Asian guy, white girl

[yayfulness]

See the last paragraph of my last post. I only have empirical evidence of the existence of three of those girls (one of whom, incidentally, is half Japanese).

[mic0]

Why is this forum so active on Friday nights? Shouldn't we all be out there with our eminently compatible dates?

Mr. Mico and I are both playing games... :\ Oh, marriage!

[C is for]

Oh hey guys. I'm back from my date with my white, Idahoan, LDS, middle-class, Peter Priesthood boyfriend.

[Fredjikrang]

Portia, haven't you noticed? We are all hopeless. ;D

[Imogen]

Why is this forum so active on Friday nights? Shouldn't we all be out there with our eminently compatible dates?

My inter-racial self was at Magic Mike with two quarter-Hispanics, a gay white man, a gay white girl, and a half-Hispanic. We were like the Rainbow Coalition of the movie theater.


I have many thoughts on this (seeing as how I wouldn't exist without a little cross-cultural understanding/attraction/etc), but they mostly boil down to: I agree that socio-economic background plays a huge role in relationships, and the way my last two boyfriends and I were raised colored our relationship expectations and ultimately led to the relationships' demise. And they way we were raised directly stemmed from socio-economic status and expectations. I will say there are things about black culture I find incredibly obnoxious and uncomfortable (the tendency to remain unmarried and have children with multiple women, the amount of cheating I see in the community, the cultural expectation of women to be a "jump off," etc). I am often accused of trying to "be white" because I speak in proper English and went to college and read. I could never date a man of ANY race or culture who prized the "thug life" (though why that's most of the men who hit on me, I will never understand).


But, ultimately, if people aren't willing to give someone form a different culture a chance, then...i'm totally screwed.

[Defy V]

But, ultimately, if people aren't willing to give someone form a different culture a chance, then...i'm totally screwed.

This might be the heart of the problem. I think all of us would be okay with just about anyone as long as we were attracted to them, shared the same values, felt like each other's equals, and enjoyed being around each other. And it helps to be fairly confident that there aren't expectations we aren't used to (and helps to have in-laws that you can stand). But the place that it's easiest to look for such a match is within your own culture. Should we be more willing to look at other cultures? Yes, but it's hard to put forth that effort when you typically are surrounded by people of your own culture.

[yayfulness]

I think you've hit on a big part of the problem. Because face it, the majority of the students at BYU are white upper-middle class lifelong US residents. Unless you're making a point of seeking out people of different cultures to date, the chances of dating somewhere out of your cultural heritage at BYU are pretty slim.

Edit: Unless you're from a different cultural heritage, in which case the chances of dating outside your heritage are huge. And I think there are plenty of people from the majority who are perfectly willing to date members of minority groups, but most of their dating opportunities are within the majority, so chances are they'll end up dating and marrying someone from the majority.

[UffishThought]

I wonder if (going back to the original question) the reason there seem to be more Asian girls in inter-cultural relationships than Asian guys is that the girls just have to say "yes," where the guys have to be the ones to go outside of their comfort zone to actually ask someone out.

(And yes, the girl should be doing some flirting, and yes, she can be the asker, too. There are lots of potential flaws here, but I'm just thinking out loud.)

[Imogen]

Well, I'm already between several cultures. My mom is black, my dad is from Iran, and I grew up in predominately Hispanic area in south Texas that also encompasses cowboy culture. I ended up at Vassar (talk about upper-middle class/upper class white!) for college, where I always felt a bit like a fish out of water because of growing up in the South/almost Mexico/semi-Muslim culture I grew up in.

So, I don't think I'll be finding anyone with a similar cultural background to date. But I CAN find someone with similar values to date, and that's what really matters.

[Katya]

And lastly, as a moderator, please be nice guys. Make your arguments and make them cogently, but please try to resist the urge to resort to ad-hominem attacks or uncalled for vitriol.

But Craig clearly said that all intercultural relationships were terrible and he wished that you and Imogen had NEVER BEEN BORN!

[Marduk]

And that's exactly what'll happen if my parents don't kiss after the dance.

On topic, anyone who thinks BYU has no significant culture besides white isn't looking very hard. I personally know literally hundreds, so if you can't even find one, someone needs to open their eyes.

[Katya]

And that's exactly what'll happen if my parents don't kiss after the dance.

Awww. I rewatched that movie just a few weeks ago.

[yayfulness]

If that was referring to my comment, what I was trying to say is that if, say, 10% of the students at BYU are from some culture other than the majority, that means that all other things equal, there's only a one in ten chance that your significant other/date for next weekend/whoever is from another culture. So unless I, as a middle class white man attending BYU (edit: as a man attending BYU, period), am disproportionately attracted to girls of some other race or culture, then the odds tell me that I'll probably end up marrying a middle class white girl who also attends BYU. Unless I graduate single, at which point it all depends on where I end up. If I graduate single and end up spending a significant portion of my life post-graduation in Latin America (which, given my field of study, is quite possible), then chances are much higher that I'll marry a Latina. This is all, of course, assuming that I consider girls of all cultures to be more or less equally suitable on average. Hopefully that's a slight bit clearer.

[TheBlackSheep]

So, my girlfriend is first-generation Taiwanese-American still-spent-a-lot-of-her-childhood-in-Taiwan. Obviously neither of us is male but her gender presentation is more masculine than mine. I mentioned this question to her and her reaction was basically, "The Board is weird."

So that's my only contribution. We're weird, said the Asian.

[mic0]

I mentioned this question to her and her reaction was basically, "The Board is weird."

So that's my only contribution. We're weird, said the Asian.

1. She is very perceptive
2. Mr. Mico basically said the same thing.

[Imogen]

Craig, why do you wish I had never been born? WHY CAN'T YOU LOVE ME?!?!?!?!?!?!

[Marduk]

yayful, I understood the point, but I think it masks a much larger issue which Craig has portrayed here, and that's that even though the numbers sway it that way, the bias is significantly larger than pure demographics ought to portray. Let's say the numbers are 90% (which, to be honest, strikes me as unrealistically high, but whatevs) do you think the average person goes on 1 in 10 dates with someone of a different race? Demographics is a red herring.

[Katya]

I ended up at Vassar (talk about upper-middle class/upper class white!) for college . . .

I can't imagine. I don't think I'd last there a week.

[yayfulness]

Marduk, you're right. Like I said, that's just statistics, and unfortunately real life doesn't generally correspond to that.

[NerdGirl]

I'm not even entirely sure what we're talking about anymore. But I know lots of Asian guys who are dating white girls and Asian girls who are dating white guys and I even met an Asian guy who's married to a white guy not to long ago. So if any of that is relevant to the conversation, then awesome.