Down with the swirl, but is the swirl down with me????

Image from www.beyondblackandwhite.com

With all this controversy around Serena William's appearance, and for the record, if her bodyis equated with looking like a man, I got two questions: where can I sign up and can I use Steve or Tom?

I digress,I digress but I did wanted to talk to you all a little  about relationships and dating. As all single black women who are in their 30's, are reminded if not by themselves, but by any family member with a mouth, that their biological clock is ticking (I keep trying to put mine on snooze, but to no avail I constantly hear the darn thing!) We are met with the myriad of questions regarding our single status and how to make it well for lack of a better term...Make it go away. I've heard the countless questions of  "Well have you asked to be set up?" "I'm sure one of your friends has a friend.Ask them?"  "Have you tried online dating?" And the list goes on and on...... And we  on the other side are bombarded with statics: black women are the least desireable because we are the most obese or black women are the least likely to get married and blah blah blah blah, but before you disregard this as another blog post going on and on about the woe is me black woman, I want to talk about what a lot of black women are "afraid to try" and that is dating outside of their race.

 I started thinking about this topic when my sister and I were having a discussion,about yes, what else.... my dating life and she asked the question, "Are you open to it?" I said with confidence "Sure I am" she hesitated and said, "Are you really?" and I paused and thought about it am I really. Not that I haven't dated outside of my race before but in the 15 years I've been dating I've only dated 1 Hispanic man and 1 one white man and I began to think. Why am I not dating out of my race? Why have I not dated another white guy? I also began to think about how I actively use online dating, yes I am online dating and so are thousands of other people, so it's nothing to be ashamed of anymore. But how despite the large number of white men I see on these sites, there are quite a few who may browse my profile, but very few actually approach me. And the one's who do are looking for what I've gotten from plenty of black brothers, as well, straight objectification, too strong of a come on, and request for them to allow them to do strange things to my anatomy. In any case...  While I think of myself as a catch, I'm college educated, I have a stable job, I smell good, and the list goes on and on.... I can say yes I am open to dating outside of my race, but are they open to dating me??????

 I began to troll research the internet for what white men found attractive and I stumbled on a very interesting message board on www.gamespot.com, nonetheless, on was it a poll and question was is it "Rare for a a white man to be attracted to a black women?" The outright poll was a little less than equal with about 44% stating "Yes it was rare" and 56% stating "No, it's not rare" and a 4% of undecided folk who couldn't make up their minds about whether a white guy could be attracted to a black woman..... While I figured most of the respondents were white, so that left me a bit perplexed, but hey,if you can't figure it out, I sure can't.

Some of the free text responses left me astonished. There were some that were short cut and dry like "absolutely not, as their dark skin looks masculine." or my personal favorite of how one white man told the story of his ghetto neighbor with the banging body with the $50 section 8 rent who "screamed at her kids all day long." and he made her the representative for all black women everywhere. (Gee thanks!) Or my favorite where they posted the  women on the left as their preferance and the woman on the right as less desirable
 vs
Which I found quite amusing because short of a little filtering with my good friend Photoshop, a good push up bra, and a flat iron. They were pretty much very similar in build and looks.
But fear not, there were plenty of men stating that black women were attractive and/or that for every black ugly woman there were White, Asians, or Hispanic ones who were just as ugly. Some even stated how wonderful we are (warms my little soul).

So many of you may wonder what is the recipe stepping out of our black men only comfort zone in terms of dating? I say you have to be comfortable with your choice, as you may get a lot of flack for stepping out of your race from your momma, your cousins, and even with black men (especially the ones who were never interested in you but felt it important that you know his displeasure with you for dating a white man, yea that one). It's an a powerful personal decision as to when the quest for love becomes bigger than the quest to have black love and black love only, or to continue to vindicate that you always saw love as colorblind.
I searched the list serves and found an interesting read for how to attract a white man as a black woman and it gave the following hints:
1. Don't be afraid to approach him, if a white man is attracted to you, he may not know what to say or maybe intimidated.
2. White men may not be as aggressive as a black men if he does approach you  it so often times appears as casual conversation that may actually be flirting.
3. Speak proper (I just gagged in my mouth, why would you not do this with any man your interested in despite the race?!?!?!)
4. Don't hang in a large group of black men, his natural assumption is that one of them maybe your boyfriend or ie scary older brother.....

I generally feel that these tips can be applied to any race of men, as I say if  you want something bad enough you have to put the energy to attract it.  As I always say, at the end of the day closed mouths don't get fed! So heres to being fearless, especially when it comes to love..... no matter what the skin color is.

Toodles Darlings,
Jacquel