Note: This is a follow-up to an earlier post on interracial dating via Match.com (here).I have a single (recently divorced) Black male friend in his early fifties, who used match.com to find the woman who just broke off their three-month relationship. He claimed the relationship was the stated best each had ever experienced, on all levels, except that she is (additionally), how shall we say, White. Each stated no race preference in their match profiles.
After a bit of probing, he revealed that he wants a woman of color, perhaps even a Black woman, although his ex-wife of twenty years, and the mother of his kids, is Asian. As background, this guy is tall/slim, fair-skinned, highly educated, and a financial professional with a very refined demeanor. He has dated all ethnicities, including White.
Any ideas about what is going on here? From the woman's perspective (in this case) is Match.com asking the right questions?
James C. Collier
READ MOST RECENT POSTS AT ACTING WHITE...
Technorati Tags: Match.com Black White Dating Exposé, Halle Berry, Interracial, Fever, Acting Black, Acting White
Sounds like your friend has issues. I wonder how he would have felt if she had said she dates men of any race, except for blacks.
ReplyDeleteMatch is probably asking the right questions, but it sounds like people are giving the wrong answers.
I can understand wanting a black rather than white woman but the whole "people of colour" thing never made any sense to me. He thinks he will get along better with, say, a sikh woman than a fellow american woman who's white ? What about the extremely large cultural differences ?
ReplyDeleteTo anonymous :
If i were interested in a woman and she stated that she avoided black men, I'd probably be disappointed but too bad for me.I firmly believe that people can discriminate (or not) all they want when it comes to dating. I wouldn't want a woman belonging to a group i'm not interested in telling me that I owed her a date or something like that.
I married a white guy, but we've been divorced for 21 years. We have a son and I'm 50. When I married my ex-husband, we were of the mind that compatibility was not limited to same race partners. We could see the world through the prism of class and naively believed that race didn't matter as much as class. As long as we remained within our narrowly defined scope of the world, we were compatible. However, as I began to seek a world that was black-oriente and not multicultural, we began to have problems. In multicultural spaces I felt that I had to celebrate everything but blackness and when I did celebrate blackness, it was brief and limited to a Martin Luther King day parade. The culture of Blackness is broad, but seem too threatening for the versions of multiculturalist framework that my husband and I embraced. My ex-husband appeared uncomfortable being the only white guy in a circle of Black professionals who were smart and confident. He preferred to be with African Americans who were poor and rewarded him his decision to marry a Black woman.
ReplyDeleteThe white men that I've dated think they know black culture because they'd seen a movie which starred Denzel Washington or had a kid in their first grade class who was black. This kid was not invited to any of their birthday parties, but it wasn't because he/she was Black. To make a long story short, for these reasons I don't date White men anymore and can say with confidence that I never will again. After 20 years of being the "white guys "experience," I've decided that I'm not going to put myself through this anymore.
Match.com and other dating websites create a "speculator" culture, whereby people come mining for gold. When they find a nugget that turns out to fart or has a bad credit rating or snores or whatever, he/she quickly labels the prospect fake gold, and toss it to the side and moves on.
There's nothing wrong with a Black man wanting to be with a Black woman. The more Black men who want that, they better off Black women will be. I'm dating a black man now and there's nothing more satisfying than being with a person who truly loves black culture and the Black people who make it.
Anon 10:40, You describe the difference between being open to other races/ethnicities, and understanding that each person brings a culture to the relationship that needs to be embraced for many reasons. Your ex should have extended himself, rather than tolerated, your 'all black' events - it would have made a huge difference I bet.
ReplyDeleteahhhh but she said she began seeking a world that was black oriented.
ReplyDeleteSo we can assume she was not willing to embrace white culture either or that she was uncomfortable being the only black woman in his circle of friends.
Regardless, color is not as much a problem as it is to try to meld two very different cultures and comfort zones.
Hmm, I am a Black Male 39 years of age, single, childless, never married, educated, fluent in three languages, gainfully employed, financially stable, homeowner, and well travelled, well read, and a African American Nativist...and I requested a Black Woman on Match.com, and eHarmony...and on both sites, they produced 3 out 5 matches...White Women, even when i said that I wasnt open to dating anything other than Black Women. Go Figure!
ReplyDeleteAnon 10:57, I think these sites are conveying that the final choice is yours, but they will err on the side of sending (vs. not) personality matches that are beyond your preferences. You may choose to go it alone (in this case) if neither black women pans out, but you will do so knowing there is a broader array of potential mates available who otherwise match up. The numbers you quote (ratios) don't surprise me as whites are the leading minority and maturing white women are more willing to trade certain preferences, which they might consider more superfluous, for greater marketability(IMHO).
ReplyDeleteWomen will break up defensively if they sense the guy isn't that into them. Maybe she sensed he had his heart set on something else, and wanted to be the dumper and not the dumpee.
ReplyDeleteBut people break up for all kinds of different reasons, so who knows. At his age the dating market is strongly skewed towards men, so he has a lot of choice.
Thats funny, I tried Anon experiment with match.com, and its sister site Chemistry.com, and both sites matched me with White Woman, and Baby Mamas, and divorces...too funny!
ReplyDeleteIf the relationship is broken well maybe they're not meant for each other. However, girls will definitely break up with his man if she feels that her man is not really inlove to her. That is why, women's instinct is more accurate than men.
ReplyDeleteDo you agree too?