Dating While Black

Online dating can be a tricky thing if you’re single. It can be even trickier when you’re a woman. Online dating is it’s most trickiest when you are dating as a single woman who is black.

A few months back, after a dozen trial and error moments of breaking up and getting back together, I officially ended my relationship with my boyfriend of two years. I was relieved to be single and free to focus on school, my career and my passions. I wasn’t really thinking about getting back into a relationship or even casually dating any time soon.

I spent most of my time with my family, namely my little sister, and my friends. I wasn’t interested in meeting a guy. I was having a blast being one of my single friends again. It was kinda like jumping back into the pool after you’ve been sunbathing for a while.
It felt great.

But many of my girlfriends had been single while I was in a relationship and being single wasn’t new to them. They were on the prowl. I wasn’t interested in finding a guy but for the sake of discussion and connection to my girls I decided to make an effort. I’m a social media branding consultant meaning a bulk of my time is spent online what better way to meet a guy then online or through an app.

I downloaded Tinder, Zoosk and Okcupid.

Zoosk was the first app I downloaded but they required you to pay for everything including messaging a potential hottie. I didn’t mind investing my time into finding a date but I wasn’t about to spend actual money on a dating app. That to me was absurd. Then I downloaded Tinder and OkCupid with less luck. I won’t turn this into a review of the numerous dating sites that are available to us but Let me tell you how well it all went.

These sites are chock full of men of all races who want a “black girl experience”. Unfortunately for them, I’m no experiment so I spend a majority of my time weeding through these types of men.

Sometimes, they will approach me in a decent way by asking about likes and dislikes and the things I do for fun. Then the conversation will turn quickly left with the following question:

So what’s your ethnic background

This question never ceases to puzzle me because my pictures are displayed and it’s very clear that I’m a black woman. What more do you want to know? Oh, I get it. You want to know if I’m exotic and mixed. That tiger instinct starts to kick in when you see my full lips and kinky hair, doesn’t it? I must be one of those exotic varieties of black. Hate to break it to you buddy but I’m just the regular kind.

Can you twerk? I heard all black girls are freaks

is that your real hair??

I’ve never dated a black girl before

And? I don’t really care if you’ve dated a black woman before. All I honestly care about is if you’ve dated women before me. Because unless you’ve dated men or animals, the color of ex’s skin is of no importance to me. Usually, when men say this to me I imagine they must be expecting a gold star or a pat on the back from me. Unfortunately, they tend to get neither.

Then, there are the men who get straight to the point no-chaser and inquire on whether I’ll sleep with them within the hour. Uh, it takes a little more than some of your best filtered pictures online to get me into the sack buddy.

I don’t know if it’s because these guys are truly socially ignorant or just plain stupid. I’m a very understanding person when it comes to the ignorance of others. I believe it’s easy to be ignorant of race if you’ve only ever stepped outside of your own long enough to gawk at the brown-skinned girl in the pencil skirt at Starbucks or you listen to a few rap verses on occasion. I think it’s super progressive of you to learn more about a culture that is not your own, but I’m not a science experiment. I’m a woman. A woman looking for love in the melting pot known as the Big Apple. If that’s your M.O. too, we might get along just fine.

Photo Credit check out createHERstock.com great resource!