Rihanna is over men who don't know how to be men

Rihanna speaks very candidly about Rihanna in an interview with contributing editor Lisa Robinson for Vanity Fair’s November cover story (Jay Z and Eminem also weighed in).

The Bajan singer talks about everything from being famous and attempting to live like a normal person to her favorite TV shows (she’s a fan of Breaking Bad, Bates Motel, First 48 and Snapped) and Rachel Dolezal (she thinks she’s “a bit of a hero”). Overall, Rihanna’s interview is pretty standard. But: A chunk of the profile focuses on her sex life and the woes of dating in 2015. And Rihanna is pretty much all of us. The 27-year-old told Vanity Fair:

I always see the best in people… I hope for the best, and I always look for that little bit of good, that potential, and I wait for it to blossom. You want them to feel good being a man, but now men are afraid to be men. They think being a real man is actually being a pussy, that if you take a chair out for a lady, or you’re nice or even affectionate to your girl in front of your boys, you’re less of a man. It’s so sick. They won’t be a gentleman because that makes them appear soft. That’s what we’re dealing with now, a hundred percent, and girls are settling for that, but I won’t. I will wait forever if I have to… but that’s O.K. You have to be screwed over enough times to know, but now I’m hoping for more than these guys can actually give.

Rihanna hasn’t had a real boyfriend since 2012, when she briefly got back together with Chris Brown, and, amidst new rumors (that she’s dating Travis Scott for instance), she tells the mag that she’s not currently seeing anyone. Rihanna is busy and can’t fully commit to anyone right now and doesn’t think it’s fair to expect the same from another person. She admits to being horny, lonely and skeptical, but aren’t we all?

What makes this profile so great is that the writer paints Rihanna in the light she yearns to be in: Normalcy—of course, aside from her hit records, massive wardrobe and superstardom.

Some other tidbits from Rihanna’s cover story (because we all should care):

• She now owns all of her own music and will now release her music through her new record label, Westbury Road.
• When the right guy does come along, she prefers him to come riding in on a black motorcycle. (Same.)
• Surprisingly, she doesn’t loathe Chris Brown: “I don’t hate him. I will care about him until the day I die. We’re not friends, but it’s not like we’re enemies. We don’t have much of a relationship now.”
• She’s a little bit afraid of fame and fears being “swallowed up by that bubble.”
• She “dreams about buying her own groceries” and hates the life you’re expected to lead once you become famous:
• Because life is not perfect, and the minute you feel it’s perfect, it’s not real. Artists sign a deal to make music; we didn’t sign to be perfect, or to be role models. We’re all flawed human beings who are learning and growing and evolving and going through the same bullshit as everybody else. The fact that people expect the day we sign we’re supposed to be perfect does not make any fucking sense to me. Even tragedy, every trial in your life, is a test. It’s like a class—you take an exam, and if you pass, you move on to the next. You still have to take another test and prove yourself again.
• She says NOTHING about her new album. Jay Z also says basically nothing. Seriously, is it even happening? Robinson writes:
• Her new, much-anticipated album—her first in more than three years (which, as we spoke, she was still working on)—has taken a while because, says Jay Z, “she wants it to be perfect.”

Read the full cover story and see more photos of Rihanna here.

Tahirah Hairston is a style writer from Detroit who likes Susan Miller, Rihanna’s friend’s Instagram accounts, ramen and ugly-but cute shoes.