Black Woman’s Essay on Modern Dating Is Lighting Up The Comments Section
A Black woman shared her take on dating Black men in 2026, and the internet has strong opinions. A woman who claims to have returned to the dating world after an eight-year relationship published a Substack essay with the byline “Danielle” that quickly went viral on her Instagram account, @msdaniellelauren. There, more than 4,800 comments have been posted in reaction to her experiences and observations.
Suggesting that the cost of “struggle-love” is too high and dating is more about the refusal to abandon oneself than finding a partner, Danielle raises great debate.
Successful Black Women are ‘Harder to Control’
“We are not rare,” Danielle wrote, arguing that Black women are overperformers in education, home buying, entrepreneurship and personal healing. “You can’t gaslight us if we’ve already unpacked our trauma in therapy,” she wrote, adding that some men want to be “coddled, affirmed, mothered,” but they don’t want a woman “who requires them to grow.”
Black Women Are Choosing Peace Over Chaos
Many successful Black women, she said, are choosing peace for the first time. “We grew up in homes marked by scarcity, instability, or survival mode. Now we have built quiet apartments, curated routines, stable incomes, regulated nervous systems,” she wrote.
Romaticizing The Past Is a Trap
Danielle said that men who lean into a “traditional woman” and “old-fashioned” values have a “selective memory.” According to her, the allure of having the appearance of a structured relationship with a two-parent home and “clear gender roles” neglects the history of many grandparents who stayed in relationships despite infidelity and abuse, and reinforces the idea of women being financially dependent on men.
Black Men Have a Supply-and-Demand Ego
She notes that nearly all her dating experiences have been with Black men and argues that many know they’re in “high demand” and act accordingly. ‘No shade,’ she said, referencing the supply-and-demand economic model. “And when you are used to being scarce, you start behaving like you are irreplaceable,” she added.
To her point, Pew Research data showed that 24.3 percent of Black men 25 and older had at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with 30.7 percent of Black women.
Struggle-Love Ain’t It
“We’ve been taught that if it costs you something, it’s valuable. If it hurts, it’s meaningful,” she wrote, adding, “But somewhere along the way, that logic bled into love.” She argued that loyalty became synonymous with staying through chaos and instability. “I want [love] to be a refuge from the world, not another battleground.
Love Should Be Accessible Without Chaos
Danielle said Black women still want Black spouses and children, but they also want “cultural alignment and shared experiences” that exist outside of chaos. She clarified that not all Black men are the same, but some exhibit consistent patterns, such as choosing the easier path of women who are impressed by money or status.
On social media, reactions weren’t a monolith. They ranged from deep resonance to fatigue.
Some feedback gave “here we go again” vibes. One commenter wrote, “What’s crazy is, if a man did a think piece on his adventures of dating Black Women in 2026, he’d be labeled all sorts of misogynistic, chauvinistic, assholish… even though he would be doing exactly like you’ve done here.”
Others suggested that the friction isn’t specific to Black men, but a symptom of modern life. “Maybe these are normal relationship/people problems, and you (and your friends) only date black men. I’d doubt that any of this is specific to Black men,” one person wrote.
But the essay did find an audience among men who saw the critique as a necessary mirror. One man wrote, “As a successful black man who’s been in therapy and actively doing the work… this hit different.”
The conversation also expanded to include those who feel left out of the “successful woman” narrative. “As an ‘unsuccessful’ woman, if it’s hard for successful women it’s even harder for us who are just trying to make it… I’m not willing to sacrifice myself for love either,” one comment read.
“Everything you wrote is true,” a commenter posted. “I am a Black woman who has done the inner work, gotten my degree and a full career, I have been loved deeply and generously and consistently, and yet I realize that men who are compatible with me right now are very rare.”
Perhaps the most sobering take moved past the “he-said, she-said” dynamic entirely, pointing to a deeper, more collective struggle. “A major factor contributing to this issue is adults being unaware they are stuck in a state of perpetual adolescence… Leaving out emotional regulation, nuance, and the ability to hold competing complex ideas has done us a disservice,” @prodigious_moments wrote.
