I'm dating a white gal, her family hates me, long story/pics
Posted: August 7th, 2013, 12:32 am
This will be a long post, but allow me to introduce myself
I am a "naturalized" Canadian citizen. I only speak English fluently. I've always had an attraction to white girls, Asian girls as well, but there was something about thin, sharp-featured white girls that turned my eye. I could never understand the fascination as a preteen and teenager, and I never understood why they were in general not attracted to me.
I grew older and became more social. I've always been talkative around people I'm comfortable with and I learned to control, on the surface, the anxiety and fears that come with growing into a sexual being. But I am also as a sexual being of 'lower' class than most of my peers, subjected to the same trivializing jokes about my dick size. I was never actively bullied: I have a large, close group of friends that have more or less stuck together from elementary/jr. high to where we are now (graduating university). But there was something about my self-confidence that I knew was related to my race, I just wasn't actively aware or able to verbalize it.
As a teenager and young adult, I've mostly dated/been involved with white women, all of them attractive, one of them extremely so. She was an extreme neurotic/antisocial personality with little empathy but she had a vulnerability and fragile beauty that drove me bananas. We tormented each other for a while but she won by the end - she was all I could think about for a long time post-breakup. The other relationships all fizzled out before becoming serious, which is partially due to my personality. I can be analytic, bordering on the neurotic and have a family history of bipolar depression. When I'm on my A-Game, though, I've been told I am very fun to be around. Either case, I've always suspected there was some element of exoticism in these women's decisions to date me. I always questioned them about their motivations, and I think all of them could see that the issue of my race bothered me immensely. These insecurities would always come out once the confident exterior I projected wore off.
I hated the idea of being second-best to white men. I sometimes got into fights or confrontations with white guys to see if I could best them and I played rugby with men much larger and stronger than I, resulting in permanent injuries that have given me chronic pain. It's complicated because I can't hate white men just for who they are. My closest friends, whom I consider family, are mostly white guys.
I spent a lot of first and second year university learning how to cope with my problems and reading political / sociological theory about white male privilege and just about how the system is rigged against Asians to begin with because the media caters to a Western standard of beauty. I observed what women said they wanted in a man vs. what they actually went after and began to feel hopeless about finding a long-term relationship: I was physically damaged and had lost weight since high school.. I was Asian, broke and plagued with self-doubt and anger.
--ANYWAYS --
One of my friends and I started looking at each other differently, I didn't know her that well as she started hanging out with us at the beginning of college. I chased her around for a while and then we started dating. It's hard to sum her up. She's demure, observant and passive. She was innocent and sexually inexperienced when we started going out. Quiet, so sometimes our conversations suck. But a good girl and she has a great job now, supports herself, isn't cruel to other women although she sometimes judges them, doesn't flirt with other guys (she is an engineer and gets a lot of attention). I think we're in love, at least we tell each other that. We aren't well-matched in terms of interests, but our values are similar and I know we have a deep connection, because we almost broke up and it made us (me anyway) feel terrible. We've had a few big fights because I am often an idiot and she can be demanding and princess-ey (her dad spoiled her). We are both a little f***ed up sexually but I won't get into that.
Anyway one of our big fights was when I found out on our one year anniversary (which is Valentine's day) that she hasn't told her family we've been dating. Her family is very important to her, but they are also racist and know I am in their daughter's life. I think they suspect I am the smitten friend who won't go away. Maybe they even know, I was at graduation as her "date." But If they found out we'd been dating this whole time, they'd really hate me, particularly if I don't get a great job after school. In a weird way, their bigotry made me respect her more because she looked past her family's beliefs whilst still loving them. Her and my family get along fine; her and my mother click well.
Now she's left for work and I see her once every two weeks if things go according to plan. This will go on for two years until her contract ends. She's grown distant since starting her job and is always complaining about exhaustion, how overwhelming all of this new stuff is which is understandable. She came over the other week in an unusually bad mood and said that she wants to end things but doesn't, because she can't see herself marrying me, in part because of her family (and it doesn't help that I knock the idea of marriage all the time) and she doesn't think we are going to survive two years. We are at our best when we're alone and physically close because she is so quiet - skype can't give you that. I told her that we've got something special and if she wants to throw it away she will regret it. She agreed and left, saying she probably didn't want to see me the next day. She didn't call the next day and went back to her work post, and when she texted the day after that, I was furious and told her she shouldn't leave the city without telling me she would be unavailable. She apologized and suggested we wait till the end of the month to figure out what we are going to do, and asked me to call her when I feel ready. I got madder and said there was no way I would contact her and that if she wanted to fix the situation she'd have to take initiative. I went into lockdown mode for the next day and resolved not to call her unless she took the first step. She called today and said that she loves me and she feels better about things and she's willing to try. But she also said she feels she's getting old (she's 23, but I can see where she's coming from) and she wants to think about marriage, or a future at some point down the road. We both agreed we need to take a good look at the problems in our relationship, like her tendency to selfishness, my tendency to be demanding sexually, and the fact that we might be stagnating (movie night too often).
Some guys I know who aren't my friends (I wanted an outsider's perspective) told me she was just stringing me along and the phone was bait to see if I'd fall for it and validate her ego. They think she tried to sleep with another guy and since that didn't work out, she's coming crawling back. I don't really buy that. She called within 24 hours and it doesn't match up with her personality but its possible I trusted her too much. These guys think all women are the same. I don't know if they are, but I believe I love her. She's been good to me in a way that nobody else has. She nags but it's usually over something that I should not be doing anyway, like not staying up till 5 am watching youtube movies and then sleeping for 3 hours before work.
Help me work this out. She says she's willing to keep trying and so am I. A lot of people say that I should dump her and move on, but I think I've found something rare and valuable. They can't look at our situation from the perspective of an Asian man and how desexualized the media portrays us to be and the effect that this subtly has on people's minds. I feel fortunate to be with such a genuinely open-minded girl, and our near break-up scenario made me very unhappy. But I also think it could be impossible with her parents and the whole notion of marriage and the partial long distance. I also worry that I've been blinded by my weakness for blonde hair and blue eyes, which is a taste I've always despised in myself but still find irresistible. I find myself entertaining twisted delusions such as: maybe I only like her because I've "won" a prize from the white man, one of their precious scandinavian-looking woman. Me, from the mongoloid hordes her parents warned her about. But I didn't feel this way about any of my previous girlfriends, some of whom were blonde and most of which were white.
Is this a lost cause, or one worth fighting for? Can anyone relate?
I am a "naturalized" Canadian citizen. I only speak English fluently. I've always had an attraction to white girls, Asian girls as well, but there was something about thin, sharp-featured white girls that turned my eye. I could never understand the fascination as a preteen and teenager, and I never understood why they were in general not attracted to me.
I grew older and became more social. I've always been talkative around people I'm comfortable with and I learned to control, on the surface, the anxiety and fears that come with growing into a sexual being. But I am also as a sexual being of 'lower' class than most of my peers, subjected to the same trivializing jokes about my dick size. I was never actively bullied: I have a large, close group of friends that have more or less stuck together from elementary/jr. high to where we are now (graduating university). But there was something about my self-confidence that I knew was related to my race, I just wasn't actively aware or able to verbalize it.
As a teenager and young adult, I've mostly dated/been involved with white women, all of them attractive, one of them extremely so. She was an extreme neurotic/antisocial personality with little empathy but she had a vulnerability and fragile beauty that drove me bananas. We tormented each other for a while but she won by the end - she was all I could think about for a long time post-breakup. The other relationships all fizzled out before becoming serious, which is partially due to my personality. I can be analytic, bordering on the neurotic and have a family history of bipolar depression. When I'm on my A-Game, though, I've been told I am very fun to be around. Either case, I've always suspected there was some element of exoticism in these women's decisions to date me. I always questioned them about their motivations, and I think all of them could see that the issue of my race bothered me immensely. These insecurities would always come out once the confident exterior I projected wore off.
I hated the idea of being second-best to white men. I sometimes got into fights or confrontations with white guys to see if I could best them and I played rugby with men much larger and stronger than I, resulting in permanent injuries that have given me chronic pain. It's complicated because I can't hate white men just for who they are. My closest friends, whom I consider family, are mostly white guys.
I spent a lot of first and second year university learning how to cope with my problems and reading political / sociological theory about white male privilege and just about how the system is rigged against Asians to begin with because the media caters to a Western standard of beauty. I observed what women said they wanted in a man vs. what they actually went after and began to feel hopeless about finding a long-term relationship: I was physically damaged and had lost weight since high school.. I was Asian, broke and plagued with self-doubt and anger.
--ANYWAYS --
One of my friends and I started looking at each other differently, I didn't know her that well as she started hanging out with us at the beginning of college. I chased her around for a while and then we started dating. It's hard to sum her up. She's demure, observant and passive. She was innocent and sexually inexperienced when we started going out. Quiet, so sometimes our conversations suck. But a good girl and she has a great job now, supports herself, isn't cruel to other women although she sometimes judges them, doesn't flirt with other guys (she is an engineer and gets a lot of attention). I think we're in love, at least we tell each other that. We aren't well-matched in terms of interests, but our values are similar and I know we have a deep connection, because we almost broke up and it made us (me anyway) feel terrible. We've had a few big fights because I am often an idiot and she can be demanding and princess-ey (her dad spoiled her). We are both a little f***ed up sexually but I won't get into that.
Anyway one of our big fights was when I found out on our one year anniversary (which is Valentine's day) that she hasn't told her family we've been dating. Her family is very important to her, but they are also racist and know I am in their daughter's life. I think they suspect I am the smitten friend who won't go away. Maybe they even know, I was at graduation as her "date." But If they found out we'd been dating this whole time, they'd really hate me, particularly if I don't get a great job after school. In a weird way, their bigotry made me respect her more because she looked past her family's beliefs whilst still loving them. Her and my family get along fine; her and my mother click well.
Now she's left for work and I see her once every two weeks if things go according to plan. This will go on for two years until her contract ends. She's grown distant since starting her job and is always complaining about exhaustion, how overwhelming all of this new stuff is which is understandable. She came over the other week in an unusually bad mood and said that she wants to end things but doesn't, because she can't see herself marrying me, in part because of her family (and it doesn't help that I knock the idea of marriage all the time) and she doesn't think we are going to survive two years. We are at our best when we're alone and physically close because she is so quiet - skype can't give you that. I told her that we've got something special and if she wants to throw it away she will regret it. She agreed and left, saying she probably didn't want to see me the next day. She didn't call the next day and went back to her work post, and when she texted the day after that, I was furious and told her she shouldn't leave the city without telling me she would be unavailable. She apologized and suggested we wait till the end of the month to figure out what we are going to do, and asked me to call her when I feel ready. I got madder and said there was no way I would contact her and that if she wanted to fix the situation she'd have to take initiative. I went into lockdown mode for the next day and resolved not to call her unless she took the first step. She called today and said that she loves me and she feels better about things and she's willing to try. But she also said she feels she's getting old (she's 23, but I can see where she's coming from) and she wants to think about marriage, or a future at some point down the road. We both agreed we need to take a good look at the problems in our relationship, like her tendency to selfishness, my tendency to be demanding sexually, and the fact that we might be stagnating (movie night too often).
Some guys I know who aren't my friends (I wanted an outsider's perspective) told me she was just stringing me along and the phone was bait to see if I'd fall for it and validate her ego. They think she tried to sleep with another guy and since that didn't work out, she's coming crawling back. I don't really buy that. She called within 24 hours and it doesn't match up with her personality but its possible I trusted her too much. These guys think all women are the same. I don't know if they are, but I believe I love her. She's been good to me in a way that nobody else has. She nags but it's usually over something that I should not be doing anyway, like not staying up till 5 am watching youtube movies and then sleeping for 3 hours before work.
Help me work this out. She says she's willing to keep trying and so am I. A lot of people say that I should dump her and move on, but I think I've found something rare and valuable. They can't look at our situation from the perspective of an Asian man and how desexualized the media portrays us to be and the effect that this subtly has on people's minds. I feel fortunate to be with such a genuinely open-minded girl, and our near break-up scenario made me very unhappy. But I also think it could be impossible with her parents and the whole notion of marriage and the partial long distance. I also worry that I've been blinded by my weakness for blonde hair and blue eyes, which is a taste I've always despised in myself but still find irresistible. I find myself entertaining twisted delusions such as: maybe I only like her because I've "won" a prize from the white man, one of their precious scandinavian-looking woman. Me, from the mongoloid hordes her parents warned her about. But I didn't feel this way about any of my previous girlfriends, some of whom were blonde and most of which were white.
Is this a lost cause, or one worth fighting for? Can anyone relate?
