wanna go too. Would it be weird if I sent her a FB message like, ‘Take me with you!’”

“First off, yes, Crazy Pants McGee,” I said. “Second, get the heck outta here! It’s not like she’s actually going to any of these places. And, I’m sorry, does ‘Grown and Sexy Saturdays at Saturna Italian Bar and Grille’ really sound that awesome? No, ma’am.” I was trying to be supportive.

“Whatever. Why aren’t you on Twitter?”

“Because I’m not a fucking maniac.” Again with the support.

“Since when?”

Later this same girl sent me and a whole bunch of other people she was either trying to impress or help get through the workday an e-mail with the subject line: “I’m famous.” What followed was not an enthusiastic paragraph about her doctoral dissertation being accepted, but a link to a snarky Web site that posts particularly literary “tweets.” Hers was first on the list: “The Ikea shuttle switches lanes like woah and drives over the double yellow line. Not so Captain Safety.” I was proud in a Special Olympics type of way.

There is something to be said for the self-gratification felt in the presence of a group (or mass e-mail). The competing senses of purpose, accomplishment, and remorse.

Case in point: RBBDA. Street name: RuhBuhDuh. To its pushers: Rasheed’s Black Bourgie Dating Advice. Yes, that Rasheed. “Raj,” Britanya’s ex. After I got rid of her in life, I picked him up in cyberspace. Not in a sexy way, but in a “Hey, the more guys I friend the higher probability I’ll inadvertently meet a non-friend guy” kind of way. I considered falling in love with him one night after a friendly dinner at Clyde’s, but then I figured it’d be easier to introduce him to my other friend Hillary, who wears pearls in the middle of the week by point of reference. Two jumbo lump crab cakes and six months later, they’re in love. Even still, he remains dedicated to the cause of documenting the “exciting developments in the world of black bourgie dating” with his “just for fun” Facebook group, RBBDA.

Gina, at her dick’s end, had an interesting theory on the educated-while-black dating scene: “I am just so tired of this shit. Like argh! Why don’t they just keep a handful of men in a barrel, so that when one situation ends you just grab in there for another.” Rasheed had his own suggestions. A fan of public displays of irritation, he got fed up and decided to tell the world according to Mark Zuckerberg about it.

A rhetorical note entitled, “Is bourgie black dating really that tough?” started everything. In it Rasheed answered his own question yes, and then told everyone he could tag why:

The numbers are against us—with only a fraction of the black population certifiable bourgie, it’s hard to date healthy.

The rest of the Blacks are against us—Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois are more than the names across a booty-shaking high school band’s parade banner.

We’re too career-oriented—nobody works hard and plays hard. That’s a dangerous myth made up by white people who like golf with their tequila.

We take ourselves out of the game—Grown and Sexy Saturdays at Saturna Italian Bar and Grille? Fail.

The clusterfuck—the only difference between bourgie dating and Appalachian inbreeding is the sea level.

Robin Thicke

At first it was just for shits and giggles. A silly list you might forward to your friends on a Friday before a working lunch at Fuddruckers. But eventually the comments section underneath unfurled like a red carpet. The road to social network stardom now clear, another note followed—“Bourgie Macking Week”—which included a maxim I adopted as my own, “Leave the hating ass friend at home.” Sorry, Gi. Although I made sure to send her each of Rasheed’s lists, because of course, another followed. The third and final note bore its header more like a headstone: “Bourgie Macking Week Failing!?! Dating Dead!?!” That’s when shit got heavy, or at least a little chubby. Chances were getting slim that any of us girls would find the one for ourselves, since according to one comment, “I’m saying, meeting people clearly does not translate into dating. Because, in my experience, it is not hard to meet people in this city. But, I’m not convinced that dating exists in this city.” This city being the nation’s capital, and we, the people, being totally screwed.

Then, like rats on a sinking ship, we decided there was power in numbers and formed RBBDA, a Facebook “group for uppity black people to discuss dating, relationships,