questioningEH is offline questioningEH Post #1  April 8,2010, 12:14pm
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I think that online dating is tough as it is. Being a Black woman however, I wonder if that makes it even tougher. I have been on other online dating sites and not received ANY messages, winks, emails...nothing. I have seen (white) girlfriends join other sites and they are chatting with other members within days, sometimes within hours. OK Cupid wrote an interesting article about how even though many people do not rule out inter-racial dating, they are not quick to show interest online.
I consider myself a fairly attractive individual. I think that I became interested in the online scene because I spend my free time with my friends and am not really "out to meet" people when I am out socializing. Especially since most of my friends are male, I think it makes it that much more difficult to meet people.
I am not solely interested in inter-racial dating but have also found that there are not a lot of men of color on online dating sites...at least I am not being matched with any.
I have actually felt MORE discouraged since trying online dating. It has been very defeating. eHarmony was my last ditch effort and for over $100, I could have just bought something nice for myself.
...not feeling convinced to renew my membership (even though I am definitely not getting my money's worth).
 
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2clueless is offline 2clueless Post #2  April 8,2010, 5:37pm
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Welcome to the boards. There has been some discussion of how relatively poorly black women fare in online dating. If you do a search you will find a few topics here.

If you read around more you will see that lots of folks have poor outcomes here and make the same complaints. You don't know what is at play when someone closes you and presumbably you wouldn't get a match unless their preferences were wide enough to include you in some way.

Black men show up in my match list every few days so they are out there. (I live on the tri state area on the East coast so there are major urban areas to draw from and my preferences are wide enough to include parts of the south, places with higher concentrations of blacks.)

Of course, many of the matches are non paying, non active or there is non interest. But I can say that my closed box is filled with several hundred black men that I have been matched with. I think that is all EH can guarantee--the introduction. From there, there are a lot of factors at play.

I have pretty specific preferences that I make no apology for. In addition to being here I also joined another site to maximize my potential. Don't give up. The guys are out there. I'm leaving EH for a bit but I'll be keeping the door open in other ways. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
 
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ScottK is offline ScottK Post #3  April 8,2010, 6:08pm
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Hi there,

Well, you don't have much information in your Profile here, so it is hard to guess...

Where do you live?
What is your age?

I can tell you, as white guy up here in the Twin Cites, that I don't get many Black women sent to me as Matches, even though I have my filter set to "All" races.

I generally get perhaps 80% White, 10% Asian, 5% Black, and the last 5% is a medley of all sorts of other races.

It is hard to say what a Black women might get for Matches up here, as I can only see from my side...
And if many of the Black women in my area do not select White as one of the races they would like to be Matched up with, I will never get Matched with them, even if I don't care about race.

Of the few black women that get sent to me, they generally appear to be non-paying members.
(Either they do not have Photo uploaded, and/or, their Profile is barely filled out)

I generally do initiate contact to my Black matches, as race just isn't a big deal to me.
But perhaps in different areas of the country, or different age brackets, maybe there is a difference...

Good Luck, and Welcome to the EH Advice boards!
 
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D_Lion is online now D_Lion Post #4  April 8,2010, 6:19pm
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I am also set for all races (and as a non-paying user of eHahaha, I can not see photos at all.)
 
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codeblue81 is offline codeblue81 Post #5  April 8,2010, 6:51pm
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hey y'all..
I just want to thank the originator for starting this board. I too wondered why I'd only get to a certain stage of communication with someone, then all of a sudden they go MIA or you end up getting closed after thinking that things were going well. Being totally random here, what pisses me off royally is getting the "other" excuse to close someone off. EH needs to create more relistic, and honest "reasons list" or allow one to enter one in if it doesn't exist. Back to business, this is my second attempt at this site...this time being a real attempt and I am a bit disappointed with the outcome. BUT, this is not my main source of meeting people. Really, any online dating site should be a means of increasing your odds and not the only route in trying to find a mate.
What else I noticed, is that for the very few brotha's out here on the West coast, north of the border, I'm apparently not what they are looking for....which was a much different story back East. Being a minority in more then one way can be pretty trying on the dating scene.
I feel you pain.
cheers.
 
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Gr8Guyn2008 is offline Gr8Guyn2008 Post #6  April 9,2010, 10:35am
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D_Lion wrote :
I am also set for all races (and as a non-paying user of eHahaha, I can not see photos at all.)
Part of the profile that you can see has Ethnicity. One of the choices is Black.
 
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Gr8Guyn2008 is offline Gr8Guyn2008 Post #7  April 9,2010, 10:40am
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I think that you may be mixing apples and oranges in your question.

While I have no data to back this up I suspect that internet dating sites are less well received by blacks than whites and some other races. I also suspect that the particular area of the country may have some effect on the use of internet dating site use by different races. I don't have any explanation for this to offer.

In my area there seem to be far more blacks and Asians on Match than on eHarmony.
Last edited by Gr8Guyn2008; April 9,2010 at 10:43am.
 
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questioningEH is offline questioningEH Post #8  April 11,2010, 4:44pm
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it has been so interesting and supportive to see people's responses. I live in Boston and although Boston is often stereotyped as 'racist', it is not any more (or less) 'racist' than any where else in the country. Like I said, it is different in person; my personality is on my sleeve for all to see...not so much on an online profile...so I have to wonder sometimes. As an African-American AND as a woman, this (unfortunatley) is where my mind automatically goes in any exxperience of rejection...that damn minority burden
I have actually only been matched with about 4 men of color on the site so far and my personal preferences on my account are for 'all' race/ethnicity.
We'll see what happens in the end and I look forward to other people's thoughts.
 
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TheArtman416 is offline TheArtman416 Post #9  April 17,2010, 11:58am
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I ended up dating a black woman I had met from another dating site. She actually found me on that site and sent me a message showing her interest. We dated for a few years.

I think what helped on the other site was that there was more information to display about yourself and see about the others. I am very disappointed with the profiles on eHarmony. They all look alike. The only relevant information on the profiles is age, location and a picture. That tells me nothing about the person to help me to determine if I want to attempt a conversation. I communicate more with a variety of ethnicity's on other sites. eHarmony has thus far been a complete waste of money.
 
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eH_Advice_Host_Renee is offline eH_Advice_Host_Renee Post #10  April 17,2010, 1:25pm

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TheArtman416 wrote :
I ended up dating a black woman I had met from another dating site. She actually found me on that site and sent me a message showing her interest. We dated for a few years.

I think what helped on the other site was that there was more information to display about yourself and see about the others. I am very disappointed with the profiles on eHarmony. They all look alike. The only relevant information on the profiles is age, location and a picture. That tells me nothing about the person to help me to determine if I want to attempt a conversation. I communicate more with a variety of ethnicity's on other sites. eHarmony has thus far been a complete waste of money.
Hi TheArtman416,

Sorry you feel this way.

You probably already noticed, but we have added a new feature to our Singles site, which allows eHarmony.com and eHarmony.CA users to share more about themselves with their matches. In the Something to Talk About section of your profile, you can now let matches know your tastes or interest in a variety of areas: entertainment, hobbies, sports, etc.

Since communication is key to our members' success, we are always looking for ways to faciliate communication, and I hope that this new feature will result in a better rate of communication between you and matches of all ethnicities.

Also, just a heads up, a bug sneaked into our system with this new feature which is affecting the profile completion percentage on all our sites. So if your completion percentage is off, that's why. Our Enginerring team is working to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

All the best,

-Renee
eHarmony Advice Host
Last edited by eH_Advice_Host_Renee; April 17,2010 at 1:37pm.
 
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