PHYSICALITY – Racial Identity (Ruby)

Posted on November 18, 2013 in 30 Dates, Experimental Dater Profile, PHYSICALITY

When fellow blogger Ruby contacted me about discussing Race as part of the 30 Dating Experiments, I offered her a place amongst the Experimental Daters, to explore an area of dating of which I have no experience.

Here she explains why she felt it so important that Race be incorporated into the Physicality Experiment

Miss Twenty-Nine xxx

When I first came across Miss Twenty-Nine’s Blog… let’s just say I could identify with the Olympic speed-dating lifestyle of the late-twenties. Before my row of binge-dating, I did not have a lot of experience dating. I spent most of my life in a relationship or VERY single. That ~~purgatory~~ limbo state of dating didn’t actually occur until I made a firm decision that I wanted to just have some fun.

That particular dating season was really formative but probably not in the way most romantic movies would have you believe.

It was formative not because of any “personal growth”, nor as one of those existential self-discovery journeys one makes in the years when all of one’s single friends are joining the Lifelong Fidelity Club.

No, I knew very much what I wanted and I even knew how to get. The problem arose when I discovered that there was an extra hurdle between me and dating just about anyone, due to my ethnicity.

This is a particular struggle that not everyone faces and I wanted to make sure that it was represented in Miss Twenty-Nine’s Experiments.

You see, race affects both how you approach others and how you are approached.

My posts will recount some of the more frightening experiences of unknowingly accepting a date with a downright racist (peculiar, I know), to my experiences with the “Asian fetish/ Yellow fever” phenomenon, and even the epic public yelling matches that have arisen from what many people might find to be harmless first-encounter/first date stories.

The point of writing this is to let you know that I never get to be “just another girl” when I date.

I am ALWAYS “that ASIAN girl”.

Sometimes this gets me undue attention, and sometimes it gets me premature rejections.

Regardless, race matters when dating.

I’m excited to contribute some of my past and present dating experiences and I hope the audience will be open to listening.

If you can’t wait, you can get a head start with some of the stuff I have already written about my experiences with race and attraction on my personal blog here and here.

Ruby