Freedom to Love

Reading Time: 9 minutes

Written June 30, 2020

Shoutout! – Thank you to my amazing friend who happens to be a talented graphic designer, Chrizz, for her cute line sketches in this post! She runs a number of art-related accounts on Instagram (check them out and give her a follow—@csayart @writer_christina) as well as runs an Etsy shop called Royal Garden Prints (@royalgardenprints). Support small business and an unbelievably gifted artist!

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I don’t know if I’m overthinking this, but is it not weird that when it comes to dating, love, and sex, the question of race is something people openly express their opinions on, without remorse?

“White guys are just not my type.”

“Asian guys are not that cute.”

“I can’t see you with a black guy.”

I’ve always been surprised by how easy it was for my friends or close acquaintances to have these phrases roll off their tongue. The fact that they could say these things and not bat an eye, yet quickly be the first ones to share social media posts on civil rights protests seemed strange to me.

If you have a “preference” for the race you want to date, is that not implicit bias? Isn’t that in the most literal sense, racism?

As a 27-year-old SGD, I’ll be honest and say that my (romantic) experience with men is non-existent. I consider myself a “late bloomer” when it comes to matters of romance. I’d like to think I’m not the only one, but seriously, how many women are going to be frank about their romantic lives, or lack of one?

An eating disorder consumed the formative years of my life, inhibiting me from participating in experiences that young women and men normally have with meeting in college and getting a whole chance at the dating thing. In addition to my eating disorder struggles, I was challenged with depression, low self-esteem, and never-ending anxiety. Mental illness is a downer— I didn’t have much energy to spare on anything else besides thinking about the calories I consumed and scraping by to get through the day.

Growing up as an SGD also brought upon confusion when it came to these matters. Cultural norms and expectations (mostly assumed by me) made me doubt how I should approach boys, dating, and relationships. Having no open conversations about intimacy and what constitutes a healthy relationship made concepts difficult to comprehend—something highly prevalent in desi culture, but for me, was emphasized due to my mother’s mentally unstable behavior.  

My mom, who was consumed by her own mental illnesses, made sure to make my sister and I believe that boys and men were dangerous. That in order to protect ourselves, we needed to avoid them at all costs. Keeping her strong words in mind, I grew up treating boys indifferently. Their feelings didn’t matter, and I had all the right to be rude to them since they were already vile and unworthy of respect. Sounds pretty harsh looking back, but when you’re repeatedly told as a child that boys have the worst intentions and to stay away from them, you do it. Or at least I did.

Avoiding boys was never a problem for me. It may have also contributed to my low self-esteem to some extent, leading me to question why a guy never asked me out in high school, or why I haven’t had my first kiss when every single person I know and their grandmother has already been there and done that? Most of the time, I’ve been able to look at the whole situation in a comical manner, and while I’ve had my moments of being hung up on this never happening for me, I like to think that everything leading up to this moment has made me become a stronger and more confident woman, while learning to be less abrasive when it comes to giving guys a chance.  

These simmering thoughts eventually led me to give Bumble a try, the dating app that is supposedly more “empowering” for women since women  make the first move in messaging men. My sister first suggested it, after having a conversation with her one day about feeling more confident with the idea of meeting people….in a romantic way. I was not into the idea of dating via swipes, until I downloaded the app, made a profile, and went “active” the day after I submitted my PhD thesis.

For about a week, the app made my commute to work pass by quickly. It felt weird swiping on guys, as if I were browsing through a catalog. Every other man’s profile seemed much like the earlier one: one pic with a bottle of beer, one pic at a sports event (as an attendee, not even participating in the sport…), and a pic with a group of girl “friends”. My nervousness started to melt away, and it was replaced with plenty of eye rolls.

When the SuperSwipes started coming in (an opportunity for men on Bumble to get the attention of a woman and indicate their supposed interest), I decided to give those guys a shot. If we want to get down to race, two white guys and one desi guy used this method to get me to message them initially.

Despite giving it my “best” shot, all three ended up ghosting me—messages started out formal and polite, but they were eventually spaced out by longer intervals of time. I didn’t have the patience to see if Guy #1 would get back to me after “bragging” about all the things he had planned for the weekend, or if Guy #2, despite touting his avid love for running was indeed looking for a running partner. And Guy #3? Yes, I get it, you love books, but can we talk about something else? I appreciate a good novel from time-to-time but man, my brain is fried after reading countless journal papers for work!

Then there was Guy #4, probably the most decent guy I met through this app. He didn’t SuperSwipe me, but I swiped right on him since he said he was vegan, and I was impressed by his abstinence for smoking and drinking alcohol.  He extended the time for me to message him first, so it seemed like he was interested in hearing back from me. A sign of flattery that made me feel appreciated.

If we want to get down to race, he was black.

He replied at a normal rate, and seemed to have a nice attitude (and personality based on his  messages), but by the time I starting messaging him, I was getting fed up with the app, and the idea of dating overall. I also was approaching  my defense/thesis presentation day, and I was low-key stressin’. He suggested that we meet up some time when I was free, at a vegan restaurant somewhere in LA, and I suggested in a week after my defense was over.

I was able to freeze my account for the time being, but once that week came and went, and I finally became a PhD, I didn’t want to return to the app.

I could have taken the initiative. My defense was done, I had passed, I could have gone out of my way to message him back and had at least gone on my first “date”. But, I got ahead of myself. I got scared.

I was afraid that if I met him, we might have had a good time. What if we bonded on all things vegan and fitness? What if we enjoyed our time together so much that we wanted to meet up again and again? What if it got so serious, that bringing him up to my parents was the obvious next step? Despite the supposed shifts going on in our society—the idea that interracial dating is now “okay”, is it really?

I’m not going to harp on myself too much for what I eventually did, which was ghosting the poor guy (truly hoping he found a lady that was ready for whatever was to come ❤). At the time, I did what was right for me. I gave the app a try, and realized I wasn’t ready. I needed more time to focus on myself, and really think things through. It’s been almost a year since I quit the app, and I’ve had plenty of time to reflect and ponder over these thoughts and feelings…some that have been internalized since childhood, and obviously needed to be explored and broken down.

The utopian goal would be to look beyond color or culture, and to have everyone in your inner circle and beyond to accept you and your partner as the dream package. But we must be real. As much as people are taking issues to the streets and demanding change, change does not happen overnight.

When I head about Sudha Ragunathan and her daughter’s story, I was unfortunately not surprised by the reaction that resulted from the general public:

Sudha Ragunathan is an accomplished Carnatic vocalist, singer, composer, teacher, and philanthropist from my parents’ home state of Tamil Nadu in India. A little more than a year ago, she and her daughter Maalavika were targets of bigotry and hatred due to Maalavika’s choice to marry a man of African-American descent by the name of Michael Murphy. The fact that both Maalavika and Michael were accomplished in their own right (both the holders of medical and graduate degrees, respectively) did not stop unwarranted racial prejudice and rumors from circulating—including those that assumed the Ragunathan family converted to Christianity 🤦🏽‍♀️.

Please then explain the very obvious South Indian wedding that took place…

After looking into the story more, I was more in shock by the fact that many of these absurd comments came from people who still abide by patriarchal beliefs—that we “cannot lose our girls to men of other races, cultures, and religions”:

I have no doubt that if I were to be in an interracial relationship in the future, my millennial and younger peers would not take issue—we are the generation of disruption and change. For us, this is something not worth losing our minds over.

But, especially in desi culture, our parents exist. Our grandparents, aunties, and uncles exist. Many of us want to keep them happy. We don’t want to argue or be the target of gossip, yet we don’t want to be restrained and restricted by rules most often based on patriarchal ideals.

I see where their opinions stem from, and that’s fear. Those that spew words of hate and bigotry are afraid that they are “losing” one of their own to another side. That future generations that stem from this couple and others like them will lose the connections to their of desi culture, and that centuries of traditions will not be passed down.

And I understand why many elder folks have this fear…I have this fear for myself.  Yes, I’m desi and I’m proud, but there is so much I need to learn as far as being a Tamil Brahmin Iyengar desi and the traditions of my ancestors. I’ve seen the sadness first-hand in my grandfather, a devout Hindu scholar who dedicated his life to the Lord for the latter part of his life, when discussing the changes of the world with his sons and daughter-in-laws. I could understand his melancholy over the idea that younger generations did not have the time nor desire to understand their roots well enough to pass on to future generations. I could see why my elders worry about our culture fading away.

But the idea that interracial marriage promotes the idea of leaving one’s culture? That could not be further from the truth. What needs to be understood is that the responsibility that comes with passing on traditions, language, auspicious celebrations, etc. starts initially with the parents and familial support group, but when that child becomes an adult? They are that—a living, breathing adult who hopefully has the desire to pass on their heritage to their own children, if they choose to have any. The hope is that us second gens are confident and willing enough to learn what we don’t know, and that who we pick or don’t pick for a life partner does not influence our choice to keep our own cultures alive.

For me, I am happy being independent most of the time. I love pursuing my passions, having the freedom to do as I want and go as I please, and not having to worry about compromise. If the day ever comes that I meet “the one”, I hope that doubt and fear doesn’t plague me to the extent that it did with my “learning experiences” from last year.

If I am confident in myself, my abilities, the passion for my culture and the desire to pass it on to a future generation (if that so happens), then who my partner is, where they come from, and what they dream of shouldn’t matter—as long as they have righteous intentions and a good heart.