Rori Raye put up a really powerful post today. It’s a follow-up to her “friends with benefits” post from a week or so ago. It resonated with me at such a deep level that I’m going to print an excerpt here:

This first series of posts is not about making the man wrong, or about moving on, or about anything cool or reasonable or even understanding anything or learning the lesson.

This is about saying NO.

Even when you don’t have full information.

This is not about throwing things away, or belittling someone or yourself, or talking, or communicating, or arguing, or trying to understand, or giving someone the benefit of the doubt, or even getting into your feelings and expressing them.

Those are all well and good – those are crucial, but they cannot happen until you can say NO.

You cannot say yes to ANYTHING until you can say no to something.

Until you can say NO to what you don’t want, you can’t say Yes to what you do want.

In fact, until you can say NO to what you don’t want, you can’t even KNOW what it is you DO want.

This is powerful stuff for all of the women reading here. I’ve been reading Rori’s blog for some time, and I gotta say, this may be the most powerful post she has ever written.

I have written about vulnerability and saying no before.

A woman MUST say no to what doesn’t feel good. She must REMOVE HERSELF from dating situations that feel awful. She must do it without regard for the outcome of the relationship because SHE IS NOT DOING IT FOR THE RELATIONSHIP. She is doing it for her own dignity, for her own self-respect, and for her own self-esteem. It is not about the man. It is about HER.

A man recently asked me to be “friends.” My answer was an unequivocal NO. He tried to reason with me, but I’ve done enough dating to know where that leads. It leads to hating each other. And I have no interest or energy for hating anyone. I would rather leave the situation altogether.

So here’s some raw text dialogue for you. This is as honest and raw and vulnerable as it gets, and I didn’t say these things for him. I said them for me. I didn’t say these things to blame him, but I did say them to hold him, and me, and my subconscious mind, and the Universe accountable.

There is a huge difference, my friends, between blame and accountability. Blame is destructive. But accountability is indispensable. Without accountability, where is trust? Where is integrity? Where is self-respect?

Me: I didn’t allow myself to go down this path so that we could be friends.

Him: Me neither. But it’s obvious we want pretty different things right now. It could change in the future. …

Me: Very well then. I like you a lot but no thanks.

Him: Haha, what do you want from me? You make no sense to me sometimes.

Me: I’m not about to settle for less than what our connection deserves. I’d rather remember it fondly.

Him: Is it less? Or just different? I’ve never understood the “all or nothing” mindset.

Me: It feels like a lot less to me. It feels like a cop-out. It feels like I was led down the path of sun moon and stars and then when I got there someone said here would you mind settling for these crumbs instead. If you have ideas that might feel better I’m all ears. For now the answer is a polite no thank you.

And later I said:

Me: I love you a lot and I’ll miss you but I do not want an uncommitted relationship.

I have a marriage offer on the table from another man. A wonderful, sexy, and reliable man’s man. Why on earth would I settle for crumbs?

And you, my dear female readers, shouldn’t either.

Learn to say no. It’s not about him. It’s about YOU.

It’s by saying no to what we don’t want, powerfully and unequivocally, that we make the space in our lives for what we do want.