Asking for too much???

I’ve been away from this blog for months.  I decided I’d tackle my great list of new adventures in the New Year (see blog post “Show You the Way to Go”).  But this video crossed my email inbox and Facebook news feed today and I just couldn’t resist blogging about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJGMAhWpDF8&feature=player_embedded (clicking link will navigate you away from page)

For those w/ no time to watch the seven minute segment from ABC’s Nightline, here’s a brief synopsis:

The Problem

• 42% of black women have never married, compared to 21% of white women.
• There are 1.8M more black women than black men.  So even if every black man married a black woman (yeah, right!), 1 in 12 black women still would never marry [a black man].
• Only 54% of black men have a high school diploma, a job and are not incarcerated.  (And that’s not even taking into account that other key:  Is he STRAIGHT???)
• 70% of black women with a college degree or higher are unmarried.

The Solutions

• Find a man with a lower career status than you.
• Find a man who makes less money than you.
• Ask the man out.
• Marry an older man.  (I guess they are divorced and ready for round 2!)

Then the journalist asks this question about the 30-something black women featured in the piece:  Are they asking too much?

Now, I have several issues with this story, not the least of which is that Steve Harvey was consulted as a relationship expert.  I’m no Steve Harvey fan.  That’s an understatement.  He really makes me sick.  He likes to speak his opinion as fact while belittling his radio show co-hosts, listeners and staff.  This ego-maniacal, condescending, sexist narcissist wrote a relationship book after being married to his third wife for about a year or so.  Really?  That’s like this guy I know who wrote a book about online dating because he did it for years.  (If you were an online dating expert, you wouldn’t have had to do it for so long!  And if you, Mr. Harvey, knew anything about women, you wouldn’t be on your third marriage!)  But back to the lecture at hand…

My primary issue with this story is that main question:  Are they asking too much?  That just keeps gnawing at me.  What other group of American women is expected to lower their standards to find a man?  I have a pretty diverse group of educated, gainfully employed, upwardly mobile girlfriends, so let’s think for just a minute on their dating and mating practices.  (Disclaimer:  These are BROAD generalizations.)

My white Anglo-Saxon protestant over 30 girlfriends are mostly single.  Not because white women, in general, are single.  But when you get to my age, the married WASPs typically have been married for a while and have two kids.  (Rarely more than two…the correct number is two, apparently.)  So they don’t really hang out.  I hang out with the single party girls who drink too much and “hook up” with a new guy at each bar.  That is, until they decide to get married.  Then, miraculously, they too find a man, get married, pop out a kid and we stop hanging out so much.  Then they say things to me like, “You’re so pretty.  Why can’t you find someone?”  If I knew the answer to that, I’d sell it to every college-educated black girl over 30 in America, get rich and find a 23 year old boy toy to keep me company – assuming boy toys are down for an old broad with a bundle of cash!  (For the record, I don’t go out partying with my WASP girlfriends very often.  These are just stories I hear.  Just hearsay, I tell ya.  [Hi mom!])

My Indian and Asian girlfriends are all either married or under 30.  They marry white guys or within their race.  Their official first choice is to marry within their race, but this is mostly to please their parents.  They tend to be really into white guys, so marrying one isn’t a compromise on their wants and desires.  Instead, it’s a compromise with their parents.  But most Indian and Asian parents are ok with their daughters marrying white guys because, like their fellow Indian and Asian men in America, white men tend to have a good education and a great career.  (Just don’t take home a black man!  Whenever I see an Asian or Indian woman married to a black guy, I wonder whether she misses her parents and how she’s handling the disownment.)

My Jewish girlfriends are searching for husbands just as diligently as black women.  They are sisters in the struggle!  But there are two distinct differences between black and Jewish dating habits:  Jewish women never give up on the dream of marrying a Jewish doctor, and they never lower their standards.  Never.

Oddly, I don’t have very many Latina friends.  (Hmm…  Interesting.  I’ll figure that out later.)  I can’t really make any generalizations about them because I just don’t have enough data points.  But the handful that I’m friendly with are married with children.  All but one got married in their 20s to men with comparable or superior careers.  Very traditional. 

So what about my black girlfriends?  Well, of my 12 closest black girlfriends, all are over 35.  All have undergraduate degrees.  Six have post-graduate degrees.  Two have doctorate degrees.  Three have kids.  Three are married – not the same three.  Of the married friends, none of their husbands are corporate professionals.  (Hmm…  Is Steve Harvey onto something?)  And for the record, ALL of my black girlfriends are FIERCE!  And by fierce, I mean smart, funny, beautiful and driven.  And that, my friends, is a formula for loneliness.

So, according to this Nightline segment, the only hope that my single black girlfriends have of ever getting married – or just finding monogamous companionship – is to lower their standards.  How dare they want it all?  They must accept the fact that they can’t get someone who makes as much money as they make.  They can’t hold out for a man with a career on the same level as theirs.  If they want to go out w/ someone, they need to ask for his number.  And if they want to have a real chance of a relationship, they need to shift their focus to finding grandpa.  Now, call me crazy, but do you really want a man who can’t be so bothered (or interested) as to ask your number?  And with finances being the number one reason for divorce, isn’t settling for a man who makes significantly less than you or has different ideas of success a direct route to eventual failure?  And won’t grandpa be even more traditional than his younger counterparts – he wants a young wife, but not one who has three degrees!  Black women have this horrible reputation for being neck-rolling, back-talking, emasculating barracudas — isn’t being the aggressive, bread-winning go-getter a step in the wrong direction?

It’s all too much!  No one else has to settle!  But black women are apparently so unlovable that the rest of the world calls our quest for a mate who is equally yoked across multiple dimensions a fool-hearty endeavor.  Yet I’m resigned to being a fool.  I refuse to lower my standards of finding a great mate.  I also refuse to box myself into the societal norms that say I must want to be married (I just want a Stedman-like companion), that I must find a black man (call me Skittles and taste the rainbow!), or that a suitable companion is my age or older to show me the way (baby, I’m almost 40 — I already know the way…but that 20-something w/ the shiny new MBA has a bright future and needs guidance…come sit on mama’s lap!).  What I’m looking for — and the path to finding it — sounds like a lot more fun than the woe-is-me future awaiting those still-young ladies in the Nightline segment.

Ah, but what do I know.  Clearly, not much.  I’m still single.