What Single Women Can’t Learn From Michelle

Like just about everyone else last week, I read “What Single Women Can Learn From Michelle”—Jenée Desmond-Harris’ sista grrl power manifesto—with keen interest. After all, I’m just as concerned as the next guy with staying up on what “successful black women, with college degrees, ambitious careers and five-year plans” are really thinking.

I ought to be—for 10 years I’ve been married to a woman who fits that exact description.

You can’t argue with Jenée’s thesis: her coterie of pedigreed, upwardly mobile black women have to dig deeper for unseen potential if they’re looking for “Mr. Right.”

But if Barack Obama Part Deux is what it’s going to take to satisfy them, then her advice is going to leave a lot of women single as hell.

Personally, I blame Dwayne Wayne. Those endless reruns of your favorite episodes of A Different World get y’all completely twisted when it comes to evaluating a potential mate. But that’s beside the point. Here are a few tips to straighten things out:

Stop comparing regular guys to Barack Obama.

I can only speak for myself—I’m biracial, went to some pretty decent schools and spent most of my 20s in a cramped bachelor pad—but that’s where the comparisons to Barack Obama end. There’s nothing cool or Kravitz-esque to see here—I’m the other kind of mixed guy, in need of a tan and a fade. Picture Benjamin Jealous after six weeks on Survivor.

If my wife had held me to the presidential standard, I would have never had a chance.

There’s nothing wrong with admiring Obama’s style, but if he’s “the black Prince Charming ideal” that women are saving themselves for, then it’s pretty much a wrap.

Hopefully every woman finds a successful, well-rounded life partner. But if any of you are holding out for a future U.N. high commissioner who’s also won an Olympic bronze in tennis, makes sushi at home and DJs at his own club on weekends, you really need to get a grip.

Stop comparing Barack Obama to regular guys.

There’s an alternate universe out there where Obama is a polo-playing, Zen Buddhist neurosurgeon who dates Tamron Hall and hollers at Lebanese pop singer Elissa on the side. But no one’s going to vote for that guy, so the real Obama—the Punahou Playa—has to dial it way back, and the press room pimp stride is all that’s left over.

And know your own limitations, ladies. I mean, you’re intelligent and sexy and all, but unless you’re a female equivalent to the Dos Equis guy—the most interesting woman in the world who smells like Chanel No. 5 24 hours a day—accept the possibility that it’ll take more than pilates and a master’s degree to snag the next Barack Obama.

Stop looking at his checkbook and start updating your playbook.

Just because a man can “afford” to pay for $15 apple martinis doesn’t mean he wants to. Sometimes the guy buying rounds of shots is on his third bankruptcy, and the guy drinking $2 Miller Lights owns three rental properties.

We’ll do what we have to do to get your phone number, but in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a recession going on. If you start sizing up a man for all he’s worth right now, you’re letting him know up front that if things get too far, he’s on the hook for a three-karat rock and a mortgage on a beach house in Oak Bluffs. And if he knows that already, he might flee.

Start paying attention (and maybe get your eyes checked, too).

Apparently, Ms. Desmond-Harris and her girlfriends have spent a good portion of their eligible bachelorette years crossing brothas off their lists for such Poindexter-ish infractions as appearing to be “someone who would like Star Trek.” They’d even drop kick Obama for his (alleged) law school era “hint of goofiness.”

That’s a damn shame, ladies.

Whatever else you do, you don’t write someone off because he’s still hanging onto those gold lamé Hammer pants—you never know when they’re going to make a comeback.

True—guys go for looks first and fill in the rest later. But by the same token, we’re not letting a winner slip past us just because her ponytail is tucked up under a ball cap.

For example, I happened to go to college with Sanaa Lathan (really). I didn’t know her, she didn’t know me, and I had no idea she’d wind up being a movie star—but if I saw her on campus in a pair of sweats with no make-up on I could still see that she was fine.

Pay attention, ladies.

It’s beyond our comprehension how a woman could sit next to a future Barack Obama in class for a semester and conclude that he’s a scrub because “he drank hot chocolate instead of coffee.” Seriously—is this what we’re up against? Because that hot chocolate order can get changed to a no-whip white mocha real fast if you know what I mean.

Start dating white, Asian and Latino men.

And while we’re on the subject, how about trying Something New?

Not into white guys? That’s too bad because I’d be willing to bet that Bill Clinton has dated more black women than Barack Obama.

Black women hoping for a monopoly on black men have to realize that they’re like General Motors in a Toyota world—either develop your own hybrid technology or prepare to go out of business.

The bottom line: Single women should avoid using Barack Obama’s résumé as a job description for a position they’re trying to fill or treating their next boyfriend like a prospective applicant.

Life’s not a Destiny’s Child video, you’re not Beyoncé, and the cat who just scooped your McFlurry isn’t Prince Akeem. So if a man (or woman—hey, it’s 2009) meets 83 percent of your criteria and you still let him pass you by, just keep that in mind when the next Michelle Obama gladly takes him and his corporate, grad school-impaired game off your hands.

David Swerdlick is a regular contributor to The Root.