Kiss & Tell: Crossing color lines and culture lines for love
In dating, it’s always something.
He hasn’t grown up. He’s hung up on his ex. He is crazy. You are crazy. He is hot but stupid. He is a hermaphrodite.
When I first started dating Novio, the something was a racial thing. Or maybe a family thing. Or kind of both, I guess.
The other day, my girl Jeneé Osterheldt (jspace.kansascity.com) reminded me that June 12 was Loving Day. That’s the day celebrating the 1967 Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia, the ruling that legalized interracial marriage in the United States. I felt like an idiot. Here I am in an interracial relationship and I’d forgotten all about it.
He is half white, half Mexican. That’s why I call him Novio, Spanish for boyfriend.
I am obviously black.
When we first started dating, everything between us seemed so good (of course, it always seems perfect at the beginning), but then I thought it might turn out to be a wash.
He is extremely close with his family and he was nervous to tell his parents he was dating a black girl, something he’d never done. In fact, nobody in his family had ever dated a black person.
“I wasn’t sure how they would react,” he told me.
I wasn’t worried about how my family would react. I’d been there, done that. I’ve dated black men before, and white men, and Middle Eastern men. I don’t discriminate.
My dad has been in an interracial marriage. My mom, who in the past might have preferred me to date only black men, loves Novio. She has never said an unkind word about interracial dating and has always stayed out of my business and let me make my own decisions in love.
Novio and I were having brunch at Succotash in the City Market after about two weeks of dating, and I remember him saying things might be difficult. “What my family thinks means a lot to me,” he said.
I told him to slow his roll down. “Um … we just started dating!”
Then I said to my friends, “What is he worried about? Marriage and kids? We are not even a couple yet.”
This was a huge step for me, because before that in my dating life, I’d been a hot mess. I used to get caught up in infatuation and start planning a whole relationship in my head after two dates. This time, I was the level-headed one.
So I told him my parents would be cool and not to stress.
“If we ever get to the point where you want me to meet your family, maybe they will see what you see,” I said. “I am a nice, sweet, educated professional homeowner from good parents. If not, well, we’ll just cross that bridge when we come to it.”
But my friend Angie, who, like me, is all about the overactive imagination, was wary.
“Maybe he should worry about it. What if y’all fall in love and then have a horrible family problem to deal with? You don’t need that shit in your life. It’ll be like a Lifetime movie, like during their diversity month. Do his parents live in KC? ’Cause y’all could always move away and never see them. Or whatever, I know, y’all are just dating, so I shouldn’t start planning the Lifetime movie. But still!”
I told her to calm down.
The bigger issue for me was something else.
I have often been the urban girl with divorced parents who dates the suburban boy with the perfect family. It makes me feel out of sorts. I’m from Flint, Mich., which isn’t as bad as you think, but it’s not Liberty. I have cousins who, as my sister says, would “beat somebody up for a pack of Newports and a pint of Hennessy” if a boy hurt me. Saying that might scare some people, but you know you have someone crazy in your family. So being around “the Waltons,” as one ex-boyfriend called his family, was a little awkward to me at first.
But when you meet somebody special, you have to get over your bullshit and realize that even though you might be different, you can still try to make things work.
Read more about interracial dating and interracial people on inkkc.com and jspace.kansascity.com.
Ummm...I think "dealing" with dating someone with both sexual organs is far more an "issue" than the color of their skin. Or mabe dating your cousin, that's kinda creepy. Oh hell...dating a bigot or a racist isn't a bag-o-fun either...and believe me racists come in all colors and ethnicities. Kansas City can't seem to get away from the Civil War. I've been all over the United States and I can tell you that this town is backward when it comes to dating. Who cares what color a person's skin is?
