The White Matchmaker

I have 3 really good white friends - I mean friends that I can call and talk to about real stuff. One's Jamaican, so I don't know if he really counts as white perse (he certainly doesn't think he is...LOL). The second is a 1st generation Irish immigrant, so we were both raised with similar values, except she drinks waaaaaay more than I do. The third was my college roommate. She became my hero freshman year when she walked right up into a group of black women and told one of them (who'd been talking about her) that if she kept it up she was gonna get the beat down of her life. LOL. Good ol' Adrienne.

However, I have many people that I'm cool with who're white. And these are the people who usually "have the peeerrrrrrfect guy for me to meet, who's JUST my type." Not my friends - well, there was that one time with Irishgirl - but the people who don't know me half as well. After suffering through their hookups time and time again, and talking to a few of my black friends who've suffered the same fate from their white acquaintances, I decide it was time to say something.

You'll get hooked up with someone who's their interpretation of what you like. Not yours. One time my coworker told me she'd met the perfect guy for me. "He has locks, he's tall, he's an artist...you two will hit it off!" she promised. She'd dated black guys herself, and a couple of them were pretty goodlooking, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

That was how I met Surfer Dude; he was tall, he was an artist, but his locks were more the result of his hair just matting into an unintelligible mess on his head, rather than him actively making the decision to have locks. And he was white. Not dark-haired, olive complexion white a la Antonio Sabato, Jr. or JFK, Jr., or Robin Thicke, but blond- haired, blue-eyed, Spicoli-from-Fast-Times-At-Ridgemont-High white. I spent the rest of the evening listening to him tell me how he thought working a 9-5 corporate job was "gnarly" and addressing me with "dude" at the beginning and end of every sentence.

Or they'll probably hook you up with the token black girl/guy. There was this other time when I agreed to be introduced to a guy that was a friend of Joan, a girl I'd met at a seminar. We occasionally got together for drinks, and on one such occasion she told me how she had a friend she was trying to get to meet a nice girl. She told me how he was a great guy, and blah, blah, blah. You'd think after Surfer Dude, I'd avoid any more fixups from white folks, but I have a little bit of an adventurous spirit.

This dude was black...and not my type. He was 5'7", pudgy and the insides of his pants bunched up at his crotch when he walked. Which probably meant his thighs were chafing. As the evening progressed, I wondered why Joan would ever think I'd like this dude. Physical appearance aside, the dude had the personality of a pet rock. I had to keep engaging him in conversation. We had nothing in common, save our love for Nirvana and a few other bands. But when he told me that he had no idea what soca was, he'd never heard of Afrika Bambataa, and referred to Whitney Houston as "the singer who's married to the guy Bobby Brown who's always in trouble" instead of one of the greatest singers ever, I knew it was a wrap.

A few days later, I asked Joan why she thought we'd be a good match. Her response: "You said you like black guys and he was black." Good grief. I should probably mention that dude had the unmitigated gall to tell Joan that he wasn't interested in a second date because I was too "aggressive and afrocentric". As if he had a snowball's chance in hell!

If they get the physical right, be certain that they haven't taken as much effort elsewhere. This is where Irishgirl comes in. She found the perfect guy for me: he was Jamaican, he was handsome and he was a creative type. We spent the evening reminscing about Jamaica, talking music, politics and the like. He was very intelligent, he was 36, he had 5 kids, he was a musician/artist/photographer, .....wait, what? Five kids?! WTF?? He didn't notice the stunned look on my face, and continued to talk. The eldest was 16 and had just finished high school in JA. The youngest was 4 months old. And they were with 3 different women. Irishgirl didn't know. She'd met him through a friend of a friend and he and I had "seemed so much alike..." Yeah, except I don't have five kids. We agreed never to speak of it again.

In all fairness, the last situation could've happened with any one of my friends. Her heart was in the right place. But just to be on the safe side, I've decided I'll look for my own dates. No offense to my white friends...y'know I still love yall. LOL.

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