This essay is part of a collaborative project with Black History, Continued. We invited readers and renowned writers to respond to the question “What is Black love today?”
“I am no longer dating white guys. Nonwhite guys may submit their applications in my DMs.”
These words, posted on my Facebook page, marked the beginning of a racial reckoning in my dating life.
Some context: It was June 2020. George Floyd had just been murdered. Black people like myself were consumed with rage and were openly airing our grief.
On top of that, I was a woman scorned. I was 35 years old, a highly educated Black woman, a homeowner and an attorney, and I had just been rejected by yet another mediocre white guy who then pursued a relationship with a white woman.
In short, I was fed up with white people. So one afternoon, I wrote a half-crazed manifesto on my Facebook page. Specifically, I railed against a white society that clearly didn’t see me as white but insisted on rejecting my Blackness because of my appearance (fair-skinned) and upbringing (middle class).
White people had called me “not Black” for liking Taylor Swift, told me they were “more Black than me” because they grew up in a predominantly Black neighborhood (or had an especially dark tan), and fetishized my “exoticness” and ethnic ambiguity. I ended my ramblings with the call for applicants.
I clicked “post” without thinking. To my amazement, the likes and comments started pouring in. Black people saying that they’d had similar experiences. White allies thanking me and promising to “do the work.” I felt so vindicated.
And then this popped up on Facebook Messenger:
“Application submitted!”
The message was from Josh, whom I went to high school with 18 years earlier in Maryland. He was tall, handsome, smart, funny and successful. And Black. I’d briefly reconnected with him at a bar in Baltimore in 2018 when I was in town for a work conference. We had flirted, but I remembered from Facebook that he’d gotten married, so I flew back to California at the end of the conference with a wistful “what-if” feeling fluttering in my chest.
I soon found out through mutual friends that his marriage had ended before we connected, but seeing as we lived 3,000 miles apart, I figured there was no point in trying to pursue anything.
But here he was now, reading my manifesto and submitting an actual application to date me. I was gobsmacked.
Up to that point, the vast majority of my relationships had been with white men, the predictable result of years spent in a Maryland prep school and at a Massachusetts liberal arts college. In fact, it had become a running joke among my friends and family: If the guy was basic and white, he was my type.
But I had never, not once, dated a Black man. And I’ll be honest — I had always felt a kind of shame around that, as though my not dating Black men reflected a deep-seated insecurity with my own Blackness.
But here was an eligible Black bachelor offering me a chance at love, and a chance at embracing my Blackness.
Josh and I started texting. We had a couple of video calls that were awkward at first but became more natural. I suggested flying out to Baltimore to see him, and he agreed. On the one hand, it seemed wild and reckless, jumping on a plane to visit someone I barely knew. And during a pandemic to boot. On the other, the whole thing felt like something out of a movie. I was flying 3,000 miles to have our “first date.”
We packed a lot into that four-day first date. He took me to Baltimore’s National Aquarium. He treated me to dinners and wine. He even took me to a (socially distanced) visit with my grandmother on her birthday.
Most of all, we reveled in our Blackness. We danced to hip-hop in his living room — and he could dance, something I had rarely experienced with my white boyfriends. We joked about the endearing quirks of our older Black relatives. We shared stories about being among the few Black people in our respective professional arenas — finance for him; law for me. With him I could openly “speak the language” and not have to explain myself. For the first time in my life, I felt like I could be completely, unapologetically Black with the guy I was dating.
Like most first dates, there were uncomfortable moments. Josh was reserved and rarely volunteered information about himself, which meant it was hard to get to know him. And while there was definitely a mutual physical attraction, there was a shyness in Josh that only seemed to fall away with the help of a few drinks. Still, I chalked that up to our still getting to know one another.
However, on my last night there, as we gazed at the city lights over the Inner Harbor, he turned to me and said, “You know this isn’t going to work, right?” Completely out of nowhere. I asked him to explain.
He said our personalities were too different — I’m outgoing, high-energy and emotional; he’s analytical, quiet and calm. I, both a romantic and a lawyer, attempted to argue my case — “Doesn’t love find a way?” — and he, the realistic, number-crunching one, pointed out the obvious practical hurdles. With the physical distance between us, there was no way to properly date or figure out how we would fit together.
My fairy tale seemingly shattered, I started to cry. He seemed sad too, though whether it was because of a mutual feeling of despair or simply uneasiness at my tears, I couldn’t tell. The next morning he drove me to the airport and I asked him to visit me in California. He gave a noncommittal answer. I left wondering if I would ever see him again.
Turns out, I would. A few weeks after my Maryland trip, Josh asked to visit me in California. I was thrilled. I convinced myself that he wanted to visit California to see if he could make a home here with me.
I planned a day trip to Napa. I borrowed my neighbor’s bike for Josh so we could tool around town together in true Californian style. I proudly showed him off to my friends, took him to my favorite local haunts, and tried my hardest to prove how great we could be together, the perfect Black power couple.
Still, we weren’t quite clicking. Josh wasn’t entirely on board with my carefree Cali style. When we biked to the river on a hot day, I eagerly stripped down to splash around in the cool water, but he refused. When we strolled the sidewalks of downtown Napa, I reached out to intertwine my fingers with his, and he shook my hand off — turns out he wasn’t a fan of P.D.A. And the reservedness I had witnessed in Baltimore persisted. I tried to ask him questions about his family, of whom he seldom spoke. He demurred: “That’s personal.”
As someone who had always been an open book, I was frustrated. When I drove him to the airport at the end of the visit, I had a hollow feeling. Why weren’t we clicking when we were perfect for each other, at least on paper: same hometown, same education, same career-driven lives, and most importantly (or so I thought), same race? How was this not kismet?
It all came to a head in the spring of 2021. Josh invited me to Baltimore for the Preakness, an annual horse race and social event. But a disagreement over a coffee maker before I arrived — he didn’t own one, and for reasons I couldn’t fathom, didn’t want to have one on hand for my visits — pushed me over the edge.
I said, “If you can’t even keep a coffee maker for me, it’s obvious you don’t care enough for me to fly 3,000 miles to see you.” To my horror, he didn’t argue. I said I wasn’t coming, and he didn’t try to change my mind. And that was it.
What the hell had just happened? How did my lofty dreams fall so flat? Did I really fly to Maryland, and him to California — during a pandemic — for nothing more than a booty call?
Over time, I realized my attachment to Josh was more intellectual than emotional. I had tried to make him — kind and well-meaning, but unable to match my spirit or provide me the emotional connection I wanted — into my perfect boyfriend, because he was Black.
Josh represented the first time I naïvely attached my worth as a Black person to the success of my relationship with a Black man. But dating a Black man will not make me more Black, just as dating a white man won’t make me less Black. I am Black, period.
Regardless of the race or ethnicity of my next boyfriend, at least I’ll know one thing: Whoever loves me next must love all of me.
https://nytimes.com/2022/02/11/style/modern-love-black-boyfriend-applications.html
“I am no longer dating white guys. Nonwhite guys may submit their applications in my DMs.”
These words, posted on my Facebook page, marked the beginning of a racial reckoning in my dating life.
Some context: It was June 2020. George Floyd had just been murdered. Black people like myself were consumed with rage and were openly airing our grief.
On top of that, I was a woman scorned. I was 35 years old, a highly educated Black woman, a homeowner and an attorney, and I had just been rejected by yet another mediocre white guy who then pursued a relationship with a white woman.
In short, I was fed up with white people. So one afternoon, I wrote a half-crazed manifesto on my Facebook page. Specifically, I railed against a white society that clearly didn’t see me as white but insisted on rejecting my Blackness because of my appearance (fair-skinned) and upbringing (middle class).
White people had called me “not Black” for liking Taylor Swift, told me they were “more Black than me” because they grew up in a predominantly Black neighborhood (or had an especially dark tan), and fetishized my “exoticness” and ethnic ambiguity. I ended my ramblings with the call for applicants.
- Dig deeper into the moment.
I clicked “post” without thinking. To my amazement, the likes and comments started pouring in. Black people saying that they’d had similar experiences. White allies thanking me and promising to “do the work.” I felt so vindicated.
And then this popped up on Facebook Messenger:
“Application submitted!”
The message was from Josh, whom I went to high school with 18 years earlier in Maryland. He was tall, handsome, smart, funny and successful. And Black. I’d briefly reconnected with him at a bar in Baltimore in 2018 when I was in town for a work conference. We had flirted, but I remembered from Facebook that he’d gotten married, so I flew back to California at the end of the conference with a wistful “what-if” feeling fluttering in my chest.
I soon found out through mutual friends that his marriage had ended before we connected, but seeing as we lived 3,000 miles apart, I figured there was no point in trying to pursue anything.
But here he was now, reading my manifesto and submitting an actual application to date me. I was gobsmacked.
Up to that point, the vast majority of my relationships had been with white men, the predictable result of years spent in a Maryland prep school and at a Massachusetts liberal arts college. In fact, it had become a running joke among my friends and family: If the guy was basic and white, he was my type.
But I had never, not once, dated a Black man. And I’ll be honest — I had always felt a kind of shame around that, as though my not dating Black men reflected a deep-seated insecurity with my own Blackness.
But here was an eligible Black bachelor offering me a chance at love, and a chance at embracing my Blackness.
Josh and I started texting. We had a couple of video calls that were awkward at first but became more natural. I suggested flying out to Baltimore to see him, and he agreed. On the one hand, it seemed wild and reckless, jumping on a plane to visit someone I barely knew. And during a pandemic to boot. On the other, the whole thing felt like something out of a movie. I was flying 3,000 miles to have our “first date.”
We packed a lot into that four-day first date. He took me to Baltimore’s National Aquarium. He treated me to dinners and wine. He even took me to a (socially distanced) visit with my grandmother on her birthday.
Most of all, we reveled in our Blackness. We danced to hip-hop in his living room — and he could dance, something I had rarely experienced with my white boyfriends. We joked about the endearing quirks of our older Black relatives. We shared stories about being among the few Black people in our respective professional arenas — finance for him; law for me. With him I could openly “speak the language” and not have to explain myself. For the first time in my life, I felt like I could be completely, unapologetically Black with the guy I was dating.
Like most first dates, there were uncomfortable moments. Josh was reserved and rarely volunteered information about himself, which meant it was hard to get to know him. And while there was definitely a mutual physical attraction, there was a shyness in Josh that only seemed to fall away with the help of a few drinks. Still, I chalked that up to our still getting to know one another.
However, on my last night there, as we gazed at the city lights over the Inner Harbor, he turned to me and said, “You know this isn’t going to work, right?” Completely out of nowhere. I asked him to explain.
He said our personalities were too different — I’m outgoing, high-energy and emotional; he’s analytical, quiet and calm. I, both a romantic and a lawyer, attempted to argue my case — “Doesn’t love find a way?” — and he, the realistic, number-crunching one, pointed out the obvious practical hurdles. With the physical distance between us, there was no way to properly date or figure out how we would fit together.
My fairy tale seemingly shattered, I started to cry. He seemed sad too, though whether it was because of a mutual feeling of despair or simply uneasiness at my tears, I couldn’t tell. The next morning he drove me to the airport and I asked him to visit me in California. He gave a noncommittal answer. I left wondering if I would ever see him again.
Turns out, I would. A few weeks after my Maryland trip, Josh asked to visit me in California. I was thrilled. I convinced myself that he wanted to visit California to see if he could make a home here with me.
I planned a day trip to Napa. I borrowed my neighbor’s bike for Josh so we could tool around town together in true Californian style. I proudly showed him off to my friends, took him to my favorite local haunts, and tried my hardest to prove how great we could be together, the perfect Black power couple.
Still, we weren’t quite clicking. Josh wasn’t entirely on board with my carefree Cali style. When we biked to the river on a hot day, I eagerly stripped down to splash around in the cool water, but he refused. When we strolled the sidewalks of downtown Napa, I reached out to intertwine my fingers with his, and he shook my hand off — turns out he wasn’t a fan of P.D.A. And the reservedness I had witnessed in Baltimore persisted. I tried to ask him questions about his family, of whom he seldom spoke. He demurred: “That’s personal.”
As someone who had always been an open book, I was frustrated. When I drove him to the airport at the end of the visit, I had a hollow feeling. Why weren’t we clicking when we were perfect for each other, at least on paper: same hometown, same education, same career-driven lives, and most importantly (or so I thought), same race? How was this not kismet?
It all came to a head in the spring of 2021. Josh invited me to Baltimore for the Preakness, an annual horse race and social event. But a disagreement over a coffee maker before I arrived — he didn’t own one, and for reasons I couldn’t fathom, didn’t want to have one on hand for my visits — pushed me over the edge.
I said, “If you can’t even keep a coffee maker for me, it’s obvious you don’t care enough for me to fly 3,000 miles to see you.” To my horror, he didn’t argue. I said I wasn’t coming, and he didn’t try to change my mind. And that was it.
What the hell had just happened? How did my lofty dreams fall so flat? Did I really fly to Maryland, and him to California — during a pandemic — for nothing more than a booty call?
Over time, I realized my attachment to Josh was more intellectual than emotional. I had tried to make him — kind and well-meaning, but unable to match my spirit or provide me the emotional connection I wanted — into my perfect boyfriend, because he was Black.
Josh represented the first time I naïvely attached my worth as a Black person to the success of my relationship with a Black man. But dating a Black man will not make me more Black, just as dating a white man won’t make me less Black. I am Black, period.
Regardless of the race or ethnicity of my next boyfriend, at least I’ll know one thing: Whoever loves me next must love all of me.
https://nytimes.com/2022/02/11/style/modern-love-black-boyfriend-applications.html
