I know what you are thinking: how could this be true considering that recent numbers suggest that there are a plethora of available black women per available black man? That is true, but what if I also told you that I regularly come across single black men, who are ready for a relationship but can’t seem to find a woman who really wants to be in one?  Sounds unbelievable, well consider the following:

Match.com recently teamed up with researches at both Rutgers University and Binghamton University for a study, which sought to understand folks that are partner-less. The study, which surveyed more than 5,200 single people of both genders ages 21 to over 65 revealed that single men are, on the whole, as likely to want to get married as single women. Moreover, these single men were more prone to falling in love at first sight, more eager to combine bank accounts sooner and more likely to want children than women.

If this doesn’t shock you, also consider that another study, conducted by Her Campus Media has revealed that 77 percent of college guys want to get married by the time they turn 30. In fact, the probability that both men and women will marry by age 40 is over 80 percent. And while 32 percent of non-Hispanic black men have not married by age 35 compared with 24 percent of non-Hispanic white and 25 percent of Hispanic men, the overall point is that by the time black men are 35, 68 percent of them have married.

So if men aren’t the problem, what or who is the problem? Sorry ladies, it does have something to do with us – but not in the blame-game way you are probably thinking. You see the rise of women in the professional workforce has produced a number of societal changes including the rising median age of first marriages among women; from 20 in 1950 to 26 for women. What this means is that it is becoming more commonplace, and more importantly, acceptable, for women to wed later in life.  As such, many women have become part of the trend to delay marriage for personal reasons including focusing on education, careers, owning property, traveling and basically being financially independent women. Nowadays, women have equal, and in some cases greater opportunities in life, which means that they can be pickier about who, when or even if we ever decided to marry.

So as much as we want to chide the menfolk for being unavailable, the reality is that there are just as many unavailable women among the fairer sex. In short, we can be fence sitters too. Some of us are too busy for love; some are overwhelmed by having too many choices and just opt not to make a decision at this moment; and some of us are too self-centered or caught up in our own neurosis to make room for anyone else. Just like Hannah, whose own self-indulgence got in the way of really trying to get to know Adam. The point is, there are available men out there. And if you truly want a relationship, than you really have to make sure that you are available for one. In every sense of the word.

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