I have been openly queer since I was 20-years-old, and my dating life has been exceedingly more satisfying since coming out.  However dating as a Queer Black Girl can mean dealing with heartbreak-inducing problems that that my non-queer, non-Black, and non-girl friends may not face even on their most disastrous forays into the dating world.  Here are five reasons why (at least in my personal experience), dating as a QBG can be a real PITA.

1. Racism within the Queer Community. 

I have explored this topic in a previous blog post, and I will explore it again here and also in future posts because this problem is pretty common and frustrating as heck—especially when it comes up in my romantic life. I once had a college girlfriend who happened to be white. Now she was an adorable, sweet little person and I greatly enjoyed the time we spent together as a couple. That being said, there were some things she said and did during our relationship that in hindsight were a tad problematic. For one, before we got together she had previously dated a QTPOC friend of mine (because queer college dating pools are more like wading pools). I was totally okay with her romantic history with my QTPOC pal, I was less okay with her tendency to list the ethnicities of every partner of color she had had before me while saying little to nothing about their individual personalities. Once on a lunch date, she told me that after we eventually broke up, she wanted to experiment with dating a cis-male Asian.

Yes, my college girlfriend told me she looked forward to when she could stop dating me, because she would then be free to “experiment” with dating yet another POC.

Yuck, yuck, and again, yuck!  It irks me to no end when white people treat dating a person of color like the sexual equivalent of taste-testing every flavor of ice cream at their local Dairy Queen.  I am a unique, loving brown-skinned person, not an experience for a white person to add to their sexual resume.

This was not the first time I had experienced racism while dating a white person.  As a teen I had gone to Starbucks with a white boy from my improv class, during which he asked me if I smoked pot and did graffiti, and reacted in utter shock when I told him I did neither of those things.  That was the last time we got Starbucks together.

It saddens me to admit, but experiences like these (combined with my QTPOC friends’ own horror stories) make it difficult for me to feel comfortable dating a white person whether they are queer or straight.  There is always the chance that I’ll be reduced down to my race, enjoyed for my demographic’s symbolic meaning to my white partner instead of for any aspect of my unique personhood.  Dating me is an experience, one that goes far beyond the genetics I inherited from my Black parents.

2. The elusive, single, eligible lady queer. 

If I hear one more cis-het female friend say to me, “I wish I could date women, it would be so much easier,” I may figuratively explode.  If I were to rate my sexuality on the Kinsey Scale, I would land somewhere between bisexual and exclusively homosexual.  I love dating women.  We are such lovely and majestic beings with hair that smells of meadows where unicorns frolic and play.  Unfortunately, finding single queer lady dates is about as easy as finding an actual unicorn.  Eligible lady queers are an elusive bunch.  And somewhere in that tiny sub-minority lady queers who are:

1. Not already in a several-years long committed relationship
2. Romantically compatible with me
3. Romantically compatible with me and emotionally ready to date me
4. Not already an ex-girlfriend of mine

Additionally, if I want to date a fellow queer woman of color, my dating pool shrinks down to the size of a puddle.  Heck, not even big enough to be a puddle!  At least if you step in a puddle you get w-

My point is, finding fellow single and ready to mingle lady queers, and especially lady queers of color, is hard as heck.  Speaking of dating apps—see how smoothly I transitioned there?

3. Dating apps are useless and terrible. 

I have downloaded and deleted Tinder more times than I have successfully found a date on the several other dating apps I have gone through in the past four years. For the most part, dating apps specifically made for queer women have not achieved the household name status of, Grindr. When I lived in Syracuse, I downloaded the queer female dating app, Her and subsequently spent many trilling nights swiping through the same 15 profiles over and over and over again. In addition to issues with scarcity, these apps also tend to lack racial diversity. Remember what I wrote earlier about being hesitant to date non-POC’s because I don’t want someone to date me just because of my race? Well, yeah, that.

Apps that are technically open to everyone, and yet contain almost exclusively hetero profiles are another issue altogether. I have used Tinder off and on for years since I came out, and I’ve only met a queer date from it twice.  Much more often Tinder sends me dozens of dudes with penchants for bad grammar and ghosting, a few curious hetero girls, and a smattering of the dreaded “adventurous young couple looking for a third!”

Even with the technological advancement of the smartphone app, I still find my best romantic recourse is to date within my social circle. But then if things don’t work out, I could lose both a gf and a bff and that would s.u.c.k!

4. Homophobes and transphobes need not apply. 

I recently had a Tinder date with a young Black man that started out fun and adventurous, and then took a sharp turn for the soul-crushingly disappointing. During a relaxed conversation, my date randomly asked me to identify my sexual orientation. When I told him that I’m pansexual, he launched into this hour-long rant about sexual orientation and gender identity in which he referenced homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic stereotypes that even conservative YouTube personalities would say were too explicitly bigoted. By the end of the night, I was pissed and he was bewildered when I told him that I never wanted to see him again.

Sometimes I think that because I am cis-gender and femme, ignorant people feel comfortable expressing their bigoted and grossly misinformed opinions around me.  Like, just because I am not trans and because my appearance and mannerisms do not read as stereotypically queer to most, some people assume I’m less likely to be offended by blatantly queer- and trans-intolerant statements.  This is far from the truth.  My disaster date may not have said anything nasty about me specifically, or even about pansexuals specifically; but by making deplorable statements about gays, bisexuals, and trans people, he was insulting the kinds of people who constitute the majority of my closest friends and former loves.  I do not tolerate intolerance, even if it is not directed specifically at me, and even if it means I will not get a second date.

5. Men, unprompted, ask me #MeToo-related questions. 

I’m glad the #MeToo movement has more people talking about consent and sexuality. However, sometimes when I dip my toe into the hetero end of the dating pool, I meet a butt hurt butthole who wants to feel victimized by a movement of women saying “Time’s up!” to our country’s pervasive tolerance of sexual violence, and forces me to justify to them the actions of millions of persistent women, men, and trans/gender nonconforming people when all I want is to have a nice date.

I once got froyo with a guy who asked me why women these days are afraid to go home with men they meet in dimly lit bars in the middle of the night. He also (unprompted) shared with me his theory that women should not set sexual boundaries for themselves, because doing so makes women sexually repressed.

Another time I got froyo with a male coworker who said, “I don’t think it’s wrong to compliment a woman on her outfit,” with a tone and facial expression that gave me the impression he expected me to agree with him that any woman who felt discomforted by a man complimenting her appearance (in any scenario) was overreacting.

It was like these guys were asking me to explain and legitimize the #MeToo movement, while also preemptively mansplaining why said movement is “going too far.”

Dear men of the world, I am glad the #MeToo movement is encouraging you to ask women questions about what we want and how we feel. I’m glad more of you are considering that, maybe you don’t already know what women are okay with when it comes to flirtatious language or having sex with you. Congratulations for taking a positive first step!

While I have your attention with that little bit of praise, please do not use a date with me (a woman) in the midst of the #MeToo movement as an opportunity to confront me with your antithetical views on gender politics just so you can get the “female perspective,” and then continue through life believing that you’re sufficiently woke now. There are plenty of books written by plenty of educated, kickass women that you could borrow from your local library for free and learn all you need to know about the basics of 21^st century feminism on your own time.

Sometimes I just want to go out on a date, with a cis-het guy, and enjoy light and breezy, non-political conversation over a couple froyos. Is that too much to ask?

That sums up my top five reasons why dating as a QBG is hard as heck.  We all have at least one reason why dating is a challenge.  What are some hurdles that you face in the dating world.  I’d like to know.  It’s good to dish sometimes, dontcha think?