‘Dottie’ does the work: Inside a Black singles mixer

Arvia Few works to create a space for young Black singles to connect and find love.

  
On a Tuesday night in Manhattan’s Flatiron District, a stream of Black singles starts to fill the basement of the gin bar where the “Cuff and Connect” party is being hosted. It’s half past 7 p.m. and the women are prompt. The men, torn between the implications of being seen at a dating event or remaining a statistic of the “male loneliness epidemic,” will trickle in slowly throughout the night.  

Arvia Few, the connector, is boots on the ground the entire night. Few is the founder of Dottie, the dating service for young, Black professionals, which is hosting this event. If you share a moment of eye contact with her, she’s pulling you into a conversation with someone else in close proximity. When reflecting on the night, she told me she can’t let anyone be awkward. 

“We address fear, we address insecurity, we address a lot of things when it comes to helping people get ‘unstuck’ when it comes to dating,” Few said about her role as a matchmaker, which became her official title after getting certified in 2021.  

In a surveillance culture, one might internalize that the safest way to show up in the world is as your chillest, most unbothered self. Coming to an in-person dating event rather than expressing your romantic interest via direct message or the application of your choice cracks that cool. But “dating app fatigue” has taken over, and not everyone has the endurance to join a running club.  

“I feel like historically, [I’ve been] meeting people online,” said London, who has come to one other Dottie event. “Moving forward, I’d like to meet more in person.”  

Few is interested in getting people like London off “the scroll” and away from the content that keeps many of us at home instead of out seeking more organic connections. 

With adult children of her own, Few is like your Mom, your auntie, or your godmother who just wants to see you fall in love and get married. In fact, if you’ve been connected with her personally, one of those women in your life likely sent you her way. Dottie, named for Few’s mother and grandmother, stands for one mission above all: Black Love. And she’s unapologetic about it.

“Our community has always focused on our career and our education, and the love life would organically, naturally happen,” she said. “And that has changed.”

The singles events are one branch of Dottie’s services. For individual coaching, which costs $200 per session and requires a minimum of five sessions, Few only takes five clients, and everyone else goes on a waiting list. Parents are often footing the bill. 

A less expensive and newer service is $100 “introductions,” where Few will set up clients via email based on a questionnaire. There are also group sessions, where men and women virtually gather to have conversations about dating and share grievances and advice with one another. 

Then, there’s the podcast where Few speaks with Black married couples, and she does Q&A sessions on Dottie’s Instagram page. She also answers DMs, which she said often come from men seeking guidance. 

“What I find is that the guys rely on me a lot,” Few said while pulling up a recent DM she received from a frustrated young man who had run out of patience with a woman he was texting, and was beginning to blame the issue on Black women as a whole. She coached him through the interaction and concluded the woman’s communication issues were simply a sign of disinterest. 

“I love the fact that they feel comfortable talking to me. It at least gives me an opportunity to coach and help them,” she said. “And that’s going to help me with the women, too.”

Though these men seem to want the help, Few has to hustle hard to achieve a male turnout at her mixers. Heterosexual singles events have a reputation for being sparsely attended by men, leaving the women to chat amongst themselves. Dottie advertises a 1:1 ratio for its events, and Few personally recruits eligible young men to come with their eligible friends. Plus, she monitors the guest list to keep the numbers as even as possible. 

Ryan is one of these elusive men. This type of event is regular for him, since he throws networking parties of his own. After following Dottie’s Instagram for a year, he made it to “Cuff and Connect,” business cards in hand. 

“In New York City, you have short attention spans,” he said. “The work-life balance is difficult, you’re trying to manage dating, you’re trying to manage the speed of the city. It’s hard for all of us, and we need to try and give each other a little grace.” 

There are a few men who waited until the latter half of the event to make an appearance, and undoubtedly were the reason Few hardly slept the night before checking the guest list. They strolled in as nonchalantly as you can at a singles mixer. Perhaps they served the role of a “Love Island” bombshell, brought in to reinvigorate the group and prevent things from getting stale.  

At “Cuff and Connect,” the night starts with a sort of Bingo game (you have to fill the entire card, not just a row) that forces guests to ask each other questions. Can you find someone who has gone viral on Instagram? Who in the crowd has been Venmo requested after a date? 

The hope is that by moving around to play the game, you also happen to meet people you share some interests or chemistry with.

Khila, a makeup artist in a dark green knit top and skirt set, was focused on filling her Bingo card to cope with the dearth of tall men. Apparently, the winner at the last event got Knicks tickets. She suggested a height requirement be instituted for future events.  

As the crowd gets larger, it’s clear that the Bingo conversation starter has done its job. People are holding the cards to their sides, only lifting them while making their natural hand gestures. Some groups have formed around the lounge’s booths, with Uno cards at the tables in case anyone is tempted to let strangers see their true competitive nature.   

The mix and mingle model is not one-size-fits-all. A female attendee told me she needed more structure, and she admittedly spoke to mostly women that night. I found her earlier when she was with two other women, who were also cautiously navigating the event. One had ended a relationship a month ago, and when asked about the kind of man she was looking for, she described her ex.

Few was inspired to create a Black dating service by shows like “Indian Matchmaker,” which showcase how other cultures have adapted the tradition of arranged marriages to the modern day. Her network, as a Howard University alum, a member of Delta Sigma Theta, a Jack and Jill mom, and as someone connected to pretty much every other major Black social organization, gave her the ability to do something similar. 

“Between those organizations and the five cities we’ve lived in, I mean, the Black community’s only so big,” she said. “And I basically got the word out of Dottie through the parents. No one was doing this. No one was focusing on connecting young Black people.”

The young adults of this generation don’t date as much as previous ones, and more are entering their 20s never having been in a romantic relationship. Few said she often has clients who have yet to experience a commited relationship in their late 20s and 30s. There’s also the cultural conversation concerning Black children who grow up in predominantly non Black communities and therefore miss out on the opportunity to date within their social sphere. Few tells me this some weeks before former First Lady Michelle Obama and writer/producer Mara Akil Brockman went viral for discussing how Black kids deserve to be “crushed on.”  

As Few puts it: Everyone worries about the young people’s romantic prospects, but she’s the one actually doing something.     

And at the end of the night, when I spoke to an attendee named Wilson, I realized who she does it for. Wilson met a woman who really excited him that night. He told me he keeps expectations low when attending social mixers, so the outcome was a pleasant surprise. He was open-minded about dating people of other backgrounds, and even had a Hinge date later in the week with someone not Black, but he dreamed of Black Love. 

Listening to Wilson gushing over his potential new match, ideating first and second dates they could have, his tone changed dramatically when talking about the upcoming Hinge date. 

Like many people jaded by online dating, he described the act like a chore: take dirty clothes to the laundromat; meet Jordan from Bumble for drinks at 8; order a new Brita filter. 

A few hours of a night with other single people who, by their presence, declared that finding a romantic partner was something that mattered to them, gave him the lightness of a new crush.