The struggle

 Dating while black

Dating, meeting people, going out for coffee, movies dinner… all good stuff. As I navigate the world of dating I’ve come to some harsh conclusions about the challenges of dating while black. Ok cupid in 2014 posted a study about the dating attitudes of men and women. Unsurprisingly, black women were seen as the least desirable by all men… including black men. Reading the study, I wasn’t surprised, it hurt to see what I was feeling, what I thought about, the giant elephant in the room, in black and white.

As a young woman on the quest for man meat, I’ve heard all the man snagging tips. Be flirty, but not too flirty, talk about your interests, be smart, but not too smart, make eye contact. I've been set up on blind dates, and card carry member of the "my friend knows a great guy you should meet" club.“You’re a totally catch”, I’m asked… “How come you’re single”?… “Any man would be lucky to have you”. True, true, and totally true. In the back of my head, I couldn’t figure out why I was the reigning queen of singledom. If I'm honest, I always had suspicions that my skin colour was a factor in my lack of dating prospects. I used to tell my friends that I was the "triple threat of death"  ( I made that up myself, copyright pending) in the dating world... I'm intelligent, black, and fat ( we could throw in that I'm short as well, but 3 feels like enough). In dating language, I'm the exact opposite of what North American society considered beautiful and desirable in a woman.

It’s not that I don’t try to date, it’s just hard to do when nobody responds to you. I message, like, send flirts… all the things that the sites, friends, hell even family tell me to do… no boys in the yard. Is there something wrong with my milkshake? And then there it is… the little red icon that tells me I have a message. I wonder what it will say.

Now normally, most people would have a sense of excitement about potentially talking with a new suitor. Not me, I get nervous; too many times have I opened a message only to be hit by the cruelty that is racism. More often than not, I get messages that are not only sexually explicit, they are downright racist. Comments about my appearance, men asking where I’m “originally” from, being compared to food (e.g. Hersey’s Kisses, hot chocolate), being told that I’m pretty for a black girl… I can go on and on.

For me, opening a new message also means that I need to ready myself for war. Of course I get offended, upset, and frustrated reading messages. What I refuse to do, is fade quietly into the stream of profiles without speaking my mind. Depending on the message, I will directly explain why a message was offensive or hurtful. It took a lot of courage to stand up for myself at first, I heard all the excuses, refusal to accept responsibility and just flat out doubling down on the racism. I will not be silent.

Part of the challenge of living authentically is accepting the fact that you lose people. More often than not, when I address racism, I’m met with defensiveness. It’s not my job to further explain to a man why his racism is showing, clearly this isn’t the guy for me… good thing I found that out now. The problem is for black women, it can feel like racist messages are the only response we get on dating sites. It can feel like we have to lower our standards because we can’t expect to be treated with dignity. We should take the guy that sounds a “little racist” because what else is there? Maybe I can teach him about privilege? At least he sent a nice message…that should never be good enough for anyone, yet I’ve seriously considered dating sub par men.

I’m the OG of online dating. POF, Match, OK Cupid, Hinge, Christian Mingle and E Harmony to name a few have all had a profile created by me at some point in my life. The history sadly keeps repeating itself. I get tired of my white friends telling me I need to “put myself out there more” or to randomly start chatting people up at bars. It was even suggested to me that I should "date my own people", yes, a friend said that... guess what, black men don't want black women either (we'll get back to your hella racist comment, but one thing at a time)! We do not have the same experiences in the dating world and it’s a fact that needs to be acknowledged. I have to think about if a man is fetishizing me, I’m more cautious in my responses because I need to see if this guy likes me for me, not just the stereotype of black women. It’s exhausting to not feel respected, it hurts to be blamed for my singleness when I literally have no control over other people’s thoughts, emotions, or intentions.

Yes, black women get blamed for being single. Dating advice I’ve received over the years implied that if I were more positive, smiled more, didn’t make everything about race, stop being so picky, I would have a man. For the religious people in my life, I just need to pray to God and he will send me a man. I will never turn down blessings, however, there needs to be more consideration for the feelings of those that are not in relationships. It’s easy to say that you found love after devoting your life to church, or keeping a positive attitude about love. As my favorite writer Brittney Cooper states, favor isn’t fair. There are no guarantees that I will find a partner, I’m also silenced about being able to talk about the possibility of being without a partner for the rest of my life. If I think like that, it'll never happen *insert eye roll here*. Clearly others have inside knowledge about my future, please impart your sage wisdom on this poor single soul. Being real doesn't make me negative, it makes me human. I think it's fair that reflecting on my romantic history, maybe a partner isn't in the cards. I have no idea what the future holds, but why can't single women get the opportunity to talk about and grieve expectations that may not become reality?

I recognize that I’m not the only person who has had bad dating experiences, it can be easy to compare a person of colours dating experience to that of the dominant culture; it’s a fallacy that needs to be changed. Comparisons to the white dating experience invalidates the experiences of black women. I don’t get the Hollywood romance stories, the prince doesn’t show up on his digital horse, those stories are not for black women. 

How many people of colour are represented on dating shows? How many black bachelorette contestants have there been? Has there been a black, Latino, Asian bachelor? These messages are ingrained in us at a very young age. There were no black Disney Princesses for me growing up. I didn’t see black women being celebrated, loved and worshiped for their melanin goodness on TV. You didn’t either, let’s call it what it is. Love for black women is not represented in media. I'm not even going to get into the stats like how having advanced education, my age, and living in Edmonton also further decrease my changes of finding a mate. Why is it a surprise that anti black woman feelings would spill into dating?

Our society is permeated with anti-black imagery. From social media, TV, Movies, music, the black female is degraded, portrayed as a loud, hypersexual, head swaying, twerking hoes, and finger snapping divas that are a handful for any man to handle. That’s the stereotype I’m up against… I’m judged based on characteristics that are seen as undesirable and the image of black women men has is sadly distorted.

My full lips, booty for days, and dangerous curves on me are considered ugly, on a white girl, you put her on magazines. Women spend a lot of money to have what I was naturally blessed with, I’m not considered beautiful…that title is reserved for the Kardashians. What does that tell people? How do you think men interpret this? The euro beauty standards imply that everyone else that doesn’t have European features is othered. We’re called “exotic”, “ebony”, & “Mahogany” as if there are not other metaphors to describe my skin colour other than food or tree bark??? I was talking with one man who felt comfortable telling me that he’s never dated black women before because he thought they were ghetto. Where do I begin?? How to explain how problematic his statement is?? What really kicked me in the gut is this man is also a racial minority.

 It would be easy to limit my poor dating experiences to just being white men, but that’s not the truth. It’s sad that anti black woman sentiments also find their way to other ethnic groups. This man went on to declare that he hoped I was a “normal” black girl. WFT…Like what the actual f**k? You’ve generalized ALL the black people! You’ve met every black woman? How did you come to this assessment? What does being ghetto even mean? Needless to say I ended the conversation, however the comfort in which he spoke about his reasons about not dating a black woman was telling. I should not have to represent all black people, no black woman should. We should be seen as individual humans that have had different experiences in life, have different views, and hell even have different personalities.

I get frustrated by people that refuse to see blackness as something diverse…that I’m defined and my identity limited to stereotypes. If I applied this logic to my dating, should I consider every white man racist (OK I do, but that’s a different subject)? I have culture, values, knowledge, experiences that have shaped me into the woman I am today. I love hard, I’m a good friend, I protect those that I love, I’m guaranteed to make you laugh, I’m a daughter, sister, and cat mother extraordinaire. I know I’m wifey material, I can’t get a match to message me back. Yes, it’s because of my skin colour.

So as I continue to navigate the dating world, I know I will continue to be tested, irritated and frustrated. Do I have hope I’ll find a partner… yeah sure, I’ll be fine either way. What I won’t do is settle for “good enough”. I know who I am, what I have to offer in a relationship and I will not accept being valued less than what I know I’m worth.