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I'm not sure why this keeps happening.

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CloudLayer
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29 Apr 2012, 11:13 am

Are you being serious? I can't tell.

I understand pride in a certain region having a history of people who eat this and dress like this and listen to this music and wear their hair in a style that was "built" for hair of a certain type, but if taken to the extreme it can make people feel like dirt/scum, basically make them feel nonhuman and excluded, if they find themselves in such an ethnically homogenous place that makes no effort to accommodate something as basic as a differing physical appearance. I mean trying to prevent McDonalds and KFC from taking over a wonderful historical district is one thing but when it gets down to the basic things you absolutely can't change about yourself like appearance - populations change, it's actually necessary to prevent stagnancy. It's happened all throughout history as well, with trade and conquerings and seafaring and all that. Most people in the world wouldn't even be alive today were it not for intercultural contacts that caused all sorts of civilization advancements in medicine and city-building and trade and all that, I mean the population would literally be way, way less, which you could argue could be good, but you also probably wouldn't be alive either.



rabbittss
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29 Apr 2012, 11:38 am

CloudLayer wrote:
Are you being serious? I can't tell.

I understand pride in a certain region having a history of people who eat this and dress like this and listen to this music and wear their hair in a style that was "built" for hair of a certain type, but if taken to the extreme it can make people feel like dirt/scum, basically make them feel nonhuman and excluded, if they find themselves in such an ethnically homogenous place that makes no effort to accommodate something as basic as a differing physical appearance. I mean trying to prevent McDonalds and KFC from taking over a wonderful historical district is one thing but when it gets down to the basic things you absolutely can't change about yourself like appearance - populations change, it's actually necessary to prevent stagnancy. It's happened all throughout history as well, with trade and conquerings and seafaring and all that. Most people in the world wouldn't even be alive today were it not for intercultural contacts that caused all sorts of civilization advancements in medicine and city-building and trade and all that, I mean the population would literally be way, way less, which you could argue could be good, but you also probably wouldn't be alive either.


I'm being extremely serious. I am well aware of all of that, I am a History Major. But that changes nothing. I still will never date some one from a different phenotype. I'm not trying to avoid different people, I enjoy eating various ethnic cuisines, I enjoy listening to world music, I think Sidney Poitier is one of the best actors of all times.. But I was simply trying to say that if I lived in a place where people who looked like me were still a clear majority, people wouldn't make as big of a deal out of me wanting to date another person who looked like me.



CloudLayer
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29 Apr 2012, 12:43 pm

How is it a horrible state then, is what I'm getting at? Being alive is horrible? Even if you took away Sidney Poitier and all foods you deem ethnic how did your family lines flourish so long as to bring you into existence without essential contact with people outside your ethnic group (let's say even if every single one of your ancestors is traceable to the same small region in Europe)? Being as you live in America, you wouldn't be here without Europeans travelling here and coming into very close contact with Native Americans in a fight for the best land at the very least. In this case even though 64% of Americans identify as white, non-Hispanic, and if you'd call anyone in this category someone who looks like you, people who look like you in your opinion are not "still" the majority here because Native Americans were originally the majority - so how can cross-culturation with people who don't look like you be "horrible" when it's the organic state that you can't take the fact of your existence separately from?

What characterizes someone who looks like you? If for whatever reasons you are only able to be attracted to (based on your examples) women with very pale skin, light-colored eyes, and light-colored hair, wouldn't that mean you could just as easily say "I'm not attracted to white women unless they have Features A, B, and C?" Lots of people who fall into the "white" category do not have this features, many have none of them, but the only racial "swath" you've explicitly cut out is "black women" when your desired specifications are so specific as to exclude most white women as a group as well.

That's what I think gets under people's skin, the sense that they're being treated differently (favorably or unfavorably) based on whether or not they conform to very specific pre-set preferences. People want to be appreciated and given a chance for who they uniquely are.
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DogsWithoutHorses that's nice of you to say! Esp. seeing how much I'm just rambling.



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29 Apr 2012, 12:47 pm

DogsWithoutHorses wrote:
I'm interested in advice for dealing with this kind of situation (except the race thing) too, with the genders reversed. Well, I'm interested in what this community thinks a woman should do about men she isn't interested in vs. what about should do about women he's not interested in.

You don't have to say you don't find them attractive (esp. if it's because they are black, there are some thought that should stay in our heads in polite company). You can say you aren't interested. It doesn't sound like a big difference and practically it's really not but one is polite but firm and the other is kinda douchy.
Also it's bot a delusion that big or black can be beautiful, people with other perspectives than you aren't deluded.

I totally feel your frustration about being hit on by people you don't really want to be hit on by. It's an issue I'd also appreciate some help navigating but when I ask I usually get told something along the lines of "that's how it is" or "it's just so hard being attractive isn't it :roll: "

It is hard, it's awkward and sometimes, in my experience with men, it can get scary and abusive real fast.


Tell them they're not your taste. Don't pretend you want to be their friend or give them some cheap excuse.

@OP:

When an unattractive girl is interested in me, I ignore her. This usually works out in the end, even though she can be annoying for a couple of weeks if you do.



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29 Apr 2012, 12:57 pm

CloudLayer wrote:
How is it a horrible state then, is what I'm getting at? Being alive is horrible? Even if you took away Sidney Poitier and all foods you deem ethnic how did your family lines flourish so long as to bring you into existence without essential contact with people outside your ethnic group (let's say even if every single one of your ancestors is traceable to the same small region in Europe)? Being as you live in America, you wouldn't be here without Europeans travelling here and coming into very close contact with Native Americans in a fight for the best land at the very least. In this case even though 64% of Americans identify as white, non-Hispanic, and if you'd call anyone in this category someone who looks like you, people who look like you in your opinion are not "still" the majority here because Native Americans were originally the majority - so how can cross-culturation with people who don't look like you be "horrible" when it's the organic state that you can't take the fact of your existence separately from?

What characterizes someone who looks like you? If for whatever reasons you are only able to be attracted to (based on your examples) women with very pale skin, light-colored eyes, and light-colored hair, wouldn't that mean you could just as easily say "I'm not attracted to white women unless they have Features A, B, and C?" Lots of people who fall into the "white" category do not have this features, many have none of them, but the only racial "swath" you've explicitly cut out is "black women" when your desired specifications are so specific as to exclude most white women as a group as well.

That's what I think gets under people's skin, the sense that they're being treated differently (favorably or unfavorably) based on whether or not they conform to very specific pre-set preferences. People want to be appreciated and given a chance for who they uniquely are.
--------
DogsWithoutHorses that's nice of you to say! Esp. seeing how much I'm just rambling.


Oh certainly, I dismiss a lot of white women as well, just as you said. The difference is, they don't approach me in the same numbers that black girls do, nor do they tend to blow up at me the same way. That's the reason I singled out that one specific group, because of their particularly animated reactions to my dismissal of them. I do my best to be polite, but I have been told that I roll my eyes at people even when I don't realize I'm doing it.

For the record, I can actually trace every single branch of my family tree back to England or Germany for the last 600 years. Before that, it gets a bit spotty, my German isn't good enough to dig deeper, and the Reformation in England destroyed a lot of church records. Suffice it to say, I don't identify as "American" and would happily go to either of those other two countries. To be honest, I wish they hadn't come here. I hate this country and want to leave it, but i'm not able to go back to where I feel I belong. By all means, if the Native Americans want the place, it was theirs first, I'd happily give it back to them.