Being in Love? No thanks

My cousin asked me how my love life was doing, and I didn't get the chance to answer; my neighbor's car with my neighbor's loud friends wanted us to move out of their way. "Are you not trying?" asked my cousin as we moved aside for them. He meant that I was going to Japan for the JET Program in a couple of months, so why should I be trying if I was going abroad anyways?

I don't want to fall in love before I say "sayanora" to my old life, but what if somebody comes along and sweeps me off my feet? I would really like to believe I'm a mini-Temperance Brennan, indifferent to love and marriage, but deep down, I really want to be in a relationship. But for me to be in a relationship, do I actively have to try? I am fine just sitting in a cafe and a guy coming up to me and talking to me. Who knows? It could turn into something! Still, I don't believe that can happen.

First off, I'm a single black woman with goals and aspirations. Being black already puts me at a disadvantage. Only forty-five (45) percent of black women were never married versus twenty-three (23) percent of white women in the U.S. (U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey in 2006). Plus, with media working against me, I'm not the model girl; I'm not afraid to say what I want to say, do what people think is impossible, and be un-girly sometimes.

So, if there's nothing wrong with me, do I really need to work at finding someone?