Much like the girls on Sex and the City would get together to dish, my girls and I will get together and dish about the dilemmas of Dating while Desi. Yes, girls do talk, far more than we blog about. And Dating while Desi ain’t easy, as the mutiny has informed us on Sepia Destiny Part 1. In these talks, we girls will touch on questions such as, “Do you date desi only or non-desis or anyone but white boys? Do your parents sneak around behind your back with biodata and pictures? Do your parents give out your numbers to guys that call and don’t leave messages – from obscure area codes? Do your parents even know that you date? Where do you find desi guys that haven’t gone back to South Asia to get their bride already?” These questions (and more) are indicative to the plight of the single, 25 yr.+, independent-thinking desi girl and is why I love to find solidarity with my single desi sisters – whether over chai, or virtually by reading my favorite desi gal bloggers ( Rupa, TheBarMaid, Chick Pea, brimful, SP, to name a few).
Saturday night while I was surfing on YouTube alone in the North Dakota bunker, I came across this episode of Desi OC – after watching the video I thought to myself, maybe I’ve been playing the game all wrong…
The Desi OC episode above comes out of production company Raising Desi, and one of the film maker is Los Angeles comedian Tarun Shetty. (You may also recognize the gal pal from Timberlake’s Senorita music video.) All of Tarun’s addictive mini-movies are far more polished than the typical YouTube video, but the thing that struck me about this episode in particular were the rules they had for Dating while Desi. We all know the general “Dating Rules” — Wait three days before calling back, never talk politics or religion on a first date, and never say yes to a guy that asks you out the day of.
But I realize now after watching the video, that there are a whole different set of dating rules set aside for Dating while Desi. Who would have known? I certainly didn’t know the rules changed between dating desi, and dating non-desi. So, to summarize what I have learned so far…
Dating While Desi Rules (For Guys)
- If you get a desi girl’s number – three day rule is out. Call the next day if an ABCD girl. But if a FOB girl, you have to pace out with e-mails and phone calls.
- If she asks you what you do, where your family comes from and stuff, she’s no good. She’s grading you to see if you meets up to her social standards.
Dating While Desi Rules (For Girls)
- Make sure to make the guy chase you a little bit and space things out accordingly.
- Go to the bases three times slower with a desi guy than you would with a non-desi.
- Never tell a desi guy that you are really a doctor (or an engineer, or a lawyer). Instead, lie with a less ‘threatening’ career.
- Don’t date a jobless bum. Or desi doctors.
Maybe if I had known these rules, I could have figured out the desi dating game a lot sooner. Hence, I make an appeal to you, oh mutinous crew. Are there other rules to Dating while Desi that I don’t know about? Is it really harder to date us desi girls? (Not that dating you desi guys are any walks in the park.) Or as Tarun says in the video, “Desi girls are hard, man. Stick to dating goris…”
Let the Sepia Destiny virtual dish begin.
I’m not at all quibbling with your rollcall since I read all those righteous babes , but I find it amusing that you neglected to find solidarity with the obvious and original “single, 25+ indie-thinking desi girl” …or is there still beef in the bunker? If there is, for shame. Can’t we strong women ever get along?
Anyway maybe I’m the only one who remembers (probably, since she barely updates her blue blog and the post I’m linking was memorable to me for very personal reasons), but over three years ago, ANNA was “dishing” about this very topic and doing it very well. Nothing personal against you. I enjoy your explorations of accessible subjects which are surefire threadmakers…like this one. My money’s on 300+…takers?
hahaha thats so true! its also really sad that theres such an inherent distrust between desi guys and girls, and not just ABCD women. Its like every move the guys make, theyre testing you on your decency. Giving in to natural urges just isnt allowed, because I think to some degree desi guys dont hit on desi girls for flings,(thats reserved for the non desi girls) but its like theyre testing them for marriage to some degree. And thats awful ecause desi girls are forced into a mould they dont necessarily belong to, at least for appearances sake. And i think desi girls would treat the guys the same way. I dont know if its innately about some greater degree of respect or simply the fear of being forced by parents into a commitment just on the basis of race. And let me tell you, desi girls from india/Pak/SL whatever are no more ‘moral’ than ABCD girls. That’s a big illusion (unless she’s from some small town and barely been allowed out of the house).
“still”? I wish someone would have let me known the who, what, when where, why… If there is drama in the bunker it is definatly not of the petty girl fight sort that people like to hope for- but rather the meatier fight club type that involves lawyers and LAPD. 😉
My goal? To get more than the 441 comments on the last blog…because, I know we can…! 🙂
have you also discovered that the minute you discover youre PERFECTLY comfortable being single and happy forever is when someone eligible walks across your path?
Wow, I must be in the minority on that.
Wow, the written equivalent of the whole ‘running around the tree bit…’
Maybe this is an age thing because I’m in a slightly different age range, but what I find about brown-on-brown dating is the whole saga that takes place, right from the first meeting to the will-they-won’t-they ‘friendly’ talks/texts/emails to the big drawn out slowness of the whole relationship to the couple-y-PDA-ness… relationships just seem much more immature, dramatic and publicly shared than any other combo I know of.
Even though I know I’m guilty of this myself I do think we are much harder on people of our own culture, mainly because our parents, relatives and entire community has made our impression of inter-community relationships fraught with crazy images from pimp-bling wearing wannabe gangstas with chest hair galore through to arranged marriage stereotypes to smothering, obnoxious doctors/investment bankers/engineers…
The main thing that has put me off desi couples I know though is that the girls seem to revolve their lives around their ‘man.’ Ick.
Negatory.
cookie cutter indian girls are hard to find amidst all you indie-whatevers.
joking!
yeah, desi relationships are pretty immature, because there is too much he-said she-said drama. also, i think if youre the type of person who enjoys flings on a regular basis, then you will have flings irrespective of race. But if you’re not, or you’ve been brought up good and proper scared of the implications of dating by your parents stuck-in-the-sixties, then you’re more likely to limit your fling/relational experiences to white guys, or even desis outside your family/community’s regulr contact range
Dear SM indie-whatevers helpline,
Punjabi girls are impossible. Northies are patakhas macacas. Must I go South for love shove, pyar vyar? Being a Northie boy, can I go Southie?
Sincerely,
Confused and might go Southie Anytown, USA
Yes, NvM, Confucius say you “Must go South for love”. If you don’t believe me, check this out (from the News tab): here
taz:
i haven’t had a chance to see the video as i’m running out the door..but read your post ;)…
first of all:
thank you… or whether it is bonding over eating mogo or cheering on a steelers game or seeing some random tropical fruit garden ;)…
secondly:
yup.. i just ‘work in a hospital’ and do human resources (no offense to any in that field..just trying to make a point and a bad joke)…seems to me.. that a lot of indian guys.. operative words ar e’a lot’ are intimidated by indian doctor chicas…and then there is also a hierarchy in the type of physician you are… (pediatrics=she will be good with children and childbearing, psychiatry=she can read my mind and may be crazy, etc…).. there are also hierarchy in paychecks in different specialties.. and hence you can be looked upon as ‘cha ching’ in someone’s eye.. the prized cash cow..
for example i met this guy..and he told me i was the intimidator… how a boy can be intimidated by a measley legume, i will never understand… i just laughed…
thirdly:
🙂 job stability is nice….there are differences between a guy docs and a female docs.. a guy doc is almost every female parents ‘dream’…they can do no wrong, even if they might treat their daughter like shit… seen in a gazillion times…had a great discussion about it with a few of the indian desi male docs i know to confirm this fact.. and tis true… in my population based study.. ‘beta he is a doctor.. he is stable…has money…and will keep you happy’… alas, the green alone won’t make most people happy..
female docs are looked upon as the ‘intimidator’ as above.. a lot of times.. as i have experienced and so have a hell of a lot of my indian female doctor friends.. guy desi docs are cherished… and yes i argue this point with my brother (who is a doc) all the time..and he concurs as well..
okay over and out from the beans world..gotta get to work! more might come later on during the day… thanks taz for making my morning and making me laugh!
I had my fair share of dating desi guys (prompted to do so by family)… One particularly stands out, this being an highly educated guy asked me what my hobbies were (i mean really? do people discuss hobbies anymore?), at that time i had just taken up the sport of fencing and attempted to tell him how i’m just learning the sport etc, all he did was look at me in fear, first and the last time i saw him. Now i am just married, my husband is a desi (never been to desh but has tendencies to say how he loves his desh). He is the eptiome of ying and yang between eastern and western values.
What? Why not? Is it more suave to just “read” potential hobbies as the convo goes along? Am I not reading signals as I should if I ask? Am I uncool? Help.
no von mises:
did you read my connection between basketball and diwali.. where the heck is my draft tip ;)? well hobbies are are discussed.. because who the hell wants to talk about what you do all day in your career (that can be a bit boring).. hobbies make a person multi-faceted… so yes hobbies are discussed..usually not asked in the form ‘what are you hobbies’… more like ‘what do you like to do in your free time outside of slaving away’?
What do ABD girls think about dating FOB guys. I got the “How dare you ask me out” look from her. NOT cool.
I blog! and I … ummmm … work out! Who has time for anything else 😉
i find meeting boys at desi events particularly difficult. the men usually just stand around staring at the brown sugar and dare not make a move. if a girl tries to make conversation – she is instantly declared as being “too forward” and slutty and therefore off the list. but we cant jsut stand around sipping drinks and staring at each other all night. you have to come out of your shell at some point!
dear bloggers.. this is ennis biodata speaking out.. if interested please email chick ‘cupid’ pea and i will screen and send him the ones that make the ‘cut’..anyone out there fit these ‘hobby’ descriptions? being hawt is a requirement ;)…
Oh,how I wish you posted this earlier. These golden ‘Dating While Desi Rules (For Girls)’ are priceless! On retrospect..I could have really avoided being the loser magnet.
interesting, this talk of desi-dating. i have a feeling i am a little older than most of you, or at least i am out of the dating game. one of the things i have never been able to shake is to look at desi women as “sister” like. i grew up in winnipeg manitoba and my parents were one of the first wave of south asians there. its a small, cold city (well, not so small anymore) in the middle of the canadian prairie. when i was young, there were about 7 desi families in the whole city. going to mandir was to go to someones basement. to this day i feel like i should know all the macaca families in winnipeg b/c during my formative years, i did. so of course everyone was uncle, anti and by extension didi and dada. dating in that scene would have been hell, come to think of it.
i’m almost 40 now, and SM keeps me hip to what’s going on. its great to see topics like this discussed in this way and to find out how we as a community are changing and engaging with these issues. i moved to toronto about 10 years ago, and one thing that i loved was how all the brown young people would hang out together, smoking behind the high school and speaking tamil or what have you. this was sooooooooo far removed from my teenage years.
so for better or for worse i somehow conditioned myself to look outside the community for crushes and dating. thereby passing by all the lovely desi women i knew or saw. oh well. my loss. i am now engaged to a lovely german woman. who loves rasogolla. in hindsight, i see that this is veeeeeeeeeery important.
my 2 cents. d
There are no rules. Do what feels right; it’ll all work out. (At least that’s what’s worked for almost everyone I I know, including those of us who’ve dated/married desi.)
Hey, what do the oh-so-graciously marrieds know about dating 😛
How about: “Be Honest”
worked for me =)
I know that you should date your significant other for as LONG as possible before you get married!
Absolutely nothing, I admit. But wanted to make the point to not think too much, no matter what point in a relationship a person is in. (Hey, it works for us ;)).
cough bullshit cough
Yea, I figured that comment wouldn’t be well-received on this thread =)
Good heavens! The guys/girls all of you have met (or heard of at one remove) seem to belong to a wholly different demographic from those I knew while I was in the U.S.! Here’s one weird thing: in the two separate almost-dating-but-not-quite situations I found myself in, both the women in question asked me to tell them something about any women I knew whom I greatly admired (I am male). At that time in my life, I knew five such women truly worthy of admiration. The common thread that linked them was that they were all, in a certain sense, resolute fighters. I suspect that they are what Chick Pea’s guy would call “intimidators”. However, in both cases, it turned out that I — by the very act of knowing the aforesaid women (full disclosure: I was not romantically involved with any of these five) — had, in these almost-to-be dates’ eyes, become the “intimidator”. One of them, in response to the story of one of the aforesaid five, went so far as to say, “I would’ve advised your friend to listen to her parents… She should have been more deliberate in thinking through the issues of a Hindu-Muslim marriage..” or something like that. WTF!?!
Here’s my question: are the guys and girls one meets at parties thrown by those McMansion-dwelling, WSJ-reading desi “uncles” and “aunties” one is linked up with — whether one wants to or not (!) — through the desi grad-school network very, very different from the guys/girls all of you are referring to ?
it seems wrong getting dating tips from a gay brother.
ROFL @ #30. My exact thoughts 🙂
The walk itself gives it all away – but besides that, the short-vid is well made and you gotta commend the Shetty guy for the effort, because he kept up with OC scene than the Desi scene 🙂
Being honest is a sure-fire way to eternally being lonely and single 😀
I came to the US, when I was 15. I had all the FOB leanings that ABC gals detest. There were 4 desi girls in my class, and heck I asked them all out, and got total ignore to ‘How dare you ask me out.’ They damaged my already fragile teen ego by running into bathrooms when I approached them etc etc. Heck they were not even good looking gals…by desi standards. I was hip in the desh, and was firends with much better looking girl
Then there was this white gal who saw potential when I was a freshman in college. She noticed the BO thing and got me into the habit of using deodorant regularly. She bought me smart clothes. To cut the long story short, I started detesting desi ABC gals and dated only whites. If you talk to FOB’s guys that landed here in their mid to uppere teens, most of them have had similar experience. They will either go white or a FOB gal from back home. Teen years are very fragile emotionally, and desi gals just crush it with their own insecurities.
Its no wonder I am married to a white gal, and get nasty stares from desi gals at desi gatherings.
Why are Desi and white the only choices?
Those women…always trying to tinker with perfection…
Seriously, that’s hilarious
Just when I decided no more SM and all work today, a thread like this comes out. Is there a SM deaddiction program somewhere.
You know what I think? It’s all about conformity. At some level everyone likes a bit of rebellion and non conformity. If you are all raised and socialise with people who say being a doctor is the norm and all you talk about at social gatherings is what speciality your son and daughter will go into, it’s sexy to say ‘Yo, fuck that, I’m going to be an actor/electrician/stripper/performance artist’. And the hearts and panties of thousands of brown teenage girls being brainwashed a la Kaavya Vishwanathan go aquiver.
“Then there’s that non-ABCD non-FOB bunch. That group is really messed up”
Heyyyyy…
And just BLECH in general.
I should note that the desi girls whose hearts go aquiver will mostly marry the dude with £££ and $$$ whilst you languish teaching English to refugees and immigrants and dance naked in gay bars to pay the rent as you wait for your novel/film script to be recognised — but in the meantime, you can at least say, you were a rebel, were ‘a bit of rough’
Spoken like a true desi guy.
totally agree. Whats up with ABD girls giving the cold shoulder to FOBs. Maybe because not a lot of FOBs are doctors. Only engineers.
Dating Rule #1 for Desis: Date who you are attracted to, respect and admire. Dating Rule #2 for Desis: Marry who you love. Date Rule #3 for Desis: Not much else matters.
Brilliant stuff — I reckon Proust must have said something similar at some point in his life 😉
I know this is a cliche, but I still find it extremely true. Desi girls like guys who are assholes. argue it as much as you want, defend it in your minds, but when it comes down to the practical, its true.
Maybe Desi girls don’t realize it. Maybe they think its the “edge” or the “confidence” that attracts them. I don’t know. What i do know, is that the for the few sincerely nice desi guys out there, the lack of the following is held against them by desi girls. – the game playing, the first impression chutzpa, the attitude, the ability to say mundane things in highly academic lingo.
And even more progressive ABCD girls, who are amazing in their own right, don’t give nice guys a fair shake. its something about being sincere, nice, and straightforward that girls tend to find boring. So boring, that its not worth their time to figure out what beyond the surface.
A rule for talking to desi guys you meet over online matrimonials: If they’re from the motherland, don’t use slang, be sarcastic, or be sesquipedalian.
Chickpea:
I can understand how it feels when you’re branded as “intimidating” or as having a “dominant” personality. I’m by no means an alpha female, but I guess it doesn’t always come off like that.
The first guy my parents ever try to set me up with was some dude from India that my dad met when he was over there. Family from Amritsar, the guy was in Delhi studying to be a doctor. I originally had no desire to be set up with someone from the motherland, but I decided to be open-minded. Who knows, right? Right. His mom was a prof. of Punjabi literature so I was sweating his mom more than him. We chatted online for a month. I wasn’t up for marriage for a variety of reasons: I was 21 at the time, I was still getting over a bad break-up (of which my parents weren’t aware), and something just didn’t sit right with me about this guy. But I continued to give it a chance and kept getting to know him. He was an impressive guy: a self-proclaimed feminist, really funny, and it seemed that he was pretty charismatic. He expressed some pretty liberal opinions that I agreed with. My opinions were met with his agreement as well. We could have become really good friends. But like I said, I was still 21, didn’t want to be married at all, and something just didn’t feel right about the situation. My parents pressured me for a yes or no – so I said no. Apparently, no one ever told this guy. So when I heard from him after a couple of weeks, he was “breaking up” with me, on the record. His reasoning? “I really wanted to come to the US before getting married. But more importantly, you have a dominant personality, and I have a dominant personality, and when two dominant personalities get together, there can only be fireworks.”
I was cracking up most of the time because this fool didn’t know I’d already told my parents I wasn’t interested. What did bother me was that we had never argued, we seemed to agree on most things, had a similar sense of humor, but he still characterized me as having a “dominant” personality. Sidenote – I found out that three days later, he was engaged. vomit
But yeah, I’ve been told most of my life that I come off a bit aggressive, but last fall/winter, there was a period of about two months where at least 5 people (men and women) told me that I “intimidate men”, that I don’t act submissive enough, and that if I want to hook a Punjabi guy, what I’m supposed to do is act shy and submissive, and then slowly bring out my actual personality. Then by the time he’s hooked, it’s too late, and I can then be my “crazy self” (their words, not mine). It put me off a bit, but then I realized, those people haven’t dated me, and don’t know how I am in a bf/gf context. So whatevZ. Innit.
A lot of Desi girls do. But, on the other end, a lot of Desi guys want a Desi girl who makes them chase her, or causes drama. They might say they want a nice girl, but they want a girl who makes them work for it.
I’m sure there aren’t many of these typical guys/girls on SM though ::: battering eyelashes ::: We appreciate intelligence and kindness, don’t we? 🙂
Ah yes, what the world needs is an À la recherche du temps perdu set amongst the medical middle classes of Indo-American society — what you have to ask yourself though, BidiSmoker, is which one of your uncles is the Baron de Charlus character, sado-masochistic homosexual panderer, pimp and boy lover and all? 😉
That and callypgian kundis.
It seems like there’s quite a wide range of ages in the commenters. Would people mind putting down their age in from of their comments so others can properly put these comments in context? Might be helpful. Btw, I’m a 25 year old SBM.
Anyway, I have met so many diferent types of desi girls that I feel its almost impossible to come to any kind of general conclusion about DWD. I’ve had first dates get extremely steamy, but also third or fourth dates where the most exciting thing going on was the mango chutney. There are plenty of traditional girls, but also lots of more “free-spirited” ones. The one thing I have noticed is that the majority of desi girls are extremely social-minded. Like how many desi girls do i know who are on friendster/facebook? Like 1000. How many of ya’ll are on that??
Oh DAMN. And today is the day I’m stuck in lab and can’t play on the Internet all day.
I love desi guys, but the desi guys DO NOT love me back. Seriously…speed-dating and blind-date misadventures aside, I’ve been asked out by a grand total of ONE desi guy(s). And I live in Chicago, IL. And I get plenty of attention from guys in general, so I know I’m not just some socially inadept ugly loser 🙂 Indian guys are just not interested in me. And honestly, I hate to say this, but I think it has to do with my extracurricular activities — I was the girl in med school who produced The Vagina Monologues, organized Take Back the Night, was the leader of the pro-choice group, and president of the ob/gyn society. God forbid you be a woman with an opinion or care about gender issues because then you’re a feminist. (How shameful!) This falls more into what our own garbanzobean has been talking about (and my own brothers agree with me): desi guys are intimidated by a woman who’s successful in her career and has a strong opinion (GOD FORBID). (Prove me wrong guys! PROVE ME WRONG! And not in a gold-digging way because that’s gross.) I date plenty of ambitious hard-working guys I share alot in common with, and we happily support each other’s careers. That’s what normal people do. Why can’t the ambitious hard-working desi guys do this?
I don’t really care too much about it right now because I’m not interested in settling down for a long time but I totally see this being a problem in about 10 years when I want to get married (and I do want to marry an Indian).
Right now I’m dating a white guy in med school who’s hippie parents converted to Hinduism and sent him to boarding school in India for 14 years. It’s fun because…this is kind of like what dating a desi guy would be like! (I wouldn’t know.) We make inside jokes in Hindi (his is better than mine) and about Bollywood, but we totally didn’t have to play any stupid games. [Ooh..that’s another thing…if you talk to a desi guy in a social setting, you’re too forward and want to get married. There’s immediately this long-term potential there that scares him off. And her too, probably.]