Dang. Let's go there.
There are many reasons why I haven't dated (or haven't even been on a date) in a while–I won't say how long it's been, but I need both hands to count the years. To keep this short-ish, I will stick to sharing the 3 main reasons I haven't gone out with someone in all of these years.
In essence, it is as my friend Nae says, "MEN AIN'T SH*T." But allow me to explain.
When I came back to Nicaragua a couple of years ago, I wasn't even thinking about men. For the most part, I was focusing on staying alive. Still, I had the preconceived notion that I would have, at least, a small pool of guys to choose from when I was ready to go out. This notion came from my past experiences in Bluefields–a small city bursting with Afro-Caribbean people and culture.
The melanin drip in Bluefields is plentiful. My blackness was never "exotic" or "cool." It was beautiful–we were beautiful.
When I was a teenager and started going out with friends, I didn't have to wonder if guys found me attractive. I knew they did because they said it. The young men didn't withhold their compliments or reserve them for the girls with straight hair and light skin. Black girls were admired, fancied, and pursued.
Throughout school, I had many potential baes. They all looked good and smelled great–the latter is essential. But I was busy doing life, trying to be a good student, working at my dad's bar, and hanging out with friends. So I left the baes hanging, knowing that they'd be there if I decided to choose one.
Now, some people may not be used to such confidence. But that's just it; I didn't lack confidence in myself. I wasn't brought up to dislike the way I looked. Quite the opposite, actually. I was told in many ways that I was worthy of attention, affection, respect, and love. That was my reality until I moved away and lived in places where, suddenly, beauty was in the eye of the beholder. And these beholders weren't like the ones at home.
When I was 17, I moved to Arkansas to attend university. It was NOTHING like where I'd come from. The people were different. The accents were different. The culture was different. And I was different. There, I was frequently asked about my hair, how I washed it, and what I did to make it stay up. I was also asked, several times, how I spoke "such good English." And a couple of times, I was told, "I didn't know black people spoke Spanish," after learning I was bilingual. The ignorance was shocking. These microaggressions (and the many others I didn't mention) were painting a new picture.
It was at university where I learned not to expect most guys to find me attractive. Back then, I didn't think anything of it, though. At uni, there weren't as many guys to choose from as there were at home. BUT I still got asked out by a few and got proposed to (very informally) by one.
After college, I moved to the UK. And after being there for a while, I could see the picture, but I could not name it. Because I was busy with work and travels when I lived in England and Wales, I didn't see it as it was happening. But, there I was, living in predominantly white worlds, feeling less seen and less beautiful.
I only realized and recognized this when I moved to Managua and noticed the dynamics of men and women in spaces where black people are a minority.
I came back home, and even though I didn't want to date, I wanted to at least have the option of rejecting men. But that's not at all what happened.
When I'd go out in Managua, I'd hear the same things I heard when I lived abroad, "you're so exotic-looking" or "que negra mas bella." Here, though, it began to bother me. I began to notice a trend.
Nae and I would walk into places with our fros free and merry, and people would stare rudely. We'd go out, and they'd approach us to touch our curls without our permission or to inquire where we were really from. Upon hearing that we were both born and raised in Bluefields, they'd look amazed and ask if we were sure. And when going out in groups, we knew that our friends would be asked out while we were busy dodging hair-touchers.
One day, as I was discussing how undesired I felt in this city, Nae, my truth-telling friend, said casually, "yeah, that's a thing here. These men aren't into us. They're not into curvy, curly, or different. To them, we're just exotic." This made sense. But nothing was more eye-opening than when a couple of guys slid into my DM's one day only to comment on the beauty of my non-black friends posing next to me in a photo on my IG. That's when the penny dropped.
The white, mestizo, and [sadly] even some black men in this city don't date black girls with Afrocentric features. They sexualize our blackness, yes. But these men perceive attractiveness through the lens of indoctrinated ideals of Eurocentric standards of beauty.
I'm just not their cup of café.
It's sad because, if I'm frank, these men aren't all that. At all. They're not very good-looking. They are machistas. And they're not very good-looking (needed to be mentioned twice). Yet, they have perpetuated these standards and ideals that many Nicaraguan women seek to achieve.
••••••••••••••
So, the MAIN reasons why I'm single and don't want to mingle are these:
- I live in a place where I'm not someone's first choice because of the color of my skin and the gravity-defying crown of hair on my head.
- I haven't encountered available men who are attractive, interesting, mature, AND responsible.
- And more importantly, because I am content being alone and free.
I sometimes wonder if being too happily single is a bad thing. For me, the answer is no.
It's not that I'm glad I'm single. It's that being single doesn't take away my joy. Instead, it pushes me to seek it, find it, and hold onto it by myself–in the mundane and in the extraordinary–for myself.
I am not waiting for someone to come and save me, complete me, heal me, grow me, fix me, or center me. The inner-work is underway.
Don't pity my singledom; I don't envy people in relationships. I know that when the time is right, and if it is meant to be, romantic love will find its way to me, and I will welcome it. I will adapt, become more interdependent, and give him the love and light I'm currently cultivating within.
I'm at ease knowing that what's meant for me will never miss me.
