Ask Away Friday with Shannon Mitchell of Walking Shoes

Welcome to another edition of Ask Away Friday!

Since it’s February and Valentine’s Day is upon us, my blogging partner and I decided to do a Valentine’s Day-themed #AAF!

This time I swapped with my good friend Shannon Mitchell over at Walking Shoes. Shannon has done a “Weekly Blessings” post for me; go check it out! She’s a powerful woman of God and such a sweet soul. Go check out her blog and show her some love!

Now on to the questions and answers!

~ My definition of love is….the mutual admiration of two or more people. Love doesn’t just have to be in a relationship; it can be in family, a friendship, or even a partnership.

~ Well, being someone who has never had a significant other for Valentine’s Day (#ForeverAlone -LOL), I would say to be your own Valentine! Who can love you better than yourself? And you won’t be disappointed, because you’ll get exactly what you want! Ha. Basically, just be willing to love on yourself and not worry about all of the couple-oriented things that go along with the holiday.

~ I think the best piece of advice I’ve ever gotten is to always stay true to yourself. So many people lose their identities, trying to be someone they aren’t to get someone’s attention or to keep their attention. If you can’t be who you are with someone, you don’t need to be with them at all.

5. What would be an ideal date for you?
~ An ideal date, hmm….I’m easy to please, so a date in general would be ideal LOL. But I guess I’d say something simple like dinner and a movie.

6. What is your favorite romance movie/novel?
~ Honestly I’m not really into romance movies or novels, but I love the play/movie, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.

7. What is one word that you would describe love for you?​ / What word is synonymous with love for you? 
~I would have to say acceptance. I’m a very unique individual, so I know it’s important to me to have people in my life who understand me, or if they don’t, at least accept me for the strange person I am ha. Nowadays, people tend to give up so easily on people if they discover something about the other person that isn’t like them. Try a little tenderness, people!

8. What is your favorite thing about Valentine’s Day?
~ I live for the Charlie Brown specials that come on TV for the holidays, so my favorite thing would be watching Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown. 

9. What are your thoughts on how love is portrayed on TV and the media? Do you think it is accurate?
~ At this point, I don’t believe love is necessarily portrayed on TV at all. Not many people are getting married like they used to on television and everything is so sexualized that marriage and commitment, for that matter, are completely taken out of the picture. That’s not love – that’s lust. So no, it’s not accurate at all.

10. Please describe an embarrassing, bad, awkward, or funny date that you have been on (if you haven’t had a bad date, describe what would be unattractive or a turn off on a date).  
~ Ha, well I’ve only been on one or two dates, so this is an easy one.

This was actually my first date. The guy didn’t do anything crazy, and he was really nice, but everything that could go wrong went wrong. First off, he showed up late for the date; we planned 8:30, but he didn’t make it there til about 10 or 11. (which neither I or my parents were happy about). Secondly, it was so late that wasn’t much to do anymore so we just wound up riding around and talking for a while. After an hour I was ready to go home, but before we went he stopped to get me something to eat. Since we were still in my hometown, which is super small, there wasn’t much to chose from; we were forced to stop at Sonic. So we stopped at Sonic and got our food and it was all good. We ate and talked, and ate and talked. Then he went to start the car up so we could leave – the car wouldn’t start. He tried again – still wouldn’t start! He tried to pop the hood to see what was going on, people were walking past us like we weren’t stranded (so much for hospitality) and he wound up having to call his older brother, who lived about 30 or so minutes away, to come help. So in a nutshell, I was stuck at Sonic until about 2:00 in the morning, waiting to get back to my house, which was about 5 or 10 minutes away…

That was an extremely interesting date, but we wound up going out again ha. He made sure to come in a different car and we didn’t get stranded haha. We’re still friends to this day.