Interracial Dating

While I was checking out some interesting blogs this weekend and I saw a comment on a subject discussing interracial dating. I wish that I could find it but I can’t.

The person who made the comment was a Black woman and she expressed her disappointment in the fact that Black men were dating outside of their race. She felt that the men were passing on acceptable Black women to date white women.

I found that statement interesting and just right now did a Google search on the term “interracial dating” and saw that there were actually dating web sites devoted to this concept. That was odd. Are people now intentionally looking to date outside of their race?

This reminds me of some interesting experiences that I’ve had with the concept of interracial dating.

The first incident I actually remember with this issue was when I was in first grade and I had a crush on a white girl named Lisa, who was in the second grade. Another older woman, I guess it started at an early age for me. I still remember how Lisa looked to this day. She had curly blond hair, blue eyes. She was the first girl that I remember seeing and acknowledging as cute, but not in a perverted way or anything like that. I would just find excuses to talk to her and trade lunches and things like that. I would always try to be on her team in games. Innocent stuff.

I was in first grade people. Those perverted days were reserved for junior high school.

As I grew up over the years, I usually liked only Black or Hispanic girls because those were the girls that I was interacting with from third grade to about seventh grade when I went to schools where those girls were the majority. Then, I went to my private high school in Manhattan that had all races.

Going to my high school opened my eyes to all different types of girls. I remember times when I was feeling White, Black, Latin, Indian, Asian, European girls and everything in between. I would go to parties and there was a representation of every race and I loved it.

I think going to school in the NYC helped this as well. In New York you confront all types of beautiful girls that you can choose from. It wasn’t odd to see interracial couple at all. Actually nothing was odd in New York. I’ve seen same-sex interactions in public, people in outfits that made me ashamed to even see it and other things. Nothing rattles me at all.

The interesting thing about my high school experience was that I had two sets of friends in two different environments. I had my family/church crew that was all Black and I would interact with mostly Black girls. The other set of friends were from school and it was like the United Nations. My crew included Indians, Hispanics, Europeans and even Africans. We could confront girls of all types and I was down with that as well.

The funny thing about the UN crew is that when we would confront a Black girl, it was always assumed that I would kick it with her. That wasn’t always the case. If I wasn’t feeling her or she wasn’t vibing with me, I would keep it moving and maybe try to score with the Scottish girl. I really didn’t care.

I also got over the concept of being the only Black guy in a situation. People tend to feel isolated and uncomfortable being the only one of their type in a setting. I went to rock shows and was the only Black guy and just didn’t care, I was there for the music. This translated to parties as well.

During this time, two very important women family members in my life saw what was going down and gave me the same message in two different ways. Family member #1 told me, and once again I quote, “Don’t bring home a white girl.” I laughed when she told me this but she wasn’t laughing and was serious. Family member #2 told me to find someone that was right for me but to just “be careful.”

I understood where each of them was coming from and looking back, I kinda understand their prospective, which I’ll get to later.

High school was a fun time of trying to make out with girls and getting rejected, so it was only the right time for me to take my lack of scoring skills to college.

Going to college in the southeast is an interesting dating experience for a Black guy from the Northeast, at least in my case. I came from an environment where it wasn’t a big deal for me to interact with a White girl but down here, I would get a look or a stare. I noticed but really didn’t care at first.

I remember when I first met Sarah, my good college female friend, and some of the Black women on campus would kinda give me a strange vibe when I would hang out with them. She had long blond hair and was White. I detailed here in a previous post: http://pourtoutpancakes.blogspot.com/2008/04/she-just-wants-to-be-my-friend.html

None of them told me anything negative about Sarah because many of them knew her and liked her, but their interaction with me was strained at times. I guess they felt that I was rejecting what they had to offer and decided to find it in a White girl, which wasn’t true at all. I vibed with Sarah and that was it.

I want to say that I didn’t care, but I did a little bit. I wanted to be accepted by everybody in college, especially fellow Black people. So when I felt some form of rejection, it wasn’t good.

However, it was around junior year when I truly started to not give a crap and kicked it with whoever I wanted to hang out with.

Over the past few years, I’ve really decided to try to date women who are cool with me. I can honestly tell you that I don’t see race in many things of my life whether its work or friends or dating.

I understand that each of us is a different color but that really means nothing to me. I’ve been screwed over by all different races of people.

The one thing that gets me is that some Black people tell me that I should only date Black women because I can trust them and other races will try to get me.

Women in general are an interesting group of people for men to deal with. Women have needs and interests that transcend racial background. Some have the concept that I can treat Black women badly because their the same race as me and they understand. That makes no sense.

Besides, I don’t trust anybody so this warning doesn’t affect me.

The women I tend to be attracted to are usually ethnic in nature, but there are always exceptions to the rule. However, if you had to pick a type of woman I like, she’s usually has tan skin and is a brunette. That leaves a lot of room of flexibility.

That’s another thing. Guys always say that she’s not my type. If you’re a guy and you throw out that line, you’re a loser. Women, men will pretty much date anyone that they find attractive. That whole, “I like blonds more then red-heads,” stuff is crap because if a hot blonde was interested in spending quality time with him, he would be down.

All of us men have standards of course but they aren’t as rigid as you think.

The women I mention on this blog are actually all dark-haired and a mix of Black and White women. However, I’ve crushed on all type of women over the past year or two.

I’m actually a lot pickier with a women’s intelligence level, wardrobe choices, smoking and drinking habits then her race.

I think the female family members were concerned that I would be intrigued by the concept of dating the forbidden fruit, White women. I guess they thought I would see these White women and lose my mind and only want to date them and lose the potential to meet a nice Black woman.

They ignored the fact that I’m a guy and about 80% of us really don’t care about the racial makeup of the women that we try to date. There are two reasons for this. The first one is easy to figure out. We’re guys and we just have physical needs that can be satisfied by any woman.

The second reason is that it’s hard to find a good woman who you are physically attracted to and have a mental connection with. The physical part really isn’t a problem. I can find about 90% of the women I see in life attractive on some level. Some I’m really into and some I can see how someone would find them intriguing.

It’s the mental stuff that is hard to get.

And that’s my message in this post (I know that it took me long enough to get to it).

Finding someone to date is really a bitch. Those of you in good relationships know that there are so many more things that can go wrong then right. If you find someone that can put up with your crap and you can put up with their crap, keep them in your life. So what if he or she is a different race. You can work around someone being a different race then you.

I know some of you are thinking that certain races have major issues with interracial dating and this is true. The female family members came from a time when Black men were literally killed for even looking at a White woman. So for me to potentially bring home a White woman is an issue.

However, times are different now.

And furthermore, I really don’t care who Black women are dating. I’ve heard Black men get mad at women in our race for dating White men or Asian men because that’s an insult to us. How is that an insult to us? She found someone in her life that she is cool with, let her live. Who she is dating has no affect on me at all. Do you.

I can get into this a lot further and I would love to discuss this with you more if you want. You know where to find me. But until then, kick it with whoever wants to kick it with you.

For now, here’s a product of an interracial marriage, Lenny Kravitz. War The Jeffersons. One of my favorite artists ever. He not only dated everyone’s crush, Lisa Bonet, here he is in “Again.”

The video has it all. Great song for one. Lenny for the ladies. Hot women for the men, including Gina Gershon and a message of interracial dating. Everyone is a winner! All races should applaud this, I know that I am.