On a Wednesday soon after I began my friendship with Tamika, I had a place to go: my first date with a woman. Tamika introduced me to a friend of hers who lived in Louisiana but had managed to date around our friend group in Atlanta. She charmed me in the same restaurants she took all her Atlanta dates while Tamika kept my daughter. The long-distance relationship that followed was made possible by my village. In fact, it took me a long time to figure out that the distance between my first girlfriend and I was about more than physical space, because I was having too much fun with my friends to notice that I was unfulfilled. Because of my community, I didn’t depend on her to satisfy my emotional needs or notice her inability to do so.