Here I am on another lonely night messaging people from my area and all around the country on another white dominated so called social networking site. Here I am seemingly endlessly reading profiles, giving compliments and throwing out the line, “I’m looking for friends and hopefully a partner” all to no avail. I also love how the site shows me how many people have looked at my profile and also the most viewed people on the site just to see the comparison. Nonetheless, I find it ironic that on the one black bisexual, gay, lesbian and transgender social networking site I’m on I receive literally 20 times as many messages and friend requests that I’ve received on all of the five or six majority white sites I’ve been on. Even on the so called mainstream sites I notice how the vast majority of people who message me end up being my same race when the vast majority of people I messaged are not. This was one puzzle in my recent love life and social life that has made me ask the following question; “How can one community seem to recognize my worth and attractiveness and another group almost unanimously find me not worthy of even a hello?” This content is for members only.

Turns out our race and even our sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity effects whom enters into our social circle. Oh what a surprise! I’m being sarcastic but I am also genuinely surprised in 2011 many people even many bi, lesbian, gay and transgender people still base who they will interact with based on their skin color. For me it turns out almost all of the white people I’ve met chose not to either respond to me or call me back or really put me in their inner circle. This first became apparent to me in college, when I noticed how the majority of people I would talk to were white because most people at the school are white—yet only the African American’s seemed to ask for my number, call me back, or even invite me out. Both groups seemed to really like me and laugh at my jokes but for the most part only one group was open to bringing me in their inner circle.

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