The Weigh In, Week Five

I split this week’s The Weigh In into two parts. One focuses on the medium of Internet dating and the second focuses on the “Digital Segregation.” Read on and make sure to follow the links to read up more on their respective sites.

On “Digital Segregation”:

“But as acceptable as online dating and inter-racial dating have ostensibly become, those looking for love are still sticking with those who look like them. U.S. Census data from 2000 shows that black-white couples make up just 1% of American marriages. Most frequent inter-racial couplings? Black hubby and white wife. And even black subscribers preferred black partners. Although they were ten times as likely to contact whites as whites were to contact blacks, overall, blacks sent online inquiries to people of their own race more often. Why are blacks more willing to take a chance on white folk? Mendelsohn speculates that blacks are simply acting like minority populations of any kind, trying to meld into the dominant structure. One of the best ways to do that, he contends, is through intermarriage.” Bonnie Rochman, from the article Love Isn’t Color Blind: White Online Daters Spurn Blacks, TIME.

In response to TIME’s article, Very Smart Brothas came up with three reasons why online dating really isn’t into black people:

1.Black people just aren’t into online dating either.

2. It’s not about online dating just not being that into black people much as it’s online dating just not being that into the type of black person who’d make this decision.

3. The type of people (black and other) interested in virtual dating and in actually meeting black people might not be found on the sites cited by these studies.

On Internet dating as a whole, Askpapi from Hello Beautiful muses about signing up for dating sites believing he shouldn’t leave his dating life in the hands of a mouse and keyboard:

“While I did make fun of my friend, I do acknowledge that finding a good woman isn’t as easy as many of you may think. I’m sure it isn’t as hard as you women have finding a good man, but it isn’t a walk in the park for us either. So, I guess none of you should be surprised if you ever see me write about how I joined Match.com. It may not be now, but it could possibly happen in the future. But it will only happen if I’m exhausted of the dating scene. I can say I’m not far from reaching that point, but I’m 100 percent sure I’m also not ready to leave my dating life to a 15-inch screen, a keyboard, and a mouse.”


Watch this video by Pinnk from Women Dating Black Men. Is his expounding just empty rhetoric or does he have a point about online dating and black women?

In defense of online dating, check out Amanda VanAllen’s Black Women Turn To Online Dating To Find Love (NYU Livewire).


Here she writes about Philadelphia Daily News columnist’s Jenice Armstrong’s experience with online dating, which garnered great results:



“Within a month of returning to Match.com, she received a message from Cameron Turner. He seemed to fit her criteria of a guy who could “teach a child to read one day and go scuba diving the next.”


“He just stood out,” Armstrong said. “I knew. I just knew. I mean, who goes online, puts up a profile and finds the perfect guy? We are coming up on five years now, and I still gush when I see him.”


He proposed in front of the statue of David while they were on an Italian vacation less than a year later.


She believes they only could have met online: they were unlikely to cross paths, since she lived in Philadelphia, and he in New Jersey.


“My husband does not go out to nightclubs or parties,” Armstrong said. “He’s the kind of guy who goes home and cuts his grass. I never would have met him otherwise.”


Although there are plenty of stories like Armstrong’s, online dating is still a stigma to some in the black community.”


She continues on to give a very accurate to online dating:



“If nothing else, online dating allows singles to meet people they otherwise wouldn’t have met, said Armstrong, even if they don’t form an intimate relationship.


‘People can be very judgmental,” she said. “They act like online dating is stooping so low. I see them as the same people who won’t buy anything online — but you get more options when you shop [both] online and at the mall.’”


In other words, Readers: give online dating a chance. Tell us what you think and don’t forget to comment!

Is Online Dating Into You?

Lets not beat around the bush here - we all know that there are stigmas that come with the idea of it: "Only losers do that," "How desperate are you?" "Are you nuts? You don't know who you're meeting. He/She could be some psycho!" Truth is, and what most of the country is starting to realize, you could meet a psycho in real life at a bar, a bookstore, a laundromat, etc., and that regular nice people go online looking for genuine relationships. Most of my friends use dating sites. Hell, even I've tried it a couple of times just to see what's out there!

But that's not my issue.

This past February I read a Time Magazine article which asserted that black men and women are among the least desirable prospects  on the Internet dating scene. Most “mainstream” dating sites have a majority of white users and most of those white users were only open to members of the same race.  Worst yet, even the people who said that they were indifferent to race failed to initiate contact with or respond to members of the opposite sex who were black.  Apparently,   racial open-mindedness sometimes stops short with respect to dating, and cyberspace is no different. This has made many people come to the conclusion that "online dating's just not into black people."

But I think that this conclusion may be wrong.  There is a major flaw in these studies that were conducted by OK Cupid and UC Berkley: they used “mainstream” dating sites like OK Cupid and Match.com.  It does not seem as if they studied more targeted dating sites that particularly market themselves to black people and people who are romantically interested in black people!I believe that if they were to study sites that were created with black people in mind, the conclusion would be very different.

 

What Love and the Black Woman wants to know is whether you are open to finding love online and if so, whether you have felt that the people on sites that you have visited have been open to love from you?  Is online dating into you? . Don’t be shy, Love and the Black Woman wants to hear your voice!

The Weigh In, Week Four

Where's your ring, Ashley Cole?

"For this week's The Weigh In we take a look back at last weeks article, "That 'Pesky' Wedding Band And Your Man." Read on and comment, and make sure to visit our highlighted authors blog/online magazine sites!

"But men who choose to go bandless insist they are doing it for a more innocuous reason than adulterous intentions: an unwillingness to be publicly defined by their marital state. They want to be seen as people before they are seen as married, which presumes that one cannot be both." - Amy Sohn, from the article Men Don't Wear Their Wedding Rings, New York Magazine.

"One of my friend’s husband lost his ring during Superbowl Weekend and she was livid. She let him slide a few months without wearing it but it really took a toll on her emotions. In her mind it was an excuse for him to attract more women. However, his mindset was that he doesn’t act like he’s NOT married but there are men who wear rings and still act like they aren’t married. Moral of the story, women feel some sort of security when he’s wearing the ring when some men just feel like it’s just a piece of jewelry." - Necole Bitchie, from the article Is It A Big Deal If He Doesn't Wear His Ring?, Necole Bitchie: Bitchie Life.

"I feel in society the “ring” has more of significance to a woman then a man. Women have aspirations of a beautiful ring and put a lot more thought than men do into the type of ring they want. Perhaps if there was a mutual feeling with this then it might be different. Also, some men don’t like rings in general.

Lastly, my question to you is this: Is it the ring that makes the marriage or is it the actual communion between the two people that make it?" - Ask A Black Man, from the article Why Don't A lot of Married Men Wear Wedding Rings?, The Urban Daily.

Maybe there is a clueless man out there after all. Kevin Barney muses about his naked ring finger: 

"I was pretty clueless about the role a wedding ring plays as a social cue that someone is married. Maybe it’s because I’m a guy, but that just never occurred to me. The first time I realized that might be an issue was when I was clerking at a law firm after my second year of law school, and apparently the other clerk, a woman, was crushin’ on me a little bit, just assuming that I wasn’t married since I didn’t wear a ring. When she asked me out and found out I was married, she told me I really ought to wear a ring." - Kevin Barney, from On Not Wearing A Wedding Ring, Common Consent, A Mormon Blog.

Divine Caroline lists top ten excuses on her site DivineCaroline where she writes "life in your words." Here she takes a comical approach about men, AND women, who wear too much jewelry to begin with:

"'Over-Gold': Junebug died because of his weakness to gold chains and lots of folks see I’m Gonna Git You Sucka as a cautionary tale. Some men and women just don’t have room on their hands to put an extra ring. The Mafia don can’t stand the sound of his pinkie ring tinking against his wedding band, the winner of the 1992 Cotton Bowl doesn’t want to dishonor his buddies by taking off his jewelry and Sasha Fierce is not removing that full-hand ring for nothing, no way, no how."

Like what you read? Then leave your comments believe. We want to hear your voices loud and clear!

That 'Pesky' Wedding Band And Your Man

I'm just gonna jump right in and ask, "Men, why is it so hard to go out of the house without your wedding ring on?" I mean, come on, I've heard all these lame excuses why you don't:

1. "I don't like wearing jewelery. It makes me feel like less of a man," as I watch him file his nails.
2. "I can't wear it around the gym. I may lose it when I'm benching those 300lb weights," he says as he flexes.
3. "Baby, come on -- you know I'm allergic to precious metals. It itches too much." Yea? They DO offer wedding rings made with metals for those who ARE allergic.
4. "It doesn't fit. I think the metal shrunk," he says between bites of that foot long SUBWAY sub (his second of the day).

And my favorite...

5. "I won't be taken seriously if I have it on. You get stereotyped when people see you're married." Stereotyped, really? So being considered a happily married, loyal husband is a terrible thing? Right.

Men aren’t dumb, and we aren’t either, ladies, and not wearing your wedding band says one thing: SINGLE. The Naked Finger speaks volumes on many levels, and these half-assed excuses tell it all.

I’m not saying that men are the only party guilty in this scenario. Women love the attention they get too, without and WITH a wedding ring. Some can argue that a wedding ring is moot, because there are some dogs and huntresses out there that could give a rats behind whether or not you have that ring on—but then again, its all relative.

Last Friday, April Fools Day, it was reported that Prince William will be breaking tradition (from the get-go) and will forgo wearing a wedding band. His future wife, Kate Middleton, will. This was not a joke.

Ladies, I’m asking you, would you rather it be stated in the beginning that the wedding band would not be worn, just so you can stop all these “excuses”?

Also, let’s hear some of the excuses that you heard from your man as to why who won’t wear his wrong.

Love and the Black Woman wants to know!

The Weigh In, Week Three

Week three’s The Weigh In finds us checking out five quotes regarding last week’s article Women Proposing, Good Idea of Recipe For Disaster? Click on the links following the quotes to read more!

“Will You Be My ... Husband?" Today, women are twisting traditional gender roles more than ever, whether they're running for the presidential nomination, competing in a male-dominated professional golf tournament, hitting the open-wheel racing circuit, or heading a Fortune 500(TM) company. As women take on larger leadership roles in the workplace and in society, it's only natural that they've begun to assume these roles in the realm of romance, as well. This "role reversal" trend is not only evident in the number of women proposing, but in society's willingness to accept this shift, as six out of ten Americans (59 percent) do not think that men should always be the ones to propose.” – Anonymous, from the article Men Off The Hook When It Comes to Popping The Question, Lovetripper. 

“Men love it when women make the first move but they're always saying we don't do enough of it. By asking him to marry you, you are taking the reigns and the heat off of him. Not only does this make him happy, it also shows you to be a modern and unconventional woman which will ease any expectations of you as the traditional chef cooking, bottle-washing superwife.” – Eva Hogan, from the article Should You Propose To Your Man? The Pros and Cons of Taking Marriage Proposal Into Your Own Hands, Wedding Photography Directory.

Writer Streets, from Nicole Bitchie’s blog Bitchie Life, and Marie, That Bad Bitch Blog, disagree and say that women have no place in proposing to men:

“Asking a woman to marry you is one of the penultimate moments in a man’s life. Society, family, and even an inherent instinct tells us that this is a man’s time to take charge, express his feelings for his significant other and declare that this is the moment he wants to make clear that it’s her and him forever. Asking the parent’s for permission, finding the engagement ring (unless you’re against diamonds), and planning the proposal, are nervous and anxious, but fulfilling tasks that men know they will accomplish someday. This whole experience is built for the men to propose to the women, which is why the process loses impact if a woman proposes to a man.” – Streetz, Discussion: Should Women Propose to Men, Nicole Bitchie: Bitchie Life.

“A few women were talking and giving their friend advice on how to propose to her man. Apparently the man was taking too long and the woman felt like her biological clock was on snooze like every 5 minutes. So one lady advised her to go ahead and propose. Now, I don’t know about you, but I feel that if a man wants to marry you, he will propose. If he doesn’t, there is nothing you can do to get him to propose. Going on one knee for your man just adds unnecessary pressure on him and sometimes, makes you look desperate. After all, will you go ask his mother for his hand in marriage?” – Marie, Should Women Propose to Men, That Bad Bitch.

Make sure to comment both in The Weigh In and its corresponding article! Love and the Black Woman wants to hear your voice!