All is Full of Love

[freddy]

why am i crushing on jewish girls :/

[smiles]

a relevant update.

My gf and I decided that we are "on a break". It was more my choice than hers, though i can tell she wasn't wholly opposed to it. I was feeling really emotionally tired about the whole situation and sick of bickering. I found that I was disagreeing with everything she said/arguing all the time (not really sure why I was doing that).

after about a week or so of the "break" I am definitely feeling less tired and argumentative. I'm really struggling with what to do now though. If we go off "break" it may happen again, or not. Maybe i just want to be single?

[Syeknom]

Really sorry to hear about that smiles. Taking a break can be refreshing (but is frustratingly difficult to do once you live with somebody) but I would fear that it's just masking more fundamental issues.

How long have you guys been together?

Speaking of arguing I spent last night on the sofa again, hooray neck ache.

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

smiles,

Stay strong and stay single. If you're bickering then it isn't right, and if you get back together you'll probably wish you'd ended it here somewhere down the line.

Obviously I don't know much about the whole thing, but I feel like we've probably all been here, especially me. I've been with girls where bickering and fighting was regular, and I'd always get told by them and others that it's 'normal'. It might be for some people, but it isn't for me, and I can be passionate and in love without all the drama and point scoring. It's fucking draining and damaging, and it keeps you from being able to be positive and secure with your own feelings.

I wish I could go back in time and tell past Bobbin to cut people loose. Then again, I don't think I'd appreciate my girlfriend now without having eaten my share of the proverbial shit.

Be happy dude.

[bels]

I think there's a certain type of fighting that's OK, and a certain kind that isn't. If it's obvious what you're arguing about and you can understand what they're saying then it's probably a more reasonable fight.

When you start getting into those weird, endless fights that seem to be about nothing, go nowhere, dredge up old resentments and character assassination then you're in the danger zone.

In my opinion.

- BelaBartok Relationships Expert

[Syeknom]

My girlfriend have a luxury apartment in the danger zone, overlooking the main piazza

[bels]

The Piazza of Recriminatory Glances

[smiles]

thank you guys.

Yeah, we were getting in these random arguments (I can't even recall about what) that never really started or ended anywhere. I would just say no to something she had said. Feeling very one sided at the moment. She wont/cant tell me about how she feels. upset, I imagine. We have interacted a few times in the past week and it was pleasant (and didn't really feel like we were on a "break" except that there was no explicit sense of intimacy - more just a sort of subtle hint)

we haven't been together for a huge amount of time - about 18 months - but it's enough that i was/am pretty heavily invested into the whole thing. She has visited me when I've gone back to america etc. So thinking about her not being in my life is pretty upsetting, but at the same time I don't know If I could be happy in the relationship.

When trying to look back and think what went wrong I'm pretty much left with nothing besides a kind of restlessness on my part.

[teck]

smiles' epic relationship episode** with its related cross-cultural complications got me thinking about something i've noticed a lot: the asian girl X internet dudes collab. i don't know if i want to call it asian fetish because its not as simple as dude just wanting some submissive azn wife (although there IS that) but i just notice the frequency of white dude and asian girl is fairly high particular with internet-related things like reddit, this forum, etc. i think it has to do with the demographics: middle to upper class young white men who are tech savvy and middle to upper class young asian women who are tech savvy have a very overlapping venn diagram. as an asian american dude it can be uncomfortable to watch, for reasons which take forever to unpack.

as a quick aside i'm quite steeped in the academia of this so this isn't something i necessarily want to 'study' or discuss at that level i'm just laying out an observation that i find often isn't explicitly discussed on the internet as a medium.

smiles i noticed we've waffled between culture-vs-individual arguments here and it's probably both. rosen is right to say that cultural norms inform individual behaviors, and once u get to that individual level personal preferences, attitudes, etc start having an effect. its like physics and how macro and micro are related but there's not a grand unified theory yet.

i've been with my girl for about four years and for me this is IT. im vietnamese american and shes korean american and there's some cultural differences still even though as a demographic we'd check off the same box on the Census form. but its differences such that im not sure if its upbringing or personal -- those two things are forever intwined and u probably can't separate them out.

for those who are still reading here's an interesting tidbit -- inter-asian biases exist and affect romantic pairings. i don't want to overstate this because the internet has a tendency to generalize something very complicated into something like "ALL ASIANS ARE RACIST". but understanding these things will help you understand a person better, which is the whole point of this exercise. lumping all asians together is a huge mistake despite some shared history and culture but so is essential-izing particular traits (Chinese people are always X, Korean people are always Y).

so as far as praxis goes: understanding a person's background, upbringing, and cultural milieu helps figuring out things like getting panties off and putting rings on fingers and solving bickering.




**sorry for the drama, stay strong man you seem like a cool dude.

[smiles]

WOW THIS IS LONG. IT ALSO DOESNT HAVE MUCH TO DO WITH LOVE

w/r/t inter-asian biases: the situation in hk is pretty ridiculous. South-east aisan people are looked down upon and I've heard stories of Indian/fillipino people getting strongly discriminated against in restaurants and bars (also the whole issue of domestic helpers). My Gf is from mainland china (and like all other students from china coming to hk she had to be one of the best in her province) and in HK mainlanders are seen as dirty,rude, and basically uncivilized. Living in HK is very crowded and there are certainly lots of tourists about so to an extent i can understand their frustration. My GF applied herself and became fluent in canto within her first few months of living here. So now she is able to pass herself off as a local which i think is a pretty sad situation. I've hear people tell her "i thought you were a local/japanese/korean" expecting her to take it as a compliment. (I'm just trying to contextualize this whole thing).

w/r/t understand culture and upbringing in the context of a relationship. I think i've overstated the importance of cultural differences (probably as means of some kind of justification or explanation) though of course it still plays a role. In my understanding, the problem has to do with the connection between culture and identity. For me, Culture/America does not have great bearing upon my identity. By that I mean the concept of country of America (the nation, the people, its place in the world) does not really determine how i 1. view myself and 2. interact with other people. I think of being a Vermonter first (i guess, if even that). Of course, understanding the cultural hegemony that America has over most of the world, even without consciously trying i'm probably somewhat 'within' american culture in hk. In contrast, my Gf has an extremely strong sense of being 'Chinese', with all the baggage that brings along with it, especially in hk. People are constantly shitting on China and conflating the government as being representative of the people and the culture. No one really attacks america in my daily life, but it happens to my gf all the time about china and forcing her to either lay down and agree with the stuff people are saying, or defend herself and come off as being uppity or a commie (or something). Basically, I assumed that my gf had similar feelings about china as I do about america. So i didnt really ask her about 'chinese' stuff that wasn't directly related to her general life. I thought i was understanding her background and upbringing when talking to her, but it is/was only one part (a part that i dont feel as strongly). Not really sure where i'm trying to go with this so i'll just leave it.

w/r/t: white guy/ asian girl and the aisan guy. man, this stuff is really tough. I don't know if i can explain why I chose to get into a relationship with a Chinese girl. In the past I've dated a taiwanese girl and and a local HKer. Of course appearance is the initial factor but i'd like to think the later stages have nothing to do with her race. i think this problem gets really complicated when people start assigning blanket values like 'submissive' and 'exotic' onto "asian" girls. This seems to be a mainly american problem where there the idea of "asian" people exists. I don't want to historicize this discussion but if you think about films like "the world of suzie wong" (exoticizing) and the fact that so many wars have been fought in asia (korea, japan, phillipines, vietnam etc) and you think about how the women in those places were portrayed to white men as throwaway basically, someone to fuck and leave and forget about after they went back to america to find a nice white wife there's this unfortunate pattern that starts to develop. It's uncertain how well that kind of image has pervaded impressions of asian women but imo there will always be some white guys who have an image of asian women derived from those sources seeing them as as exotic having the "right" to take them away from asian guys. I'm not an asian girl, i havent really encountered these kinds of people. I think we need an aisan girls perspective.

There are no hard and fast answers for this situation. Plus its hard to ask people why they like the things they do cause they probably wont give you the real answer (especially if its about sexuality).

is it weird that i think black and asian guys are the most attractive (to me). I wont forget about the asian guys (-__-)/\(-__-)

In HK theres an imbalance of inter-racial relationships (and lots of creepy old fat white guys with younger Filipino wives/girlfriends) but i dont think its really explained in the same way. It more has to do with the percieved lack of assertiveness on the part of Hk men.

[hooplah]

i'll chime in with some personal experiences with no analysis

one: i used to work at the bookstore on campus at my university. a bunch of my coworkers were asian girls. there was this one white guy who would come in all the time and try to woo us with stunted phrases in "our" languages. so he'd ask, "what ethnicity are you?" i would say, "korean," and he would spout off shitty generic phrases in korean. same with vietnamese, chinese, filipino--like somehow this would make him irresistible to us asian girls. this actually happens to me fairly often, especially now that korea has risen to pop culture prominence. when a guy finds out i'm korean, he often responds with "gam-sa-ham-ni-da!!!!" "ann-yong-ha-say-yo!!!!" "GANGNAM STYLE"

two: it's a turn off when i find out a white guy i am interested in has only ever dated asian girls. it's unfortunate because sometimes i bet it's out of happenstance, but it's also not too hard to discern when a white dude has an asian fetish. i get equally turned off when asian guys talk to me about how asian girls should date asian guys and not "betray" their race by dating white dudes

three: i downloaded tinder to see what it was like the other day and this white guy messaged me asking me to cuddle (wtf?) and then said "i like petite asian girls." that smacked of fetish. i replied "i'm 5'8" and told him i didn't want to cuddle and then he called me a tease and blocked me

four: my ex-boyfriend looked white and when we'd go out we'd get a lot of stares from strangers and knowing nods from other white guy/asian girl couples

five: i usually don't even blink when i see a white dude with an asian girl, but like smiles said, when i see a creepy old fat white guy with a petite younger asian woman (tbh, usually filipino or vietnamese), i stare. i always feel like they are lecherous and they fetishize that woman. my own personal biases coming out based on past experiences i've had.

six: not strictly related to dating/relationships, but i'm allegedly extremely "white-washed," and i've always felt like i exist in this awkward middle ground between asianness and whiteness. some asian guys i've met are turned off by my un-asianness, and some are sort of fetishizingly intrigued. i don't feel like i distinctly belong to one camp or another.

[ramseames]

The fact that this came out in august says a lot i think.

[thomaspaine]

[can-]

I absolutely refuse to date Asian guys

[thomaspaine]

You couldn't handle this anyways

[hooplah]

oh dude, i just remembered--you guys should watch this. it's so interesting, sad, and hilarious:

They're All So Beautiful, Episode 1: What is "Yellow Fever?"


They're All So Beautiful, Episode 2: Do you have to be white to have "Yellow Fever?"


They're All So Beautiful, Episode 3: What do Asian men think about "Yellow Fever?"


They're All So Beautiful, Episode 4: Do Asian women have "White Fever?"


They're All So Beautiful, Episode 5: Dating, Relationships... Marriage?

[bels]

I only date white girls but it makes me mad when people point this out. I think it's just statistics as in do I ever even meet brown girls.

[maj]

sure if you give your mum a bell she can arrange something for you bela

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

I don't think it's always a 'fetish' when you only like one look, it's just what you're attracted to. Fetish makes it sound sexual when I'm not sure it is entirely.

The science of attraction is way too complicated for me to wax lyrical about, but I can understand that some people might like a 'type' to the outside world, when to the every girl in that assigned 'type' is wildly different. If you think about it in terms of fashion, some people might say 'that guy just loves wearing all black. He only buys black', but in fact every singly thing he wears is special and premium. The point of difference is only apparent to him and others with the same enthusiasm for a look.

My Iraqi half of my family say I only date white girls, and I'm sure every single one of them look the same in their eyes, seperated only by obvious points of difference such as height, weight, age. Obviously, they were all wildly different. One of them had exclusively dated mixed race dark boys, but it didn't bother me.

In short; you can't help who you're attracted to, and you shouldn't devalue yourself by being worried someone is only with you because you're a 'type'. If that's true then it wont stick anyway.

[can-]

I have asian Friendship. i've had 4 asian best friends in my life. what is this about?


is it OK if i want a hispanic girl who knows how to make a good mapo?

[teck]

its interesting to get a non-american look at these things. the race question in many ways is the american question due to our history.

ii agree that you like who you like but its important to realize that there are external forces shaping your taste and 'preferences'. that we have a non-trivial proportion of pairings being a certain combination means that there are forces that are encouraging this combination (and perhaps suppressing others). I mean, why do we see so many white dude/asian girl pairings? why do we see alot of this on the internet?** Why aren't internet dudes hyped on, say, Indian girls, or Latinas?

im not doing any kind of moralizing here. i don't care. human relationship analysis breaks down at the one to one level.

but its useful to look at pairing frequency and tendancy because it may help us learn a bit more about the nature of our society and the invisible hand of the market. to borrow bobbin's analogy its useful to learn what causes the guy who wears all black to wear all black, if so we can now market to him better if anything.


**anecdotal evidence Corner: there was once a Hype thread on r/malefashion talking about what people were hyped about. someone put 'asian girls' and it was really hyped.

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

I work (partly) in trend forecasting, and I've long worked in macro sociology and economics. While you're right that 'external forces' change taste, do you think it really matters? In an age where authenticity is constantly called into question is anyone really worried that someone is just jumping on a 'hype' train when they suddenly start being attracted to indian girls?

Attractive cultural qualities are as trend driven as many other things in life, and in the UK, for example, I saw my 'attractiveness' stock fall sharply after 9/11. The offending forces in this case were plainly obvious, though others are more subtle. Indian boys and girls started being 'hyped' more in the UK after a Bollywood cultural explosion that happened a few years ago, helped by several key factors (music, reclaiming heritage, fashion, culinary recognition).

Your analogy is basically the same phenomenon seen when someone gets famous. Even unattractive people who suddenly recieve hype/acceptance start doing well with the opposite sex, and you're right, it's marketing. But I kind of think, like you, 'who the fuck cares'? As far as I know, the only people who really want to 'study' this kind of thing from a racial perspective is eugenicists.

[teck]

i think it starts mattering when it starts effecting people in negative ways. so like your own example you say your attractiveness fell after 9/11 for you it was perhaps a minor inconvenience (you handsome devil, you) but you take that to an extreme and suddenly you're getting the FBI wiretaps and Homeland Security feeling up your crotch.

wait is that what you mean im getting a little lost here.

[thomaspaine]

yeah bobbin i have no idea what the hell you're talking about

[bels]

He's saying that 2002 was mad klondike.

[thomaspaine]

[bels]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike_(solitaire)

When everyone went to Klondike in the gold rush there wasn't much chicks around and the chicks that were around were like, Argentinians with a fetish for dorky Sri Lankan boys who can sing.

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

Sorry guys, I'm obviously exhausted if I'm not even making sense. I can't even work out why it doesn't make sense.

No more writing for me today.

[teck]

tell us more about your trend forcasting gig

[germinal]

holy shit this thread

living in cornwall meant i didn't (properly) meet a non-white person until i was 16

in happier love-related news, my best friend and my favourite flatmate are in that wonderful early stage of a relationship (with one another) and it makes me so happy to see :}