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Where can I find...
a Date?
Some weeks ago a friend asked me to test a website he was developing. The site, now live,
is epndating.com and is aimed at the ‘black professional’. He ignored my knee-jerk reaction
to anything ‘dating’ and finally convinced me to help him out. Toks Majek explains.
nce online I realised how hollow and mixed
with pseudo-street-cool my mindset had
been. Testing the site offered up other deepseated prejudices. I stopped short of actually loading
my own picture or even using my own name. A quick
trawl of the many dating related sites aimed at black
people revealed that I was not alone in this particular
phobia, although why that should make me feel any
better I haven’t a clue.
O
I was surprised at the variety of people using these
services. I had expected to see women over 30 and
men aged 40-plus, divorcees, single parents and those
generally with the most to lose (or gain) in the dating
game. I didn’t expect to see large numbers of
teenagers and people in their early twenties. The
stigma that crowns classified print ads was probably
the root of my prejudice. But can you blame me?
The dating game is ‘glittered’ with kitsch phrases. Even
the word ‘date’ sounds like something from a 1950s
middle-American sitcom. These days we hook up, we
grab a meal, we see each other, we go out, we link,
but we don’t date...do we? And then there is the
shorthand for these print ads themselves: ‘Lonely
Hearts’ or ‘Desperately Seeking,’ and using clichéed
terms like, ‘fun loving’ ‘outgoing’ ‘Mr Right’ ‘one
careful owner’ ‘desperate for regular shag’. Okay,
maybe not the last one, but you see where I’m
heading here.
All this washes away when you add a drop of internet.
Like Dr Theodore’s magic elixir, a spoonful of internet
makes everything different. In a host of ways the
internet is a form of concentrated freedom and almost
certainly should come with a government health
warning along the lines, “Use sparingly; may result
in unpredictable change to everything you hold dear.”
Just ask any major music label or parents of kids-ofinternet-age, if you doubt its credentials.
The internet is helping ‘dating’ throw off its 1950s
overcoat and sites like africasingles.net, epndating.com,
nubianlinks.co.uk and blackvoices .com are amongst
those at the vanguard of this change. While none of
these sites have managed to get it right yet, for as long
as people need people these dating sites will continue
to grow and multiply and technology will keep on
finding new ways of making
us even more insular than
previous generations who
didn’t have the world at
their fingertips.