One of my favorite sitcoms is the now defunct Girlfriends. Grrrrrr!!! The characters of Lynn, Maya, Toni and Joan are well-developed and I see myself in each of them. However, it is the character of Joan that is the subject of this post, kinda.
There is this one episode in which Joan has a "Bring Your Ex" party. Each person invited in turn invites an ex in the hopes that they may be a better match for someone else. Joan does this is an effort to be proactive in the search for Mr. Right.
There are many perspectives on dating. I cannot in this limited space address them all. So let me ask, how proactive should one be in getting a date?
One school of thought (the Christian one that I was taught) is that ' a man who findeth a wife, findeth a good thing'. The only problem with that is a lot of men are just trying to find a good time. So many women are stuck waiting on some guy to find them and they grow old, fat and worst of all stay single.
There is another thought that the man likes the art of the chase, so a woman who is to forward is boxed as a slut and treated accordingly.
There are also those who say Black women in particular limit themselves by only dating within the race and should branch out. Dating is an act of trust and there unfortunately is a lot of mistrust between races, cultures in America. I had one date with a white guy in undergrad. He was nice enough but I was so suspicious of his motives all the time. It did not help that he started speaking slang to me one day and I was like, Um, what? In my defense I was young and inexperienced so I was suspicious of every man and was quick to drop the 'don't call me I'll call you' line in a minute.
I have met many people of different backgrounds and I know the dating dilemma is certainly not limited to African-American women or men. As we enter into a brave new world, having a black president and new found opportunities, should we also challenge our age old ideas of dating as well.
What say you?
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