The Dating Dilemma..Or Is It?

"I cannot date him anymore," she said to me vehemently.

"Why not?" I asked her, genuinely surprised. After all, this was the same man she had gushed to me about only three weeks before. He had spent quality time with her, not to mention major bucks, and most importantly, they seemed to genuinely enjoy one another's company. So it was to my surprise that she was ending the relationship before it had the chance to really blossom into something significant. And isn't that why we were out there schlepping from one disastrous date to another? To find that relationship that could blossom into something significant, everlasting and real.

"Girl," she continued, "you are not going to believe what he told me."

"What?" I replied. My heart started to beat faster. Was he gay? Was he married? Did he have illegitimate children or worse - baby mama drama?

"He's into white girls."

Ah, the "white girl issue". To fully understand the white girl issue, you have to be a black woman. It can be a painful subject and a complete turn-off for some of us. Black men who date, dated, or simply had random sex acts with a white girl can completely turn a black woman off. Why? That is a question that each black woman must answer for herself. But here is my presumptive collective answer in a nutshell: insecurity.

Many black women are insecure about themselves and unsure of who they are as women. As a child, I saw only a handful of black women on television or in videos: Whitney Houston singing "How Will I Know" immediately comes to mind. She was one of the few role models we had on television. Never mind the fact that she always wore wigs and careful lighting tricks in her videos gave her skin the appearance of being lighter than it actually appeared in person.

Black women struggle with their identities. Dark skin, coarse hair, wide noses, thick legs, plump lips, big behinds and darkened knees were never trumpeted on television. Today, our physical uniqueness is significantly more accepted than in the past. (It still amazes me that it took a Latina like Jennifer Lopez to allow society  the ability to trumpet the big behind when Janet Jackson had one for decades prior.)

I remember sitting at my desk in an accounting firm not too many years ago. A white girl walked past me absentmindedly singing a snippet of Kanye West's "Gold Digger" to herself : "But you stay right, girl. And when he get on, he leave yo' ass for a white girl."

Had I not dealt with "the white girl issue" years before, that would have hurt. But it didn't. Watching a black man kiss a white woman on the street evokes images of passion instead of betrayal inside my mind now. I no longer question either parties intent, nor do I feel it is directly or indirectly related to me. It is not. I've come to realize that black women must love to love themselves. They must love to be comfortable in their own skin and must come to appreciate the fact that we are not "less than" our white counterparts, even if our society, and sometimes our own people, try to persuade us that we are.

Once we can truly love and appreciate ourselves - we can do the same of others - of all colors. We will be able to date comfortably outside our race and not feel as if we are trying "something new". And we will not begrudge men who do the same. Nor will we question their motivation. After all, isn't it possible that a black woman could date a black man solely for financial purposes? Isn't it possible that a white woman could date or marry a white man solely for financial advantages? There are people in this world who will date others for a specific reason: money, fame or simply love. Don't we owe it to ourselves and to others to assume we are all in it for love?

"So what?" I replied. "He's good and decent and today he's calling you on the phone - not the white girl. So if I were you, I'd let his past be buried and accept the fact that he's with you today. Because if you don't, someone else will."