How to Meet African-American Singles

As a large ethnic group, African-Americans have a full array of services available to them on the Internet and in the community. Some of the larger African-American dating services seem to cater to African-Americans exclusively. In this segment of the market, it is customary to call a site "interracial" if other ethnic groups are invited to join. Make sure to check into how a service works before investing time in questionnaires or money in memberships.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Take a look at African-American dating websites and compare approaches used for meeting singles. This should help you determine which sites are likely to help you achieve your goal, whether it is marriage or companionship.

2. Sample some of the sites designed to help singles meet. You can get a lot of information and even some tentative matches without joining some sites, so get as much as you can without paying any money. Keep notes from each site, so you can remember which ones you liked and want to visit again.

3. Finalize the online portion of your plan by joining (and paying for) at least one African-American singles site. Remember, the decision will be driven in part by whether or not you are an African-American. It may be that you will end up on an interracial site if that is not the case.

4. Strategize the offline portion of your plan, and don't leave anything out when you consider your schedule, your circle of friends, your activities, your job networks and other areas of your life. There are actually websites that are designed to help you in your offline search for singles. Check out AfricanAmericanSingles.com for lots of offline dating resources and strategies (see Resources below).

5. Concentrate on meeting people who like doing the things that you like to do, going to places that you like to go and reading the things that you like to read. This is especially true if you want to meet other African-American singles for lasting friendships that are based on who you are, not just what you look like.

6. Read the success stories of people who have met online, especially African-American singles, and read the local newspaper's wedding sections to see how other couples meet. More often that not, you will find that they worked together, had similar interests that brought them together or were introduced by mutual friends.

Tips & Warnings

• Avoid giving up too much information. Keep your private information secure until you have established a sufficient level of trust, whether with a website or a person.

Resources

• Offline dating techniques at AfricanAmericanSingles.com