How interesting. How sad.

As has been pointed how by many a commenter below, there is no single definition of a “good” man. The term is so trite and overused as to be meaningless at this point. However, let’s play with this concept and what it may really be attempting to say.

First, the sense of humor really does seem to be an overriding factor. I think this is the one area where I notice that most women’s desire (as given by the list of above factors) does match their actions. As for the other 9, I have observed a huge disconnect between what many women say they want and what they actually pursue.

Yes, humor was #1 on this list and intelligence was last (10th), as if I needed my odds of meeting a “good” Black woman to be lower. I’ll add that my personal preference is for Black women. I must be more masochistic than I thought.

Returning to this definition of “good”, it is subjective. I know for myself I have 11 – only 11 – deal-breakers. All too often, I find women who have some hand-wavy, ethereal definition of “good”, if they have one at all. Most Black women do not have even the slightest clue of either what they want or don’t want, which probably contributes to the randomness of their poor decision making. Even worse are the women who make every requirement a deal-breaker. By definition, if everything is important, nothing is important.

I find that women spend an inane amount of time defining the characteristics of the men they desire, populating their lists with absurd requirements. In fact, there are so many deal-breakers on the average Black woman’s list that it is unlikely any regular, flesh-and-blood man of any ethnicity could match such requirements. I do think, as someone else said, that they only want to date Jesus Christ. (As if Jesus doesn’t have more options than even Idris Elba. Take a number and get in line.)

My canonical example is height. The absurdity of Black women demanding that they will only date men who are 6 feet tall or taller is completely asinine. Only 15-20% of the entire male population of the United States are this tall! 15-20%!! So starting off, the average Black woman has ruled out 80-85% of the men in the entire nation. Of course you can’t find a “good” man, Black or otherwise, if your requirements are that limiting! Then these same Black women have the temerity to be upset that this fictional character doesn’t exist!?!?

Even sadder — or funnier, depending on your point of view — is that many of these same women are not nearly as relationship-worthy or ready as they’d like to think they are. (This was also mentioned below.) They wouldn’t know a “good” man by their own standards if he fell out of the sky and landed on them! Yet, few of them are as intelligent, fit, selfless, faithful, financially stable, communicative, loving, respectful, honest, attractive, or spiritual (quite religious but religion does not a relationship with God make) as they have the audacity to demand from potential partners. Obviously, I left out a lot of adjectives that many Black women are *not* yet my friends and I find ourselves, out of commitment to Black women and Black families, shut out from even having an opportunity to get to know these women.

Maybe these women aren’t worth getting to know and maybe they are the women of our dreams, but Black women are so closed off to the possibility of success that it makes me wonder why they complain about failing so often.

Why do we put up with this again? While I cannot agree with any Black man who chooses to marry interracially, I can surely understand. This is a hell of a lot of difficulty for a murky reward. To use an investing analogy, the ROI of a relationship with a Black women often looks pretty low or even negative. You attract that which you are, and inversely, you cannot attract that which you are *not*. So if Black women want to attract a “good” man, Black or otherwise, they need to start by being that which they seek to attract. (I say Black women only because I’m not interested in or concerned with women of other ethnicities. This is universal spiritual law, however, so the same applies to any woman anywhere of any ethnicity, nationality, cultural background, religious denomination, etc.)

Here’s another example of the kind of absurdity we (Black men) encounter in our near futile pursuit of a Black female partner. It enrages me to hear Black women talk about the *need* for a Black man to have an undergraduate degree before they will even consider dating him. This one I’m sure has silently kicked me in the rear numerous times, yet most people wouldn’t know that I don’t have a degree unless I mention it. I’ve seen plenty of friends felled as well by this self-limiting belief held by so many Black women when oddly, the exhibit the kind of poor intellectual behavior that denotes them as being uneducated.

The inverse of this situation is that I can think of so few men I know who should make the cut of the average Black woman yet somehow they manage to, despite not living up to the measures espoused by average Black women. Something doesn’t fit here!! Someone is being dishonest.

How can a man who meets 8 – 9 of the criteria listed above (and 29 of the 33 “other” traits as well) have so much trouble meeting a woman who is worth *his* time and energy if, as alleged, there are so many single Black women seeking a man with those traits? How many bachelors, masters or Ph.D. holders do I know who struggle to earn even high 5 figure incomes? Too many to name. How many non-degree or associates holders that I know who are on their way to $200,000 annual incomes (myself included)? Far fewer than the latter category, I assure you. (I use income as a proxy here for many other characteristics for simplicity.)

My relationship coach has spoken of a phenomenon wherein Black women seem to want to live a RHoA lifestyle. He’s told me about many of his Black female clients who think in this way. I call it the “Disney syndrome”. Whether these women bring anything of merit to the relationship is inconsequential, it seems. They want a man who can give them all of that so they can live some fairytale existence but they aren’t deserving of such a lifestyle. They surely haven’t made strides to earn it. They’re in competition with all of the other Black women who have the same goal, clamoring in line to attract the affections of some star athlete or musician, yet they lack the ability to run a simple statistical analysis to realize that the odds are against them. Then again, maybe they just don’t care that the odds are against them, and like having unprotected sex, they just choose to roll the dice.

IF by some chance they are chosen and eventually discarded (replaced, as it were) by a man who has abundant options, they want to be angry at all men instead of realizing that the failure was theirs. It was a failure of their priorities, a failure of their thinking, a failure of their beliefs and a failure of their actions. This is the definition of a woman who does not accept responsibility for her life. Often by this point, we find she’s caring for a child (or multiple children) as well.

Then at some point, usually when its too late to make a difference, she wants to find a “good” man. “Good” wasn’t important before but it is now!?!? Sorry, you had your chance. You (over)played your hand — poorly — and lost. Maybe in your next lifetime you’ll learn the lesson earlier.

All the while, she’s now passed up by men who never previously would have made her radar. Men like me. Its quite amazing how options have become more plentiful as I have gotten older. However, I’m a discriminating man. I don’t want every woman and I have no such need. I just want and need one – the one whose faults I can live with.

*sigh*

This whole process is exasperating. And disappointing. And maddening. And saddening.

It truly does seem as if Black people want to remain in the state that we have gotten ourselves into. History is what it is and what has been done has been done. Most of the damage to the Black family, the damage done in the last 40 – 50 years, has been by our own hands. May God have mercy on us all.

I mean to oversimplify, but this is a question that’s particular to the woman you ask, isn’t it? For one woman a man with a good job is a good man. For another, any man who is a good dresser is a good man. These aren’t personality traits, but just to show that good varies from superficial to spiritual.