I started reading Slate’s “Dear Prudence” because it reminded me of a beloved Siouxsie Sioux cover from 1983 (and you scoffed when I said I was a Goth in high school); I continued to read Prudie because her work is quite interesting. Beyond composing her advice column, every week, Prudence (also known as Emily Yoffe) chats online via the Washington Post with people, “about their romantic, family, financial, and workplace problems”. Today’s chat included a doozy of a problem, starring an EVIL BROWN MAN!
Q. Interracial Relationships: My long-term boyfriend recently informed me that, because I’m white and he’s Indian and Muslim, I could never be a good parent to children (that don’t yet exist) that are half his. Basically, he didn’t want to continue our relationship because he believes that Indian/Muslim children should have two Indian/Muslim parents, not one white parent and one Indian/Muslim parent (although if we had children, obviously half of their genes would come from me). When I tried to counter his arguments, he called me racist and said that I would never understand. I had to break up with him, but I’m still so enraged–I would be a great mom to any children, and I seriously think he’s wrong. I think he’s afraid to talk to his parents about our relationship (they have relatively firm religious beliefs, whereas he is nonreligious but values Muslim cultural traditions), so he decided that ending things was the best plan. How should I have reacted, and how do I react now, since he still wants to be friends? (Note: This isn’t about religion. He is quite firmly against organized religion, so he would never ask me to take up any religious beliefs, and offering to do that wouldn’t help the situation, as it would fly in the face of his beliefs about organized religion.)
A: I’m afraid that when someone says he finds you unsuitable as a potential mother to his children, he wins that argument by default. You are understandably enraged at the end of this relationship. But over the long run, you will be happier that you didn’t try to force someone to merge his DNA with yours just to show you how wrong he was. For some people, when it comes time to make marriage and reproduction decisions, their spouse’s ethnic or religious background doesn’t matter. Other people find it does. Of course it’s painful that your boyfriend has now informed you he’s in this latter camp after several years together. But since you want to become a mother, you have to move on and find someone else you can spend your life with. And for your own emotional health, that may mean taking a pass on his offer of “friendship.”
Oh, dear. I don’t want to seem unsympathetic to this woman’s complaints because, sister, we’ve all been there…brown, white, black, olive…who among us hasn’t been blue over love? As someone who spent the totality of her teens convinced that she would never, ever have a boyfriend and would never, ever be loved, I will always feel for anyone whose heart is aching. It’s pure awfulness with a chaser of real pain. There’s no denying how brutal rejection is, how it reaches in to your core and eviscerates you as if you are an extra in an extra-vile video game. It hurts. It hurts so very much.Having typed all that– and though it is none of my business except to the extent that she asked a public question knowing that I might witness it as well as the answer she was seeking– I have to say that I am skeptical. Not about the veracity of her suddenly being single: certainly not. Not even about how her ex-bf is at best, a spineless, feeble wimp and at worst, a huge, festering penis. No…I’m skeptical that he’s a nasty old racist, which is what the people whom I overheard discussing this at lunch called him.
Frankly, Mr. Shankly…I think he decided that he didn’t see a future with this woman, probably for a few reasons, and so he wanted to end this relationship. Maybe he was too much of a coward to end things in a forthright fashion, so he started spouting gibberish like “White people suck at parenting!”, knowing that she’d do the needful and kick him to the curb. Maybe, as harsh as it may sound, he had an epiphany that she wasn’t worth fighting for– and a fight is what it would have taken. Maybe he loved her and during hazy, blissful moments with her, he felt his mind wander to that blurred daydream-like glimpse we each occasionally see in to our own futures– and maybe he saw her there, too…but upon later reflection, he realized that he couldn’t bear to commence the necessary negotiations, the grave discussions, the inevitable arbitration between two, disparate people which is required to decide how to get married, whether to baptize children and even, what to feed them.
I also think that her intro, “My long-term boyfriend recently informed me that, because I’m white and he’s Indian and Muslim, I could never be a good parent to children” might potentially, perhaps just a wee bit possibly be tainted by her rage– and why wouldn’t it be? We’re human, colored by emotions and shaped by bias. If we are brown, or “ethnic”, we are colored and shaped by loyalty, obligation and especially guilt. What do we owe to the people who dreamed a dream in a faraway nation, who left, who sacrificed, who suffered, who quietly worked, lived and loved like protagonists in a Jhumpa Lahiri novel, only to be crushed when we didn’t get in to Ivy League schools, and then didn’t take the MCAT or the LSAT or the GMAT and THEN refused to get married by the time we were 25? What do we owe the men and women who created us, who are frail, flawed, selfish and yet, saintly? Could anyone unlike us ever understand that gnaw within? That stubborn pull to please?
Do we ever understand it?
Here is what I like to think about this story, because at my core, I am an idealist. Someone who believes that amor vincit omnia and that good lurks everywhere, even in online advice columns and the lives of those hurt enough to seek them out…and the crazy bit of conjecture I’m about to bestow is buoyed by his desire to still be friends.
I think he may love her. I think he may love his parents more. And I think he knew that if he was an offensive caricature of a “foreigner”, if he rejected her for something she has no control over, suddenly and without warning, he would, in some bizarre way, make it easier for her to get over him, because if she was seething, she’d want nothing more than to see him leaving, even if she was confused and outraged and wronged as he left. That, oddly enough, might be easier than being honest about filial loyalty and facing question after question in a hostile, heart-broken interrogation filled with “But, WHY aren’t I good enough?”s. Sometimes, it is much easier to be a dick, to kick a puppy so that it doesn’t follow you, to turn on your lover in such spectacularly appalling fashion that she doesn’t even recognize you, let alone agonize over the incomprehensible way that you order your priorities.
But as I said, I am an idealist. A dabbler in fiction-creating. A sucker for stars crossed.
For all I or anyone else knows, she unflinchingly conveyed her story exactly as it went down…in which case, brown or not, he sucks. I hope he didn’t mean what he said about her potential as a Mother; I wonder if she was lying down at that point, her tears streaming to her ears, obscuring her hearing. That’s an excruciating way to attack a person, to insinuate that not only is she unworthy of his love and life, but that she’s also not skilled enough to nurture her own children (!), simply because she isn’t exactly like him. Such a sentiment is ugly, afflictive, the lowest sort of blow. I cringe at the thought of it.
Still, after all I’ve seen and heard…well, just know that the fanciful, “maybe”-laden explanation I offered wasn’t the product of my fecund imagination. And that while dozens, if not hundreds hate on this man for what he’s done, I am reminded of others who did similar, who are not honorable, but who are also brown…and human. They, too, need to be loved…just like everybody else does.
Thanks Anna for posting this, I love the Slate as well. You are right-it sucks to get rejected-at any age and no matter what the case is. But trying to get somebody to love you who at their core just does not sucks a bit more in my opinion and is generally just a waste of time, it never works. You can get rejected if you are brown also….if you are not the “right” type of brown, if you don’t make perfect roti, if you don’t speak hindi fluently or if you are not a Dr…..so don’t be fooled-love is hard and sometimes unfair….no matter who you are.
No. And it’s brutal. Ugh.
She’s better off without him, no matter how much this hurts. I hope she finds someone who is wonderful to her, who makes her feel blissful. I hope we all do.
“We’re human, colored by emotions and shaped by bias. If we are brown, or “ethnic†(I’m looking at you, too, Jews), we are colored and shaped by loyalty, obligation and especially guilt. What do we owe to the people who dreamed a dream in a faraway nation, who left, who sacrificed, who suffered, who quietly worked, lived and loved like protagonists in a Jhumpa Lahiri novel, only to be crushed when we didn’t get in to Ivy League schools, and then didn’t take the MCAT or the LSAT or the GMAT and THEN refused to get married by the time we were 25? What do we owe the men and women who created us, who are frail, flawed, selfish and yet, saintly? Could anyone unlike us ever understand that gnaw within? That stubborn pull to please? Do we ever understand it?”
You’ve just captured in one paragraph what I’ve been unable to articulate to my American boyfriend for a year now. Thank you. This is beautiful, and it’s gems like this that keep me reading this site.
But didn’t it strike you as a rather common desi response(and by this I mean a specifically desi-male) to a non-desi Significant Other response? Or , in the interests of being fair and balanced(Ha) the response of the representative of a traditional society to a Westerner. If I had a paisa for the number of desi guys I have heard give similar (bad wife, bad mother, bad character) responses to women whom they are willing to fulfill all conjugal duties with, except that final stage of making it final. The parental blackmail that goes on behind the scenes ( not like us, no sanskars) and so on. That’s NOT racial?
Another possibility, which I have witnessed first hand. The mother of the offending child suddenly takes ill. She is not faking, mind you. She also starts to have accidents in the kitchen, such as cutting her fingers with a knife on a cutting board she has had for over 20 years, needing to get stitches. She becomes careless while performing puja, and finds that her sari has caught fire. Glasses and dishes start to slip out of her hand. This goes on until the offending child breaks off the relationship. Soon after the difficult breakup, mom is back to her old self – simply threatening herself, rather than actually acting upon those threats.
Yes, it could be all that. Or it could be that, like many who wish to propagate language and culture instead of just genes, he felt that she would fail at providing any of that. Which she obviously would. And the alternative to his eyes was nauseating. Cause inasmuch as we can stereotype anything, white people hate or are indifferent to their families. Even and especially their nuclear family.
Of course, I’m just projecting.
4: And how often is it the other way? I’ve definitely been dumped for being brown–in almost exactly this scenario sans the dickishness. I’m also pretty damn sure it was a major factor in two other stalled romances. In many ways my family is hypertraditional, and we’re all really religious, but my parents have welcomed my current (totally awesome) non-desi boyfriend with open arms for the very simple reason that they love seeing how much he loves me. Yet with respect to the stalled romances, everyone assumed it was my family that was standing in the way. Why is it so crazy to think that maybe parents who gave up everything and changed everything about their life might actually be used to not having overly rigid expectations for what the future of their line, while the native Apple Pie moms and dads might be the ones balking at tanner descendants?
I’ve directly watched 4 Anglo-Saxon mothers-in-law give their East Asian daughters-in-law the most scathing, obnoxious, racist treatment you could imagine a woman doling out to the mother of her grandchildren. We are not the only ones with parents to please, believe you me.
Isn’t this largely a class issue? I.e., those with not much in their life, care more about ethnicity (as some sort of a consolation prize). At the higher-class end, nobody cares–everyone is bonking left and right. See, e.g., Hollywood, Princess Di (w/ Dodi Fayed), etc. Another example–rich Chinese in Hong Kong will date anyone, poor ones stick to Chinese. Same, same everywhere.
I am a Hindu girl who dated a Muslim boy once upon a time, who told me all the reasons why our relationship had no future due to his parents approval. Although he didn’t have the balls to break it off, just informed me of all the reasons why I wasn’t good enough for him. Then he had a crying fit when I left him for another guy. LOL. But just goes to show you that it’s not just brown against white–it’s brown against brown too.
I think you summed your post up when you said “I’m an idealist.” The guy sounds like a racist to me (as well as a huge douche). Filled with the sort of casual racism and not-so-casual racism that most of us as South Asians have grown up around and instinctively inherited from our own parents. At some point we have to grow a pair and stop using our parents as excuses for everything under the sun. Maybe he broke up with her because of something else like you’ve suggested, but that doesn’t change the fact that the argument he used against her was incredibly racist.
“Cause inasmuch as we can stereotype anything, white people hate or are indifferent to their families. Even and especially their nuclear family.”
You can’t possibly be serious. It’s a stereotype, yes, but a false one in most cases, and pretty offensive at that.
Good post, anna. I agree, I think that guy was just trying to come up with an excuse because he just wanted to break up, and this was an easy way out. I’m a white American married to an Indian man, and our experience with his family was overwhelmingly positive. All the other intercultural relationships I’ve seen (in real life and online) have had a wide spectrum of responses from the families, from negative to positive. I feel awful for girls like the writer to Dear Prudence, but I think her experience had more to do with her boyfriend’s commitment to her than to religion/his parents. It was easier for both of them to blame race/culture than just to be honest with each other that their relationship wasn’t going anywhere.
While not the central theme of this blog entry, the disconnection between religion and culture struck me here. I am an atheist but many of my cultural values are probably of Hindu-Indian origin. And when I say Hindu-Indian, I don’t mean people who follow Hindu religion, I also include Christians, Muslims, and Sikhs who grew up in India.
I’ve seen the same with many of my American friends. They are atheists or agnostics, but their values are primarily Christian in nature. It’s a fascinating subject if you think about it.
In my specific case, if you specialize it even further, my culture is Hindu-Indian-Mallu since I grew up in Kerala. Oh well 🙂
Wow. you were goth!
I think the Indian dude’s issue is mainly insecurity, as is the case for most “traditionalists”: the idea of not having the approval of your parents is intolerable, so that fear is wrapped in arrogance, pride, and callousness when confronted by something as powerful as love. Religion hardly ever has a real place in it…and as Emme implied, it’s not exactly a racist thing. I know US born desis who were dismissed along similar lines for being too western/coconut.
That is a horrible way to break up — by saying someone will not make a good mother. That is one badly raised son and reflects badly on the parenting skills he received.
If the cultural and religious traditions are not in sync, say that and break up. Why bring up parenting at all. There are good mothers and bad mothers and no culture or tradition has a monopoly on them. I am a 50+ woman and have lived in the US for over 30 years. For long I believed Indian people were very attentive and loving to their aged parents in a way that Americans are not. For the last decade or so I have been so ashamed of that attitude. My co-workers, many in my age group take elderly parents into their family when needed. Take parents on medical appointments, and move in with them when there is a need and provide to the best of their ability. There is no cultural or religious superiority in these matters.
pv,
The lady who wrote to the website/newspaper was putting things from her perspective. Maybe what he said was, “I don’t think our ideas on parenting will be mutually compatible”. She interpreted that as “He thinks I won’t be a good mother”. It’s kinda easy to pass judgement after hearing just one side of the story.
I read that assuming that he was probably more tactful when he said whatever and she, being a jilted lover, took it hard (which is totally understandable.)
I really don’t understand how anyone can read this and cry “racism” though. The fact is we grew up with certain expectations as to what kind of family we wanted to have and how we were going to raise our children. Suppose you get married to someone that you love, but is of a different cultural background. Suppose you get hit by a car and die. How are your children going to be raised? Will they ever know who you were or where you came from? Will they carry any part of you with them? And by that I mean the real you. Not your chromosomes, but your culture, your traditions. If it’s important to you that they do then it doesn’t matter how much you love the other person, if you don’t believe they could or would be inclined to do it it’s not going to work. You just fundamentally want different things out of life. It’s not fair, but life rarely is.
I was (sorta) in this guy’s shoes – just that I didn’t declare to my then gf that she would be a bad mother. I only wondered if our cultural differences would impact our children. I went through a terrible time trying to reconcile my Hindu upbringing with my gf’s European culture, in the context of leading a married life.
But my story has a happy ending as I did make up my mind eventually – and I am glad I made the decision to marry her. We have a daughter and a son and I am still grappling about how to impart my culture and so on – but these things were discussed (in excess) prior to the marriage.
The point is, there are dickheads, circumstantial dickheads and nice guys who are incorrectly assumed to be dickheads – the guy in this story could be any of those.
ANNA, good to see you posting again, and yes, I can totally believe you were (or would have been) a Goth in high school. The meme that forms the premise of this post is certainly out there – but the particular instantiation you cite (the excerpt from the online Agony Aunt column) seems transparently manufactured. Not that the agonies appearing in such Agony Aunt/Uncle columns are always complete pieces of fiction, but, especially because identities of the agonizers and the Aunts are suppressed, the writer in charge of the column often just manufactures both the agony letter and the advice out of whole cloth, assuming that nobody will take it too seriously in the first place (and often including an explicit disclaimer just to be sure). The more conscientious ones reach into the great zeitgeist for a meme that finds some resonance with their readership, so that even the agonizers (agonists?) reading the columns, primed to believe in them, don’t find it absurd. Sometimes they just do it so lazily or ineptly that they have to be called out on it, as here.
Overall, perhaps Agony Aunt columns and their online counterparts probably do some good, but let’s not take the ‘letters’ people write them too literally, or take even their (often highly general and non-specific) ‘advice’ too seriously.
As an Indian-American (like many others responding I’m sure) this issue hit close to home. It’s much easier in theory to say that tradition and culture shouldn’t take priority over being over openminded about race. I have a cousin who married a Caucasian girl, and surprise, she’s more concerned about their future kids being aware of his semi-hindu influence then he is.
Also an idealist, I’d like to add that the writer to Slate is better off – the Indian-Muslim guy doesn’t seem like he has much of a spine. If he loves his parents more, that’s his issue. But she would face the very real possibility of always being second or third in his life – to his parents.
Marriage is an arrangement, love is something else. This is not rejection, he just grew old suddenly.
Not entirely on topic, but I just came across these.
“A Style of Loving”
Light now restricts itself To the top half of trees; The angled sun Slants honey-coloured rays That lessen to the ground As we bike through The corridor of Palm Drive. We two
Have reached a safety the years Can claim to have created: Unconsummated, therefore Unjaded, unsated. Picnic, movie, ice-cream; Talk; to clear my head Hot buttered rum — coffee for you; And so not to bed.
And so we have set the question Aside, gently. Were we to become lovers Where would our best friends be? You do not wish, nor I To risk again This savoured light for noon’s High joy or pain.
— Vikram Seth
Also see the last stanza here
Vijaya,
I just wanted to point out that the usage of “Caucasian” to mean “white” is technically incorrect. Asian Indians (of Aryan and Dravidian origin) are classified as Caucasians. So you could say “white caucasian” or maybe just “white” even though it may feel a little gross to explcitly use a reference to color. Of course everyone probably understood what you meant, so perhaps I am being pedantic here 🙂
Hey Mutineers: just wanted to duck in and thank everyone for the sane and civil discussion. When I wrote this post last night, I let my friends know about it via FB and my Twitter (because it’s an exceedingly rare thing for me to blog at SM these days). 🙁
Two disheartening things happened:
1) The link to this post on FB immediately had more comments than the actual post, because old-skool readers have given up on commenting here, but felt safe on FB.
2) I received a kind email from my best friend advising me that due to the subject matter of this essay, I’d be better off not allowing comments, period.
Well, thank you for proving my friend wrong…and for sharing your very personal experiences with each other and me. This is the Mutiny I was proud to help start and the one that I hope can still exist, no matter what has changed during six (!) long years of Sepia Maintaining. The reason I don’t write is simple; I don’t have the time or energy I once had to moderate for 8+ hours a day (yes, I/we really did that. for years.). You are reminding me that such intensive monitoring may not be required– and so, the next time I feel like writing a post but immediately nix it, because of the fear of ugly comment threads, I will remember this.
Thank you.
Well, dang! Now I want to know what the FB comments were! I’m glad the comments so far have proved your friend wrong. Thanks for giving us the chance to comment.
Anna-please don’t stop posting on SM I love your posts!! They always make me think and sometimes cry….I will never forget your post on ING….probably the best yet and one that really made me angry but also made me take action!! I am not your friend on FB but maybe I should be…..I will have to find you.
I (white girl married to brown man) once had a white girlfriend who dated a brown friend of hers for a while. This was a girl who worked mostly with black and Latino communities for her job, who excoriated her rich East Coast relatives for their racism, and who was devastated when she got dumped by a Filipino guy for very similar reasons to the one in Prudie’s column. And then she told me that her relationship with the brown guy would never last, because if they had kids, they’d have brown eyes. Uh, what? She explained that since she had blue eyes, her kids “would never be able to relate” to her. I was like, you barely relate to your own crazy mother as it is, that’s nothing to do with eye color! It really shocked me at the time, how insane it sounded when she seemed so happy with him in every other way. So yeah, I guess the crazy goes all ways when it comes to love…
How can a brown eyed daughter ever relate to a mother who can never remember when. . .
we used to sing sha-la-la la-la la-la la-la la-laa dee dah
Couldn’t resist this. Now I have to write another sentence, because otherwise the spam filter thinks I am spamming.
as an idealist coming from a childhood of forced inculcation in idealism, specifically that all people are good and love conquers all, i understand the how and the why of looking at his decision as something any one of us may possibly make. howeva…
I look at this as an investment of time–if she spent a year with this person, say even 6 months, that’s a 6-12 months that she could have spent working/sleeping/studying/playing/looking for someone less chickenshit. If you think that your immigrant-story-castle’s guardian-familial-approval dragon must be appeased only with an offering of a co-ethnic/co-religionist (when ethnicity and religion are not your personal peeves), even a full suit of armor and a fearsome wizard at your side will be of no help in granting lasting happiness. Why make the offering at all? Screw the castle, the dragon and anything else that gets in your (our) way.
I’ve known people who suddenly wake up one day (often in their late 20s/early 30s) and realize that they can’t, in fact see themselves with someone “different” for the rest of their lives. It sucks for the person whom they are dating at the time, but it happens. My cousin who’d regulate every shade of that BUT brown had this stunning realization and broke it off with his non-brown gf…and then asked me if I knew anyone Desi who was single. I nearly fainted.
21: So you could say “white caucasian” or maybe just “white” even though it may feel a little gross to explcitly use a reference to color.
Interesting you should say this. I share this sentiment (i.e. finding explicit references to skin colour somewhat gross.).
I was surprised, therefore, when a (white female) acquaintance asked me why I kept using terms like ‘Caucasian’ or even ‘American’ when she could tell from the context that I really meant ‘white’ – which – in her opinion – was both more accurate and carried no slight.
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that and have chalked it down as a data point in the always ambiguous world of sensitive yet accurate communication.
@ugly truth:
I’m actually pretty scared that will happen to me. I’m an Indian girl in a relationship with a white guy who really, really loves Indian culture. He’s actually taken me to mandir a couple of times, learned how to cook the basics, and is totally immersed in whatever my family does. But damn, at the end of day, I just don’t know….
The problem is that I simply cannot find politically active, socially aware, liberal, funny, folk music loving desi guys. Seriously. I have absolutely no interest in the standard arrogant engineer-doctor-IT-finance sector Desi guy and I’m having a helluva time finding someone who, like me, doesn’t conform to desi stereotypes. Money truly doesn’t matter to me– I want a guy who thinks camping is fun and nature is beautiful and that fighting for the rights of the underprivileged should be a way of life.
Has anyone found Desi guys like this? If so, where? I’m 27…time to make some serious decisions.
and @anna—
There are some amazing posters here at SM, but you are among the best. Your posts are heartfelt, genuine, and easily relatable. I don’t need to be entrenched in the politics of that caste or this community to follow them. You are, quite simply, the Barack Obama-type orator of the brown community 🙂 Well done.
obviously anonymous – it sounds like you found yourself a great guy who happens to not share your skin colour. So what’s with the “I just don’t know”? You’re chasing a pipe dream. You can’t find the perfect partner – and if a man’s only imperfection is the wrong colour of skin, well…
You American desis do not know how good you have it. Living in a country where there are hardly any non-whites, let alone Indians, I don’t get the luxury to choose whether I want to date a desi man or not.
The Contrarian Desi is an elusive creature. Being rarely seen outside of captivity, little is known of its habits in the wild and its migrations are poorly understood. Some claim to have seen them at hipster watering holes and the occasional ska concert. More often they can be seen clinging to the walls wondering how best to approach the attractive blonde at the bar.
Disclaimer: I’m not implying anything about Obvi. Anon or her beau when is say this. Some of my female East Asian friends have expressed annoyance at being fetishized. Not in a pervy sense, but in the sense of having a guy care about you because you are a manifestation of an ethnicity that he admires rather than for just being you.
Once again, not suggesting this is Obvi. Anon’s situation. Just saying that just because a decent man or woman is informed about and likes your culture doesn’t, on its own, necessarily make for a good match.
This whole dating thing is fraught with perils.
Sounds like a job for Sepia Destiny. Again. 😉
Thank you Yoga Fire. I have been in past relationships with people who are either too scared to get close to Indian culture or who overly fetishize it. My current partner befuddles me on this point. He is genuinely interested in the culture, but sometimes his eagerness get to me a little– like he’s recently taken to reading the gita and wants to join a study circle of people discussing it. He wants to exclusively watch bollywood movies and is obsessed with bhangra. Is this just someone who wants to know more about a different culture? Or someone who has a voyeuristic interest in anything non-white, and just wants to be ‘different’? How can you tell the difference?
Going out on a limb, you might never find this person not bc they don’t exist buy bc your expressed standards are both vague and exacting. Me thinks you will have this thought as you watch the next desi guy go by without an inkling of an urge to attempt to see if there’s relationship potential. It seems like people who want to find people to date usually do find a way, otherwise its lip service guys or in the reverse situation take with a grain of salt. Assuming you’re a folk loving progressive, what would be your rxn to a guy saying pretty much the same thing, knowing you were right there?
@ obviously anonymous I’m surprised that you have problems finding politically active, socially aware, liberal, funny, folk music loving desi guys. Those are the only guys i know, but we are also engineer’s doctors etc so I dont know if that will mess things up.
Actually I have always been in the opposite boat, I was never able to find any liberal, funny, easy going indian girls that didnt want to change something about me or make me feel like I wasnt good enough. I always felt like because i wasnt a doctor or making at least 6 figures, I wasnt good enough for them.
*reverse situation girls
And thus did the next NY Times marriage article on the Sepia news feed announce the matrimonial alliance of Obvi and Suman.
Thank you for all your comments, this really has been helpful. Suman, I’ve cruised shaadi.com a few times to see if I could find anyone who fit the description of someone I’d like to get to know better and I seriously haven’t seen anyone I could forsee having a conversation with. Everyone just seems so shallow. Without getting creepy, do you or anyone else have ideas of where to find non-mainstream desi guys?
This problem is compounded by the fact that I live in a small college town where I’m doing an advanced degree. Not too many desis to be found.
Interestingly, I find that I have a lot in common with guys from India. They love to talk politics and they’re typically more informed that your average indian-american guy. However, in my experience, they tend to be so socially regressive (anti gay rights, weird ideas about gender), that it just stops at a certain point.
Thanks for everyone’s perspectives.
Wait! Not too many desis to be found pursuing an advanced degree in a college town?
I . . . I don’t even know what to say to that. . .
Well, there are lot of Indians from India (engineering, IT, whatever), and I’ve tried that pool and failed for aforementioned reasons.
I’m in the midwest. Like, really in the midwest. Not too many Indian-American guys out here that I have seen.
Sepia Mutiny Meetups.
No joke.
I’d be weirded out too by obviously anonymouses boyfriend, but that’s because I’m fairly detached from Indian culture in general. I’d think he was trying to outdo me at being desi!
I just feel a bit sorry for her boyfriend since she’s mentally looking to ‘upgrade’ already.
What exactly do you think a desi man will bring into your relationship that a white man cannot? Perhaps your discomfort level comes similarly from not being very interested in reading the Gita yourself, or going to the mandir. That, however, is not something which has any relation to the colour of his skin. There are even Indians who have similar interests.
I have known many many people who were deeply immersed in Indian culture, and I’m not talking about the latest Bollywood films. I’m talking about Carnatic music, and Bharatanatyam, the real deals. It is not ‘weird’ for a non-desi to be so interested in Indian culture. Some people just feel a deep affinity to a culture that is not their own.
obvia@31:
You cannot go about asking for liberal, funny, camp-loving, …. This is like going to a store and ordering a product by specifying color, model, make, …
So what’s the best approach? The body will tell you. Do you feel relaxed when you talk to the man you are in a relationship with? Never mind the content of the conversation; what’s important is whether you felt relaxed.
Someone just wrote in saying in general terms they fit the above criteria. Maybe you’re just not into desi guys and its you and nor them (us)
*not
Or, with this being the internet, it’s entirely plausible that guy is in Wasilla, Alaska for all she knows and going “OMG WE SHOULD HANG OUT!” because someone vaguely affirmed corresponding to a vague list of preferences would be kind of silly.