Dating tips for Black couples in modern American too often have something to do with Netflix and chill.
In this modern day of social distancing, fake Instagram relationships that last for two months and daily doses of celebrity filled timelines that boast pour and stir marriages, it’s easy to get lost in the sauce of what it truly means to cultivate a relationship that, hopefully, becomes a coupled alliance capable of overcoming obstacles, surviving disagreements and birthing brown babies.
Reality is, it’s difficult to date right now. It’s especially difficult when you realize that Black folks are still recovering from the systematic trauma of being oppressed.
So, how do you date in an area of healing? How do you fall in love when you know that so many people don’t even love themselves?
Well, I’ve been married for 13 years and I still don’t have all the answers, but here are some dating tips based on what has kept my relationship healthy and what I wish I would have known about getting to know another person prior to getting married.
1. Take It Slow
When you know that the person you are dating might have some trauma they need to unpack, the best dating tip you can get is to take it slow. Get to know the person.
Now, that doesn’t mean meet his mama on the second date. That means ask questions, have long conversations and recognize when their is hesitance on the lips of your potential partner.
In addition, take it slow so that you can recognize how their vibrational energy interacts with your own. How do you change when you are around this person? Do you wear your hair differently? Does the tone of your voice change? Do you feel like you can advocate for yourself in the presence of this new energy?
In other words, what’s the vibe. If you rush, you may not recognize how their vibrational energy has changed, both in positive and negative ways, you.
2. Seek Worthy Advice
One off the things Black communities are vastly lacking is trust. We don’t believe his mama when she says he’s a liar. We fail to take the advice of auntie when she says she was in the same situation 25 years ago.
Consider your sources hun.
Who do you know that has been in a good relationship? Who do you know that has been in a bad relationship? Listen to their stories. Collect their experiences because there is nothing new under the sun. History often repeats itself because we don’t listen to the herstorians and historians of our past when they chronicle their life experiences.
If the mate you are with exhibits some of the same characteristics, life experiences and patterns that your grandmother’s first husband did, you might want to at least hear her out.
Sometimes the best dating tips come from the most unlikely sources.
3. Be In Before 10
Good dating is the product of good dates. If a person lacks hobbies, interest and intellect, it shows up in the way they date you. Make it a rule that you date during the day.
Why?
Because the daytime is when interesting things, like museums, lectures, walking tours and other intellectually stimulating experiences that create dynamic conversations, are open.
Dating should not be the process of dumbing you down in order to make you more pliable for another person’s manipulations, it be the process of lifting you up so that someone can make an accurate depiction of who you are as your higher self.
Don’t know how to date? Check out this list of 100 Dating Ideas of Bored Couples.
Bottomline, dating should be an enjoyable experience that allows you to get to know another person and YOURSELF better.
If what you are “doing” with a potential partner does not allow you
- to glean any information about their life
- to realize their strengths and weaknesses
- to see how your personality and reality fit into their life
- to recognize the effects of their past life on who they are in present day
you may not be dating them at all. If that’s the case, how much of your time is it actually worth?
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