Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Where 505025 Doesn't Apply

Kim was this cute black girl in Chicago. I met her while on a short vacation to Chi-town while swing dancing. I was all of 22 years old at the time, had this dinky little convertible with
Wisconsin plates on it. I was having a good time, had a couple drinks in me and since I was 22 was still idealistic and hopeful. I was only in town for a week, but thought, what the heck, I'll ask her out on a date anyway.

Sure enough she said yes.

Of course by this time I was well aware of the Rule of 505025 and didn't really bank on anything, but still headed down to the south side of Chicago, where, sure enough she was there, dressed up very nicely, ready to be picked up. We went out dancing, had a good night, and I drove her back, pastey white kid in a Wisconsin plated convertible to the south side of Chicago late at night. I got some funny looks.

I asked her out on another date where we headed up the shoreline to Winnetka (the complete opposite of south side Chicago) and sure enough she not only agreed, but showed up at the designated time and was ready to go.

A short year later I was in Minneapolis again at a now-defunct joint called "Popeye's." Quite the accomplished swing dancer by now I was accustomed to having more or less 1 in 2 women say yes to a dance with me. But upon entering the club I saw the band. And not only did I see the band, I saw their female vocalist who I would learn later was the charming and enchanting Charmin Michelle.

Not knowing who she was (because she is a rather well-known local celebrity) I immediately asked her to dance with the foolish and idealistic hopes that it would lead to a date. And then one of the most heavenly experiences happened to me;

she shot me down.

But she shot me down in such a heavenly way. She smiled at me, my dumb slobbering 23 year old face and she said, "Oh, thank you so much. I would love to, but I'm dating somebody." She could have said, "you're an ugly, skinny twerp and I'd rather kiss a crocodile with Ebola," and I would have still had the slobbering dog-like face because her voice was just pure velvet. Regardless, her face and smile were so sincere and she let me down so nicely, that getting shot down by her was actually better than having the average girl say "yes" to a dance.

Now the reason I bring this up is that in my life I have not had many romantic escapades with black women. In large part because of the demographics of Minnesota and also in part there are not many black people in the ballroom dance/fossil hunting/economics scene. But the few that I have, have been enjoyable. All of them. I was never stood up, I was never misled or strung along. In every instance it was a pleasant experience (even getting shot down by Charmin Michelle). And I never really noticed this until I saw this chart.




This comes from an online dating service showing "response rates" by different races. It takes a bit to make heads and tails of it, but if you look at the top and go down you see what percent response women of varying ethnicities have to men of different ethnicities and black women have the highest response rate. I'm sure there are other reasons, but it just reminded me that when it came to courting the few black women in my life I have, there were no games. It was the most head-ache free dating experiences I had.

In any case, a hat tip and more in-depth (albeit incredibly politically incorrect) analysis of it here.

3 comments:

Hot Sam said...

Yay, white guys rule!

One important point to consider is that these stats are from the online dating universe. These response rates are likely different than responses in other venues.

For example, are you surprised that Indian men are least preferred by Indian women? I'm not because Indian women who prefer Indian men don't go online. They meet them throug family, friends, and cultural events. So an Indian woman online is likely seeking a non-Indian.

Similarly, most of the black women I knew online had given up on black men. They would love to have dated a successful, intelligent, honest black man but all those are taken. The ones online are usually desperate.

Response rates could be affected by inquiry frequency. Viewing the pickup tactics of some people at clubs, they are less concerned about the number of no responses than increasing the likelihood of a single yes. This may be race related.

When I was online dating, I was more fascinated by the fact that liberal women would only date moderate to very liberal men while conservative women were more tolerant of a variety of views. And there was always political deflation: moderate was liberal, liberal was very liberal, and very liberal was communist.

You could almost always add a +1 weight factor too.

Online dating is great. I have four friends who met their wives online. I met lots of high quality women and only one "dinner whore". But I didn't meet my wife online, so individual results may vary.

Anonymous said...

That is actually weird... What sites are you talking about? B/c I have heard people say e-harmony and other sites are more conservative.

PeppermintPanda said...

It is difficult to draw much of a conclusion about these statistics without knowing far more information.

Something I have learned in my life is that some of the "Cold Hearted Bitches" to guys that approach them are actually really nice people; and part of the reason they're so "Mean" is because they're approached so often that they become insensitive to guys approaching them. You can kind-of think of this as being similar to telemarketers; at first you might listen to them but after awhile you're going to start turning them down as soon as they start talking, and if you get enough calls you stop answering the phone or hang up when you get a telemarketer.

The reason I mention this is because it is entirely possible that Black women are generally approached less often by men; and white men just may be more careful to approach women who they actually stand a chance with.