Is He Into Me, or Just Really Into Brown Women?

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I’ve learned a lot from dating outside my culture. I’ve learned that some people consider black pepper spicy and that not all grown men take off their shoes when they enter their own homes. Most importantly, it has taught me that racism does not always arrive waving a flag or shouting a slur. Sometimes it arrives on time, pays for dinner, and tells you that you are “not like other Indian girls.”

The first time a white man called me exotic, I was twenty-two and still dumb enough to mistake discomfort for chemistry. We were sitting across from each other at a bar when he leaned closer and told me that he had “always had a thing for Brown girls.”

At the time, I took this as a compliment. Brown girls were beautiful, and I was a Brown girl, therefore I was beautiful; the logic appeared sound and in my defense, I was twenty-two and he was attractive. Only later did I wonder whether he had been attracted to me as an individual or whether I had simply walked into a fantasy that existed long before we met. This is the recurring question when you date outside your culture: does this person like me, or do they like what they imagine me to represent?

It would be easier if racism in dating were always that obvious. If a man showed up to a date up in a colonial costume, handed me a cricket bat, and announced in a British accent, “Teen guna lagaan dena padega” (“You’ll have to pay triple tax”), I’d know it was my time to leave. Unfortunately, modern prejudice is rarely that easy to spot, it tends to hide behind curiosity, personal preference, humor, and even admiration.