The Shallow Gay Black Dating Pool: Census Data Reveals Sad Details 

One of my favorite things to say to motivate myself and others in dating and getting over Ex lovers is: “There are 7 billion people in the world, no need to settle for less. Move on to someone else the moment you smell bullshit.”

This saying has done me well over the years as its a reminder that there are plenty of fish in the sea.

Unfortunately a new report was recently released that has me digging up the old cell phone numbers of previous jump-offs. The report released by UCLA Williams Institute Scholars Angeliki Kastanis, Public Policy Research Fellow, and Gary J. Gates, shows that the dating pool for American Black Gay Men may be more shallow that I once thought.

The study is based on Census data acquired during 2008 – 2010 as well as data from Daily Gallup Surveys, revealing geographic and socioeconomic details about openly gay African American men & women. That last part is key to note as these figures are only based on Gay men and women that admitted to being gay to pollsters and Census forms. How much these numbers would change if closeted gays were included is unknown.

Key takeaways from this report are that American Gay Black Men are statistically fewer in number, less educated, more unemployed and primarily only reside in select cities/states. Damn son. So for gay black men to date other gay black men, they have to pretty much expect less and settle for what they can get…especially if you don’t already live in highly populated gay cities.

Excuse me for a second:

Oddly enough, the data also suggests that the quality of the African American gay couples fairs better than their heterosexual counterparts. The study found that gay couples were more educated and employed on average than straight African American couples.

So the quality of the men is bottom of the barrel if they are single, but its drastically improved if they are in relationships. Prime example of the cart leading the horse and not the other way around.

Fuck it. I have no expectations of falling in love and getting into a relationship anyway so this report only reinforces how I already feel about dating.

Here are the key figures from the report that stood out to me:

• There are 1,018,700 LGBT African Americans in the United States (3.7% of all African Americans)
• Only 84,000 of those African Americans are in relationships
• Most black men who identify as gay are younger than 25 years old
• States with most Gay Black Men: New York, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan and New Jersey
• The District of Columbia has the largest percentage of black gays amongst the African Americans in their population
• New York and Georgia have the most black gay couples in the country
• Only 42% of all same-sex couples are male
• Gay black men have a higher unemployment rate than straight black men (15% vs 12%)
• Only 23% of gay black men have completed college vs 26% of straight black men
• On average, black gay couples make less money than black straight couples ($46,700 vs $60,000)
• Gay black couples are less likely to have health insurance than black heterosexuals (63% vs 79%)
• There are far more interracial gay couples than interracial straight couples (47.1% vs 19.1%)