Inter-racial dating Issues

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I grew up in NJ, and now live in Florida. People are the same everywhere, it seems.


That sounds incredibly lame, that behavior! No wonder most people won't date outside their culture.


I am not sure how to handle these things,either. One note of humor: I was walking through a store with my boyfriend, and noticing the stares, I said to him: "Oh, the pain of being Royalty. All this attention, everywhere we go. We have to be nice to our subjects, even though it is tiresome."

So what´s wrong with caucasian/white guys? Not good enough for you, or what´s the deal?

Assumptions are being made here. And they are incorrect!

I understand. Seems to me then, reading your comment, that you would consider dating caucasian guys just as much as black guys. Thanks anyway for sheding some light on this issue.

No problem! I have never, in my life, had issues with people from other cultures. And, I have dated men from many different cultural backgrounds, as well. My topic is about feeling uncomfortable with the attention we get, as a couple.

And here is a good example of this. I saw nothing in hartzofspace's post where it said anything about a black guy or a whatever guy for that matter.

What does it matter who she was dating? She was just dating a guy and she is bringing up issues such as this that make people like you react.

Ive dated a few guys with a different racial back ground to my own and was disheartened by peoples reactions. This was about 10 years ago now though, I had several friends say nasty comments to me includeing one black friend, I found people stared and gave scowls aswell. I had a child with an iranian boyfriend and people were very funny about that. I had lots of people comment to me about that and say the most racist things. I moved further north to a place with much more multicultural mix of people and its great here as my daughter fits in well and has lots of asian friends at school and their is no racist bullying here and it feels more relaxed walking about town. I think people can be very judgemental about women anyway and judgemental about what they view as respectable, I think it is a reflection of them (and their prejudice) rather than a reflection on anything bad about me (or my family).

(I find if I feel upset about people staring I dont look at them and then I cant see them looking, I pretend to myself that their not looking.)

Maybe because it is so 'obvious'.

If a protestant and a catholic walk down the street holding hands strangers would not know. Issues would only come from people who know them.

If a black/white couple are out together anyone can spot the difference and start causing trouble.

It's just something you will have to get used to. After a while, the novelty wears off for anyone who sees you repeatedly, and anyone who stares or makes a big deal about it is probably behind the times -- that's their problem, not yours.

100% of my relationships have been interracial, and honestly, you don't even notice after a while. Now, this is coming from someone who lives in a very cosmopolitan and diverse city (Los Angeles), so your experience could be more extreme elsewhere.

With regards to negative consequences, especially harassment and the like, I really wouldn't worry about it. This isn't the 1950s or 60s, interracial relationships have been out in the open for quite a while, and almost no one can be bothered to take extreme action. You are probably more likely to be a victim of regular crime than racial harassment.

You may get some negative feedback from people who view you or the other person as "stealing" from their race -- in those cases, understand that those people's lives are far more pathetic than yours, and that they have a lot of pain and other issues that drive them in that direction. Your relationship is not the cause of their problems, nor is it the tipping point.

I was with a black lady for a long time but I never noticed anybody disapproving. I'm surprised to see that anybody gives a damn who goes out with who these days. I'd get a bit anxious when we were walking past a bunch of skinheads or something, but even they never started anything.

But we did have issues. I never dared to tell my mum about her, because Mum might well have been very worried and upset - she was prone to go ape about seemingly unimportant stuff, and after she died the rest of my family told me I'd probably been wise to keep it quiet from her. It was no big thing for me because I hardly ever saw my parents, and didn't really consider my love life to be any of their business, but my partner wasn't happy that I kept her secret like that. I''m afraid a lot of cultures put a very high value on assimilating partners into their families.

I also had a lot of strain from her pressure to conform to what I saw as arbitrary and outmoded conventions.....she'd obviously bought into the whole mainstream package and I think that might have been at least partly down to her cultural heritage - meanwhile I'm more the product of English middle class alternativism, so I felt I was being dragged back into all the hackneyed stuff that I'd worked so hard to shake off.

I often complained of her filthy temper, and her mercenary attitude (she once accused me of not being a proper man because I'd said I didn't particularly fancy working my guts out as a traditional male breadwinner), but she'd tend to say that everybody was harsh like that where she came from. I countered that most of those guys also think they've got a right to have an affair the moment the going gets rough. Whether that's true of the whole of Africa and the Caribbean, I don't know, but her personal experiences suggest it was true of her own social circles. The only two guys who could be arsed to be faithful to her were white.

Still, on balance I don't think there was much that I see as race-related trouble. Most of our prolems seemed like they'd have happened whatever her ethnic origins had been, they were to do with our personalities and our lack of interpersonal skills. But she had little understanding or interest in that kind of approach to relationships (identifying the problems and working at fixing them). Maybe interpersonal conflict resolution is just a white, middle-class thing?

A good point. That is realistically what counts in any relationship, between any two people; personalities and interpersonal skills. My boyfriend and I are very good at communicating.

I once dated a guy who was Hispanic. I had that problem with him; the whole concept of counseling, or talking things through, was alien to him, so the relationship failed. It was a mostly a clash of our respective cultural values.

I've dated quite a few black and Latina girls, and the only times I've ever experienced any overt racism was from black men when I've been in public with a black girlfriend, I'm not quite sure what that's all about. My current (black) girlfriend has lived all over the country and claims that the NW where we currently live is less open about their prejudices but just as judgmental in their own way, but if it's there I don't notice or pay any attention to it. We did have a funny moment early on in our relationship when we were still getting to know each other and she said something about how she would have been nervous to go out in public with me in some of the places she's lived, and I explained to her that I'm far more dangerous to any potential racists out there than they are to us, which for her was a unique perspective.

it's never really seemed like an issue to me :S

although sometimes i see certain couples who get my attention because they're a rare combination of races. for example seeing a black man with a white woman is quite common but when i see a black woman with a white man it seems more suprising. and i'll often see white men with asian women but not the other way round; so when i do i tend to look twice- not in a negative way, just because its unusual.

i think the only time id be cautious personally was if they had a strong religious or cultural background that i dont fit into. i've seen that go horribly wrong before

i think some men can get quite defensive over what they see as 'their women'. ive had similar experiences with white men

Well, this will just happen if you are out in public.

Just about the only way to avoid this is by out-racisting the racists. Just don some blackface sans the exaggerated lip makeup (or have your boyfriend don whiteface, either way) and then you'll look like you're both of the same race. It's somewhat of an extreme measure, but aside from it I can't think of much that would work at preventing the attraction of attention.

Personally, I'm all for interracial dating, but it depends. Like with anybody, I would want the person to have a slightly similar background, and most importantly, someone I'm attracted to.

Well, talk about attracting unwanted attention...

BTW, I am not looking for ways to control the uncontrollable. I am looking for input from others in similar situations, and how they handle it.