploring too, even though I’ve lived here most of my life, I’ll wake up and just go out to no place in particular. I recently found a random restaurant in The Bronx and it’s really good so maybe I’ll take a date there. I like museums and art galleries but you have to choose wisely who you’d take. Anything that’s fun and involves food, that’s what I’m down for. The best dates are the ones where you’ve paid attention to the person and openly communicate, so that they’re enjoying themselves too.
F: Your top love films. Go!
J: I like Blue is the Warmest Color, it’s a French film about two lesbians. It’s three fucking hours but it goes from her first discovering her sexuality to them being in a relationship to the end and them moving on. It’s a really beautiful film. Brown Sugar, too. In college I thought I was Sydney Shaw and I was gonna find the love of my life sitting with Angie Martinez during an interview then he’s gonna pop up! Poetic Justice and can I say the New Edition movie? Cause I fell in love with them, that’s a love movie to me!
F: What’s a FLASH girl to you?
J: From doing Dating in NYC and a couple of other dating events I’ve done, I’ve learned that a lot of men believe that we hear what we wanna hear. Which is true in some cases, but I think that a woman willing to learn but is also confident in her goals and her intentions is a FLASH girl. It takes a strong woman to realize some of the things I’ve learned aren’t okay and want to change that.
find jourdan on her website || instagram || twitter || dating in nyc podcast
