Two and a half years now. And I want twenty or thirty times that, at least.
He’s funny, and smart, and shy, and caring, and his skin is the most wonderful color imaginable.
3 years this month! (I’m white, he’s Indian.)
Sometimes I tell him I’ve only stuck wih him this long because his mom makes some wicked curry. 
But he’s my sweetie, and I hope he’ll be forever.
15 years, 3 kids, ongoing…
Race is an imprecise term, as color is only skin deep, but ethnicity, religion, language, etc can count for a lot more. A short primer on this: http://anthro.palomar.edu/ethnicity/ethnic_1.htm
I was attracted to my future wife because she is beautiful, intelligent, and independent. However, none of these traits necessarily involve race. If anything, ethnicity has more of an impact, since it can affect the “intelligent and independent” part (some cultures want their women to be ignorant and subserviant, others don’t).
My folks didn’t care, her folks weren’t happy. It didn’t much matter because we were on our own (by choice or not), without any parental support, at age 18. Time (and grandkids) heals most wounds. Obvious differences in how we deal with circumstances aren’t much of a problem, simply because they are so obvious. It’s the little differences that cause the most problems. Also, even though all grandparents are “OK” with things now, I have difficulty dealing with her family and she with mine, simply because our cultures are so far apart.
My first, uh, physical relationship was with a man who is black; I’m white. It was a summer thing only and no, our parents did not know. (I wasn’t living at home so there is no reason they would have.) I do think that part of the attraction was that it seemed so ‘forbidden;’ he was such a jerk to me that I can’t imagine what else attracted me!
Had my parents found out, they would have been fine with it. He, however, broke up with me, basically saying it was b/c I was bad for his image (he was kind of a leader in his community and didn’t think it was setting the right example for him to be dating a white girl).
On the happier side, jeevmon and I have been together for almost 2 years; we’ve been married since October. My parents have no problem with him being of Indian ancestry. (They were just thrilled I was finally getting married!) I think his were less pleased, but they have lived in the US for 35 years and couldn’t have been too surprised that he might wind up with a white girl. We’re fine now, though. I think his mom likes to dress me up in saris since she doesn’t have a daughter of her own.
It helps that neither my husband nor I come from religious families; that has never been an issue. And our parents are all well-traveled and well-educated and very aware of other cultures.
I wouldn’t call many of these “affairs.” These are relationships.
Now me, I had an affair, a fling, a three night stand. We were casual friends who briefly became casual “more than friends.” But we were both in it for the fling.
He was funny, charming, smart and very hot, with deep eyes.
My wife and I had our first date in December of 1991 and we’re still together.
–Cliffy
My first girlfriend was black. My family didn’t mind, her mother was white and she didn’t mind. Such was not the case when we walked down the street holding hands in Toronto in 1978 - we were called names and spit upon. That was a wake-up call, I gotta tell ya. We watched The Great White Hope on TV together, and I don’t think I have ever cried so hard in my life. I began to get a sense of what we were up against, and that, combined with other factors - not the least of which was that she was masquerading as a nice person, but was in fact quite the opposite - led to the demise of our relationship.
My husband is black, I am white.
I married him because, like all black men, he has an enormous penis. I can’t imagine any other reason why a white woman would be interested in a black man.*
Er, starguard, what is the purpose of this thread?
- :rolleyes: for the sarcasm-impaired
I haven’t been, no. But by some standards, my parents are still in one. He’s Jewish, she’s not. (Both white, however.)
Yes, a few. Color, race, nationality and/or ethnicity had/have nothing to do with my attraction towards another person. The ability to make me laugh and engage my brain are everything.
See zephyrine.
My first boyfriend, in HS, was half Vietnamese. His race had pretty much nothing to do with it.
Then I flirted or had small flings with a few different people, of various races.
Second boyfriend, in college, was Ashkenazi Jewish, which I don’t think counts as a different race. Ethnicity, maybe? That was fun. Good thing it didn’t last, but our differing heritages had nothing to do with that.
Third guy I married; he’s white. All of our siblings (um, lemme count…5 total so far?) have married people of different races or ethnicities. Oh, except one, but even she’s Canadian/Kiwi. The DangerPeople are in fact the most boring members of the family.
I grew up in a very racially “scary” area of Chicago. People of different skin colors simply did not mix, and that was all there was to it. In high school I was asked out by a black guy (I’m white, I guess) and I accepted, and a group of black girls threatened to kill me. My folks never knew about my going out with this guy, but I wasn’t afraid of telling them, it just didn’t last long enough to be an issue.
My father is a dyed-in-the-wool racist who made nasty comments about a Mexican guy I dated for quite some time. Mom wasn’t upset by the Mexican guy, but when my brother started dating a black girl, Mom lost her mind. This was (and still is) very confusing to me, because Mom raised us NOT to be racist - and indeed, none of her four children are racist at all. It’s been a shock for all of us to find out that Mom’s been nothing but talk on the subject all along.
Had a little fling with a women that I worked with several years back. She was the boss of a different department and I was a lowly mail sorter. She was a great person and we had a great time hanging out together. But rumors started to fly around the office so we took a break. Then I got laid off and never saw her again. Background, Me - asian, her - Pennslyvania Dutch. What is that anyways? From Holland?
Goes without saying that it didn’t have anything to do racial qualities. She was just wacky and I love wacky girls.
I’m Korean/Mexican and I’ve gone out with:
- Colombian
- German
- Peruvian
- Vietnamese
- Filipina
girls.
The only one I had some problems with was my Peruvian ex’s family cuz they were racist and our relationship had to be kept secret. The relationship only lasted about 4 months.
I’m a white guy who has dated black women in the past and is currently dating one. I don’t know if I really have all that strong a preference for any particular race; I have dated white women too (I haven’t dated any Asian or Hispanic women; then again, they are not as common where I live as black or white). My motivations could best be summed up with, “Why not?”
Other factors - 1. I grew up in a high school where about 50% of the students were black and the rest were a mixture of white, Asian, and Hispanic. When I first really started noticing girls, not surprisingly I noticed plenty of attractive black ones. And quite a few noticed me back. 2. I wasn’t raised with any expectation that I ought to stick with dating any particular race. Nobody in my family has ever expressed any disapproval at the fact that I don’t “stick with my own kind.”
[hijack] Y’know Dangerosa, I was actually going to say something about the use of the word “affair” as opposed to “relationship” in the title of the OP. “Affair” sounds so…so…so…tawdry…like we’re all sneaking around trying to hide something were ashamed of. “Affairs” are something people do when they shouldn’t outta be doing it. [/hijack]
I’m white. I’ve only dated hispanic women native to my state or Mexican. I don’t consider them a seperate race from white, just a different ethinicity.
Let’s put it this way - none of my boyfriends is ever like me. By that I mean, a potential boyfriend has to have different color skin or height or be more slender than me or muscular or younger or older, but for some reason, dating someone who is my twin just really turns me off. I guess that means I hate myself.
You can have the women; I get the men!