Welcome back brothers to part 4 of the special series: A Message to the Love Deprived Black Man.  Before we get started with this installment of our series: The Remedy, I want to give a brief overview of our series.

We began undertaking this issue, this vexation and this depression experienced among a group of men who are coping with love deprivation: which is having a heart that is in constant a state of want of female companionship, attention, physical affection and ultimately a relationship, where he has a woman’s heart and soul – her loyalty, exclusivity, and commitment to maintaining a deep unbreakable bond with him.  The love deprived Black man longs to feel special and to have an attractive woman in his life who brings him enthusiasm at the site of her and who clings to him and desires no other man.  This is the image that he has observed among his family, peers and strangers and he of course wants the same for himself.

Ass this man begins to have experiences with women where there is some sort of romantic nuance, this love deprived man will usually not be the best decision maker with women in that he will put up with all types of situations in hopes to experience the possibility of some sort of relationship with her.  This means accepting unacceptable behaviors and tolerating unbecoming lifestyles of women. He will tolerate being disrespected and accepting her blatant disregard for him.

The reason that this man is usually wet behind the ears initially and even after several experiences will still wear his heart on his sleeve is because for 20 something, 30 something, 40 something years and even longer in some cases: this man has spent so much time in a state of what could be likened to as: romantic solitary confinement.  So, falling in love easily, becoming attached to a woman and psychologically dependent upon a woman for his sense of well-being is something that he is highly susceptible to. In many cases, the impact that a once promising dreams differed with the opposite sex can even lead the love deprived man down a path of considering terminating his own life.

The love deprived man often attracts women with deplorable character.  His self- image is low and he feels lesser than as a man because his esteem is often predicated on the non-existence, the absence or the irregularity of a resume of relationship experience and sexual encounters.

Now all of this aside, the love deprived Black man must come to a point where he accepts that his emotional management is even more important than what he has been missing in a woman. His interpretations of his experiences whether partly actualized or unmet, his capacity to train himself by being a student of himself through any and all experiences or senses of connections that he has, his activeness in crafting a well-rounded life, turning his troubles over to a source of universal intelligence greater than himself and his acknowledgment that no woman can truly solve his problems, are components that largely will allow this man to regulate his emotions from getting the best of him and leading a life with more intent and contentment versus his habit of succumbing to a never-ending state of despondency, loneliness and misery. 

It is much easier said than that one can simply think his way out of his innate desire for intimate emotional connections with women, a genuine sense of companionship with them, outlets for mutual physical exchange and the desire of being a focus and priority in her life.

What the love deprived man needs is a treatment plan for when his heart is in a state of duress and when he experiences emotional turmoil when things aren’t going favorable for him, which means his wants aren’t being acknowledged, attended to or met whether he has expressed them or not: in which he must accept that his undesirable experience is directly linked to something within himself that is not right. YES, it is his own personal problems which have roots deeper than what he is dealing with when it comes to women and this must be assessed and controlled by his own initiative. 

This means that while it takes the cooperation of a woman to give you what you want, that what you want must be evaluated, brought to scrutiny and judged.  This is particularly for the love deprived man who has had pleasantries in his experiences, but constantly finds himself feeling malnourished of a woman’s attention, affection, care and interest in him.  The reason is that the love deprived man is mostly an idealist, a hopeless romantic, who wants things to go the way that he wants them to go.  A man who is prepared for the pleasure but not for the pain.  A man who may know better but entertains the type of women whom he should have nothing to with.  This man will view himself as a victim for not having what he believes that he is due by considering what he sees other’s around him have.  He has accepted the marketing of what love, relationships and companionship is supposed to look like and feel like.  

You do not know and you will not know why some women do the things that they do in life.  You don’t know what makes certain women the way that they are.  You don’t know why she makes certain decisions in her life that on paper don’t make sense to you.  You don’t have control over how she feels and when she feels it.  Much like, you don’t control the ups and downs, the favorable and unfavorable conditions of the housing market – even though you may need a place to live it is not up to you when it’s a buyers-market or a seller’s-market.  You’re trying to make sense of her senselessness, her contradictions, hypocrisies, and changes in attitude, prioritization, and interest towards you, when things were going so well and you wanted to keep it smooth sailing, not acknowledging that when you had her at a good time that was good for you, that it was a bad time for another man who wanted the experience that you had with her.  But your habit of taking everything personal limits your viewpoint and subsequently limits your emotional capacity in dealing with and moving on from situations that just aren’t healthy for you.  Yes, you hate an interruption of intimacy, when a good vibe goes to waste or is given to another man in the middle of your unfinished business with her.  Your appetite for consuming ideal situations plays a large part in your interpretation of your love deprivation.

No about this remedy. In medicinal use, a remedy is a treatment to address a problem. 

The problem here is that love deprived men have a sickness, a serious disease in which his discontentment with not getting what he wants from a woman, specifically in the capacity and in the way in which he wants it, depreciates his life’s value due to non-actualized romantic expectations which he allows to handicap him from the gift of peace of mind.   

Yes, we do indeed need help and we need to recognize that this ailment is based largely on what we put into our minds, much like how many cancers are directly related to what one puts into their bodies and the toxic chemicals that we’re putting into our minds is a steady diet of mismanaged expectations.    

Hence the power of a remedy. Different remedies are used to do different things. Some remedies are meant to be curative, while others are meant to be preventatives, while others remedies take away the symptoms of a problem so that the body can rest and heal itself. 

As examples, if you had a slip and fall, and you injured your back, it’s very common to do some physical therapy, where a few times a week for a couple of months, you work with a therapist who has you do various stretches and exercises, along with heat and ice applications on your back which is all meant to help you to maintain  or regain normal mobility, reduce pain and prevent further injury. 

If you have a cavity, a dentist often recommends treating the cavity by removing the decay within that tooth and filling it with a material that looks like a tooth, acts like a tooth, and feels like a tooth so that you can chew like normal and retain your smile.  But neither of these remedies stop anything from recurring.  You can still injure your back again and have a repeated or new injury and your same tooth that was fixed can decay even further along with other teeth.  So, the only way to not have a back problem or a tooth problem would be literally if your spine and teeth were non-existent. 

In like manner, if the emotions of sadness, anger, feeling betrayed by a woman, or being jealousy of her heart, body and attention going everywhere, were emotions that were forever removed from you, then you wouldn’t have problems associated with such feelings.  But since those emotions are within you, just like parts of your body are part of you, we should take measures to manage the emotions, to plan for susceptibility of those emotions plaguing our quality of life and to make lifestyle changes as a defense against those emotions beating us.  This is a holistic approach for the ailment of love deprivation for the men who no longer want to allow this ailment to take up any more time and space in their lives than it must and to know that it is a matter that you can control.   

A key part of our remedy plan is acceptance. Accept that you may live the rest of your life where no woman ever truly gives you what you want or what you think that you need from her.  Part of this is just based on the reality that relationships have expiration dates, whether the separation is due to: disinterest, changes in personal values, violations within the relationship or mutual dissolvement due to growing apart. 

As mentioned earlier, the love deprived man often takes his feeling of malnourishment of a woman’s affections and bonding with him as a personal thing, while not considering that when you look around at people in general, there are very few people who are with the original person whom they entered their first relationship with. People get married, have children, and get divorced 20+ years later and start new families and many times don’t even have communication with their original spouse once those kids are grown and wouldn’t even barely know if the ex-husband or ex-wife is still alive if it weren’t for mutual acquaintances keeping them posted. Many women are not with the first man whom they had a child with and will often go on to have multiple children with multiple men in multiple relationships. Most people are not still having sex with the first person whom they chose to lay down with. People fall in love and out of love with others.  They can be highly attracted to someone one day and the next day they can’t be paid to kiss them again due to a massive shift in the interaction. 

So, it’s wisest to simply understand that when your time comes to experience whatever degree of a connection, a relationship, a physical exchange, that it’s best to focus on the experience that you’re having while you’re having it.  Enjoy the relationship for what it is and what it’s worth while it’s taking place.  Don’t bet so much on the unforeseen future – trying to forever make a way for everything to keep going as it has been going or at it once was, even when it seems like there’s no legitimate reason for it to end.  Be involved in your experience and also acknowledge that you had a woman who amicably participated in sharing part of herself with you to whatever extent that she did, for however long it lasted, whether it’s a week, a month, 3 months, 6 months a year or more, whether it was a one-time encounter, a few exchanges, or an ongoing relationship: wherever there was a fair and mutual social, sexual, or romantic dealing, you do have experience. 

Experiences last for as long as they last and happen when they happen and they also come and go, which leaves the door open for you to have other experiences that can be just as fulfilling and even more fulfilling if you are open to them and not harping on re-living the past so much with any one particular woman. 

This principle of relationship changes happens in all areas of life, whether it’s with your bank, your employer, the friends that you grew up with, etc.  And so, it also happens in marriages, it happens in long-term relationship: whether explained or unexplained, whether it seems fair or unfair, whether it makes sense or it doesn’t make sense, whether it was an amicable separation or one party making the decision: at some point; things will come to an end – and it’s not always about something being wrong with you.

So, I know it’s hard, but just accept that when it comes to women: all connections that you experience in the way of enthusiastic great chemistry, deeply committed relationships and exciting casual encounters, are all subject to change at any time without warning.

But be very self-aware about not internalizing this as a personal thing, especially when you know that you were a respectful and solid man and things just seemed to fizzle out despite your effort to maintain it.

Here’s another thing to consider, even if you do have the title and the feelings that you want, you truly don’t know what’s really going on in that woman’s head or when she’s not around you. I personally have had women who were in relationships, from being someone’s girlfriend to someone’s wife, express to me their desires to engage with me sexually/romantically.

Sometimes, love deprived men are so disturbed by not having substantial formal relationship experience, but even in those relationships, you can get embarrassed and be playing the fool, because if that woman has any experience whatsoever with any man: there is a good chance that she still entertains or is willing to entertain those past men.  She still has the numbers in her phone, she still calls them her friends, she’s still curious about the “what if” factor.

So, it doesn’t matter if it’s 1, 8 or 26 guys that she’s had heavy on her mind, in her heart and/or body : on the surface you may be getting what you want but you can never read her heart and you cannot see the images that fill her mind of her thoughts surrounding other men. Stop trying to be the special one, that one man whom she’s she’s crazy about, because as authentic as that may be, she can still feel the same way or greater about another.  Being her favorite is temporal. In my experience, there is no woman whom I’ve been sociable with no matter what her situation was, where I got the impression that she was truly inaccessible.    

Another important thing to do as part of your treatment is to forgive yourself for times where you allowed yourself to be sold short in your dealings with women.  This means understanding and accepting that you’re human and that you have desires and emotions that can get the best of you.  No matter how logical you are, no matter how practical you may be, that has very little if anything to do with your inclination to want to just go with the flow and have enriching experiences with women.  And even when you know that she’s being unfair, or that you’re giving much more than you’re getting, or that you’re being undermined and unappreciated: you’ll still find yourself interested in her, wondering why you want to try to keep finding ways to fix things or make them better when it seems like you’re in the fight by yourself and when you know that you’ve compromised on your self-esteem, your pride and even your dignity. Learn to forgive yourself for that and also understand that from time to time this can still be a struggle to get a handle on. You are not always going to live up to the standards that you set for yourself in all situations in life. 

Self-awareness and forgiving yourself is key.  And that’s why I recommend a holistic approach for the treatment of love deprivation because you need to have multiple things working for you at the same time to deal with this issue.  Love deprivation is not an isolated matter and it’s not just due to a deficit in attention, affection, and connection romantically. When you try to treat it like it is an isolated matter, it’s like eating right without exercising and without getting enough rest while being stressed out all the time.  Your body is not in an ideal condition to operate as its optimum, even if you’re doing one thing exceptionally well.  The results will typically be better when you have more than one thing going for you and working together. 

If you get unexpectedly laid off or fired from a job and you’re solely relying on future unemployment compensation, you may be in for a rough patch if that’s your plan to sustain yourself, but you don’t have a comfortable savings and you’re not being assertive in the marketplace in looking for a new job.  You only have that one tool: (unemployment income) working for you: so, if it comes later than expected or not at all, you’ll be in for a rude awakening. 

You need something to fall back on as a preventative so to speak mentally and emotionally as a man who has experienced love deprivation for most of his life, and you need something to heal and strengthen as well and that means taking approaches to craft your life as an individual.

In my book, Designing the Unstoppable Black Man, I talk about the importance of a man crafting his life.  It’s important to have things going for you that you can look forward to on a regular basis like improving your financial situation by becoming more valuable to the marketplace, accumulating a savings, finding a vocation as a true calling, having fulfilling hobbies that bring enthusiasm to your life, constantly learning about various subjects, etc. – things that have nothing to do with being wrapped up in women. 

I encourage taking a personally test, to help you get a better understanding of how you generally operate as a personality type and how you process things around you.  Being a student of self should be a high priority in your life, just as important as getting nutrition throughout the day.  Regularly study yourself and what makes you tick and why.  And examine the feelings that you have through the day about different things, whether it comes to women or other things, but here, we’re mostly focused on the impact of women.  So being a good student of self and of your emotional responses and triggers surrounding women is key to this remedy.

And speaking of emotional awareness, one of the emotions that love deprived men usually struggle with as an Achilles Heel throughout life is getting a handle on his predisposition towards jealousy. 

Now in committed relationships or even within explorative relationships where you’re getting to know a woman to see about the possibilities between the two of you and you both recognize that, it can be very common and even normal to feel a degree of jealousy about a woman’s attention, interests and affections being shared elsewhere because there is usually some sort of understanding or expectation of exclusivity somewhere within that dynamic and when that is violated or when there’s suspicions that there’s potential compromise of such, as in the case of a former lover of hers lingering around, her being a flirt or her retaining a close friendship with an ex, those conversations need to be had and you should get to a place where there is an understanding and respect level that does not in any way feel like a struggle, where you two can decide to either pursue things further or dissolve it.  You should be able to clearly communicate your concerns and come to an understanding, and if there’s no solution in sight, it’s usually wise to not continue any further, even if it’s based on an insecurity on your part – because neither one of you will be satisfied and happy dealing with each other. 

But the sort of jealousy I’m going to focus on here is the sort of jealousy that exists within love deprived men which is more reactive in that, this type of jealousy can exist even where you’re interested in a woman, but it’s not understood to be a mutual pursuit of such interest and you become jealous of her interactions and behaviors with other men.  This type of jealousy is different from the other type where some sort of relationship is taking place even if it’s non-committal and casual, where you’re more concerned with their being an interference of something that has already started. 

This reactive jealousy that I’m referring to is what one experiences when he has social, sexual, or romantic interest in a woman, but he isn’t getting the attention that he wants and feels insecure about her seeming to share that elsewhere.  It’s the type of jealousy that comes from feeling like you’re not being recognized, and it bothers you, because you want to be a part of her life and you want her to be a part of yours, but it seems as though there’s no room for you or strong interest in you. 

This can take place with women whom you’ve had brief interactions with or even had some time spent significantly where you usually want her to read your mind and see your qualities and be drawn to you.  When this doesn’t happen and you see that she is passionate, sexual, social, or interested in other men, it can disturb you to no avail because she’s the object of your desires and she may not even know it.  It’s really a sophomoric type of jealousy but it is a real thing that love deprived men struggle with, especially when that woman is very attractive. 

When you’re not getting the attention that you want, it feels like you’re missing out on her and being left out.  So, you’ll ask questions like: ‘Why can’t I be the one whom she sees value in and appreciates and wants to spend time with?’ These types of things go through your mind sometimes even stronger as you get older because it’s a constant reinforcement of not feeling good enough, interesting enough or attractive enough. Social media doesn’t do you many favors either because the women that you want attention from often broadcast their interactions with men and the joys that they’re experiencing from the guys that they’re into, and the colorful socially active lives that they live, where you also observe the flood of attention from other men in competition for her attention as well, making it even more of a struggle to handle.  So, you ask yourself: ‘Why is she choosing to do what she’s doing with them but not with me?’  ‘Why am I not good enough?’ ‘ Why is it that when we hung out, she was shy but when I see her around other guys, she’s so loosened up?’  ‘Why am I not important enough to touch base with more frequently?’  ‘Why am I not a priority?’ 

The fear of loss of something promising or possible, your life’s state of general loneliness, interferences from her entertaining other men’s attention, her engagement with other men instead of you and ultimately the absence of her attention all contribute to your low self-esteem. 

Part of the remedy is lessening this reactive jealousy that has been a loyal companion to you throughout life, always present just as sure as a limb is present.  But you also will have to fight against not wanting to be jealous, because this emotion is so familiar to you that you view it as part of who you are instead of a disempowering habit that you have let have its way throughout your life.  Yes, in some ways you’re actually proud to be jealous.  It’s what makes you feel human, and it also makes you feel connected to these women, because you secretly think that your jealousy will be sensed or noticed and that this will make you more significant by her seeing that you care and are affected by her.  Even when she never knows that you feel this way, the jealousy makes you feel connected to her even if you’re in it all by yourself. It’s like the love deprived man is addicted to pain, viewing himself as being the protagonist in an R&B video. 

This jealousy issue can happen with almost any woman, but love deprived men are particularly susceptible to experiencing this with women who frequent nightclubs, IG models, strippers and women who offer sexual and sensual services where they entertain men, because these women often have a high amount of sex appeal, aesthetic appeal, and they demonstrate a high level of comfort with physical showcasing and physical engagement, so it is not uncommon for the love deprived man to fall for these type of women and try to change them or steer the away from their lifestyle or save them from it and ride off into the sunset of a new life together putting the past behind them. 

So be very self-aware when you exist your home and you go that club, or when you look at you social media feed – the women whom you follow online can arouse feelings of jealousy within you when you see what they’re doing and you have to be honest enough with yourself to recognize that about yourself and to use discernment in feeding your mind more disturbing thoughts by being obsessed with these women’s actions. 

The 4 States of Care for Love Deprived Men

What I mean by states of care is that these are types of experiences that love deprived men can give attention to in an empowering way in overcoming their debilitation of love deprivation.  These states are not meant to be abused, or misused, rather they give realistic options for love deprived men to reduce the emotional burdens of letdowns with less than idealistic dealings with women in addition to the parts of the treatment that we have went over earlier. 

1. The first state is disengagement from women.  What this means is not giving any serious attention to women whether it be sexually, socially, or romantically for a defined time or until a level of self-awareness and self-control is reached that allows you to eventually deal with women in a healthier way irrespective of the outcomes that you end up having with them. 

This is a vital state to be in that I would say all love deprived men should employ at some point because it gives him time to focus on himself.  It gives him the room and space to develop core strength within his spirit to get connected either spiritually, religiously, intellectually, or philosophically to a set of ideals and principles that he can adopt and allows him to develop resiliency, self-reliance, and healing from traumatic experiences with women.   

Sometimes a man deliberately chooses this state and other times it can seem as though it’s chosen for him as a reaction that comes on the heels of a bad experience or aggregation of bad experiences that have in totality taken its toll on him.  When done under the latter circumstance  a man can convince himself that he’s making a firm and even final decision to not put himself in situations where he can experience pain and disappointment again, but he’s usually fooling himself by being distant from the deeper personal problems that had a role in getting him there and confronting those issues that were under his control and choosing a new outlook, attitude and set of behaviors moving forward that are  well-crafted, sustainable, sensible and true to him.  When used with consideration, this state can be a beautiful time for a man to get back to being himself or to discover what that means moving forward. 

This is a time where he can do much self-reflection and discovery by reading books around his noticeable weaknesses and areas in which he needs help and practicing an updated version of himself, by being prayerful and meditative  and it’s also a good time if necessary talk to someone professionally or a trusted friend, and to listen to the philosophies of other men who have went through similar things within online and offline communities and see what parts of their ideas can be useful to him.  Sometimes it’s just one sentence that can set the tone for a new way of looking at things.  It’s also a great state to be in, to take a little time away to get out of town for a few days and to organize his life.  So, this is not an ascending order of states for love deprived men, but it is the first one that we’re addressing.

2. The next state is of having the upper hand with women.  Now despite the name of this state, it is something that requires careful consideration and responsibility both towards yourself and to women.  Within this state, you are in more control of the influence that a woman has in your life because you’re being sociable, and casual with women who exhibit the strongest interest in you.  What this means is basically entertaining the women who are choosing you and mutually enjoying each other’s company whether it be casual outings or if you decide to share in some form of a responsible physical exchange but where you know that your company is much appreciated by her.  This doesn’t mean that you’re using women to feel better about yourself or hanging out with women whom you don’t wont to really be around or whom you find unattractive – rather, it means recognizing that she’s the one predominantly in pursuit of spending time and she recognizes your qualities and attributes and where you know that you’d like to entertain that with care while being confident that you can control your emotions from the beginning and throughout the interaction.  This state allows you to truly enjoy a woman’s good company and to show her a good time and to give her the good experience of your personality.  It’s very important to not be inconsiderate of these women’s feelings because you don’t want to be misleading or stringing them along as has been likely done to you in the past, rather you want to be transparent an let them know that you do date and you do like spending time with them but that you’re looking to keep things casual and occasional to have a date for a concert or movie sometimes and if anything happens along the way where either one of you feel stronger about the other that you’ll keep each other posted and communicate about that and be considerate of each other’s feelings: which will be more so you being considerate of her.  And when you think her agreements don’t match her emotional expressions, you have to delicately but sometimes firmly make certain decisions on how things should be moving forward so that no one gets hurt.

What’s interesting with these women is that over time, you might even notice that these women can be assets in general and that you can include them further into other affairs if it’s healthy for the both of you to do that.  But always be fair, and if anything, you should be prepared to handle taking an L so to speak if it means letting her spread her wings and move on, because you don’t want to be intentionally hurtful or deceptive with these women.  Also do not rest on an ego boost of her being into you, because just like in any other case, this type of woman can also change in her views towards you, and eventually if she feels as though the interest, she’s getting isn’t in proportion to her output than he will also move on from you.  And you never know why this woman might be so drawn to you anyway, it could be that she just thinks you’re an amazing man and it could also be that she’s rebounding from another situation.  But the advantage for you is the emotional control part where you know that you can walk away with relative comfort or if she walks away, you won’t be thrown off because of your decision from the beginning to enjoy the positives and having the self -awareness that you’re managing any emotions throughout with relative ease.  This is also a good state to be in where you can just enjoy women socially such as a lounges, bars and small businesses, networking events where you have exchanges in passing that don’t have to end with any particular outcome other than you giving them something to smile about and them doing the same and being satisfied with that with no further expectations.

3. The next phase is one that I’m going to say with an asterisk which is fetishize and objectify your experiences with certain women.  I’m going to keep this simple, and I say it’s with an asterisk because I’d only suggest considering this when you’re keenly aware of yourself and know that you can keep things in a specific place mentally. 

What this phase means is safely and responsibly only focusing on the erotic and sensual gratification that a woman can bring you.  Keep things in a constant state of pleasure.  When you’re around her or think of her or of them, instead of feeling a warmth in your heart, you should only be feeling a warmth in your pants. When you take this path, keep it distant and very much so surface.  Do not spend time outside of the subject at hand with these women, don’t try to learn about their personal views on significant subjects, you don’t even want to know too much about them at all, in some cases, you won’t even need to know their real names and shouldn’t usually be inclined to want to share yours unless you just like her saying it. 

The entire exchange should be an oasis from your normal reality.  Whatever it is that you like that she’s down to entertain, the focus should strictly be on that.  As soon as you find yourself caring about parts of these women’s personal lives or curious about being beyond the pleasure that they can bring, you have gone too far.  It should be easy to never here from these women again if they disappeared or if you disappeared where the memories are enough to keep you satiated. I don’t think that you need my help with finding these situations, but the usefulness of this state to you is that these women are outlets of stress relief and add some periodic joy – you’re biggest caution outside of the possibility of getting personal with these women is letting there entertainment become an addiction, which is its own matter, so I say that this is a phase for love deprived men to proceed with caution in, but when you know that you’ve got things under control which may mean avoiding some whom you can see yourself falling for and choosing other options instead, you can consider not being cautions that you defeat the purpose in enjoying yourself.   

4. The 4th state is that of cultivating a relationship.  Now I’m not going to give you a how-to guide on being in a relationship.  Each man must be responsible for his own choices, and you know me well enough to know that my style is to offer principles and frameworks more than anything to operate from within as I believe in each man’s capacity to think for himself. 

I could give you a host of qualities to consider such as how selfless she is, how trustworthy she is, how much of a suitable mother she would be to your children, how willing she is to make sacrifices for the strength of the relationship and dozens of other attributes to consider, but instead I’ll leave you with a thought.   

If you’re looking to start a serious long term committed relationship with the woman who’s for you, when the time is right: you should be able to confidently and comfortably have faith that even though things are not going to go exactly how you want them to go that you know it is worse to not build a relationship with this woman than to fear what can go wrong by building a relationship with this woman.    

Written By: Waymon Brown. Creator of theesquireproject.com. Email info@theesquireproject.com