I’m caucasian, and have dated girls who were Chinese, Japanese, and black (PC note, she preferred the term and thought african-american was a silly label).
They were all stunningly beautiful in their own right, and race was never a factor My being white only mattered to the parents of the Chinese girl.
I’m currently married, and my wife is white.
I tend to be most attracted to those different than myself in culture and upbringing, I grew up saturated in suburban blandsville USA and have always found the most interest in exploring outside of that with friends, travel, and relationships.
I would say I’m much the same. However, I live in an town where blacks comprise only 1.13% of the population (as of the 2000 census), so my in-person experience has been quite limited. I’ve seen two or three young black women in my town that I wouldn’t have minded getting to know on a more personal level. One was a coworker, and she was actually biracial - black/Mexican. She was beautiful, smart, fun and had an awesome figure. When she left that job, her replacement was an equally beautiful/smart/fun Laotian girl. Had they been in my age range — I was in my mid-30s, they were both 18-19 — I would have gladly dated either of them (though the age difference would probably have been more of an issue for them than for me).
What I’m not attracted to is the look that is currently popular in black culture (maybe it’s just a hip-hop thing) - the “thick” look + heavy makeup. Then again, if I met a black woman with that look and we hit it off personality-wise, who’s to say? Way back in junior high school I was pretty good friends with a “thick” black girl, and it’s entirely possible we may have ended up dating had we not lost contact after we ended up at different high schools.
I am a 26 year old white chick. I am so incredibly pale you can still see me me when you turn out the lights. I was engaged to a man who was hispanic and I have dated men from almost every ethnic group. I have never dated an asian man (which is too bad really, because many of them are teh sexxy.) The guy I am currently dating is Jewish, which I don’t think of as being a different race but I am sure my parents would feel differently if they ever find out about his ancestry.
FWIW, I find that I fit into a niche group simply by having red hair. I have dated many men who have told me they never dated a redhead before.
White Hispanic (50% Basque, 50% mongrel including Italian and Alsatian). Most of the guys I’ve dated were non-Hispanic white; the one Hispanic boyfriend I had was an American born from Costa Rican teenagers who drifted apart very rapidly (the mother into hippy-ness, the father into Southern Baptism). His lastname was from SW Spain and he had some “Moorish” ancestry but wasn’t exactly sure which current country would that particular stretch of Sahara be now, as his contact with that side of the family was very reduced (he barely butchered two words of Spanish, his maternal grandmother didn’t speakee English señor). Pretty much every one-on-one date I’ve had was with an American.
The “cultural differences” worked out more as excuses for bad comunication than anything else. I’ve never decided not to date a guy again based on his rejection of lasagna or of my favourite Spanish music groups, but I have done it based on informing me on the first date that he was looking for a wife and she would have to be a SAHM (and me in graduate school, u-uh).
Doesn’t interest me too much. I’m white, and white women are the ones that attract me, both physically and mentally. In my area we’re probably about 65% white and 30% black, very few Asian or Latino.
I dated a Korean girl in college for a little while, but nothing serious even came of it. It never really occurred to either one of us that it might be an issue that we were of different races. Never got serious enough to meet each other’s families, that might’ve gotten interesting.
Part II
Years ago I dated a woman from Trinidad. I am white and she was black. The experience opened my eyes to a whole new world of prejudice. I didn’t really think that much of it when I aske her out. But in Prince Georges County, Maryland, I found that a mixed couple will get a lot of stares. Also, my family was not so receptive. I mentioned to my mother that I had a couple of dates with a woman from Trinidad and she went off–“I don’t want to have black grandchildren!” Wow. It was just a date.
And I was so worried about how my family would react that I completely forget about her family would react. She shared a house with one of her brothers, and we were downstairs watching TV one evening. Her brother called her from the top of the stairs. I heard a lot of muffled discussion but the one thing I heard clearly was, “I don’t want no white boy in my house.”
She also said that she was uncomfortable because she always envisioned raising children with pride of their African heritage, etc., etc. Not sure why we were talking about raising children, it wasn’t that serious.
But it just never worked out. We didn’t have enough of a relationship to want to overcome the barriers.
Part III
My wife of 15 years is Egyptian. I don’t know if you consider an Arab woman and a guy with European and Eastern European ancestors to be different races. There have been a few cultural differences to reconcile, but it has actually been more fun than a struggle.
More than 20 years ago now I was in my very early twenties. To paraphrase someone upthread I too was Whitey McWhiteguy from Whitesville USA. I did not have a lot of dating experience to say the least, I was in my first somewhat serious relationship with a (white) girl I first met at my high school.
I was working a summer job at a Very Famous American Computer Company. There was a temp in the same department, a black woman a couple of years older than me. She had been in the Navy, married, divorced, and had a child, a girl who was about 5 years old at the time.
We ended up working together once or twice and to my great surprise there was almost instant chemistry between us. It became pretty obvious that she was interested in me, the only thing holding me back was the fact I already had a girlfriend who I therefore unceremoniously dumped ( :rolleyes: ).
I distinctly remember asking myself if I could really get involved in an interracial relationship. I didn’t have anything against them in an intellectual sense but I had honestly never thought I would be involved in one. I was definitely concerned about how my family would react, my parents had always come across as accepting and relatively unprejudiced but I really didn’t know how they would react when one of their sons brought home a black girl. I was more worried about Mom than Dad. Also I wasn’t sure about my extended family.
In the end it worked out OK although I don’t think my mother was ever thrilled by the whole thing and was probably relieved when we broke up for good a couple of years later.
I got some slight flack from one of my girlfriend’s brothers, he was afraid I was just seeking a thrill or something and would end up hurting his sister, but it wasn’t a big deal.
I’m married now but if the opportunity had come up to date someone else from another race I probably would have done it, but I wouldn’t have necessarily sought it out.
(A perhaps interesting postscript: as it turned out my black ex-girlfriend was essentially bisexual when she met me, but has only dated women since. She eventually told me that when we met she had figured out she wasn’t looking for a black man, she had had several unsuccesful relationships with them including her disastrous marriage. She was pretty actively seeking out a relationship with a white guy when we met, in order to try to figure out if it was just cultural factors that doomed her relationships with black men, or if the problem was men in general and she should start dating women). Illuminatiprimus, the “Would you, could you, with a fox?” is a quote from Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham”, which was mentioned in the OP.
My being white only mattered to the parents of the Chinese girl.
