What does no mean? No means exactly that: No. No does not mean "Why, sure! Get me drunk." No does not mean maybe. No does not mean yes with a few drinks or persuasion. No means no.

I've had my share of people not taking the answer "No" very well. When I was 14, I broke up with my first boyfriend, and after telling him that we just weren't on the same path, he simply said; no. Now at that kind of an age when a man says no, you listen. Because that is what you were taught. You were taught to obey what a man told you.

As I've grown up, I realize that women weren't ever allowed to say no. How sad is that, that I grew up thinking that I had to say yes to any man who asked me to do anything. However, I learned the easy way: that saying no was an actual option. Some people didn't get that luxury. I learned in that moment, my opinion was just as valid as his was. I got to be in charge of my own feelings for the first time in my life and even though it wasn't the best of situations, it was the first situation where I realized that my feelings were my feelings.

Now onto the real point of this whole thing.

I've come across my share of men who didn't take no well because they thought they could change me. They thought "Well, maybe she'll just change for me maybe I'm just manly enough for her to fall in love with me." They don't understand that I don't just say yes to a man because he's strong, I don't say yes to a man because I'm not attracted to him. That is not their fault, nor is it mine. They expect me to change my opinions on men just because they want me to. This is called privileged male disease. Now, not all men are like this, and unfortunately, a lot of men don't realize that they're acting like this until the woman gets angry. In my case, I just don't like men. But every woman is entitled to not like a man based on whatever she feels comfortable with. It is not her job to fall in love with a man just because he wants her to. It is not her job to be what he wants her to be. It's her job to love herself and to love deeply in any relationship she's in. But first and foremost, the woman needs to love herself and to love everything about her being before she can, or wants to love another.

I don't think anyone really understands the concept of self-love when it comes to loving anyone else. I know I don't. Every person feels as though they have the right to love another person before loving themselves. And that is a right. However, when it comes to loving someone else, I've discovered that I can never love anyone fully until I can look in the mirror and say "Yeah, I do love myself and it's okay to love myself."

We live in a world where loving ourselves is sometimes taboo. If we love ourselves, we're cocky. If we don't love ourselves, we are pathetic and were insecure and we need to go write about it in our diary. This isn't the case and it's sad that today no opinion is correct and no fact is correct because there is always a blanket statement the covers it somehow so no one gets offended. There is no comfortable medium for any person in today's society to either love themselves without being cocky or to not love themselves without being insecure.

However, this always backs to one important message. In any relationship and any situation, it is important for there to be clear communication on whether the answer is yes or no. It doesn't matter if the person is insecure. It doesn't matter if the person is drunk. If they say no, it means no. They don't need you to change their minds on how they look at themselves. They don't need you to change their minds on how they feel about having any interaction with you. What they need is someone to listen to their wishes. So before you make any drastic choices in your day-to-day living please remember one thing: no means no.