The Black Single Woman’s Dilemma

By Dr. Yvette Weir

Blame this on our parents, society or our own ambition. But without a doubt even though there are on average 105 boys born to 100 girls worldwide, we still can’t find those missing ‘five’ boys not to mention a good sampling of the hundred!

According to the U.S. Census Bureau for 2008-12 black women tend to marry later in life. Less than two-thirds had reported being married up to the age of forty in contrast to nearly nine out of ten white women and Asian/Pacific Islanders and eight out of ten Hispanic women. Despite these daunting statistics many of us black women remain hopeful.

For the college bound and professional woman our best opportunities were in university. Who knew when we spent four to eight years in serious academic pursuit deep in those law journals, medical books, IT and Nursing labs that we should have been keeping an eye peeled for our socioeconomic and professional match!

Fast forward and welcome to the new world - Post Covid, online dating and another year still single.

It’s the BIGGEST secret DILEMMA!

Where are the men?

I will hypothesize three places from my own and researched conclusions as to where they might be hiding and what we as professional women can do in the quest for LOVE. But this is by no means an exhaustive list.

In Plain Site - there are so many of the ‘walking wounded.’ Men who have loved hard and lost and are afraid. If you are looking for a long-term relationship that might lead to marriage, these ones are gun shy, and many will offer only girlfriend status. If you don’t carry yourself as a potential wife, then a girlfriend you will remain.

Married - this might seem the most obvious truth, and the saddest reality. The best of the best is under the ‘lock and key’ of marital bliss and no matter how challenging or trying, she’s not letting him go that easily.

Incarcerated - we don’t want to think of this category if we ourselves have never had exposure to the system, but a disproportionate percentage of our men are behind bars. The website governing.com in an archived article entitled “Where Have All the Black Men Gone? counts incarceration as the single biggest driver for altering the demographics of many small towns. African- American males are incarcerated at the rate of six times more than white men and 25 times more than black women according to statistics from the Bureau of Justice.

I leave you with three choices that we need to consider: the art of the pivot; (your soulmate might be shorter, less educated or with straighter or curlier hair than you once thought possible): expanding your circles and relocating might be the most uncomfortable yet necessary option and stoking those other love relationships that also bring great joy - your girlfriends, the elderly, teens or young adults who need you also.