Inquiring minds want to know...does the carpet match the drapes?
Cheers!
Posted on 05/11/2007 9:18:14 PM PDT by teldon30
One of the more delicate areas I dealt with while running a dating service for more than two decades was the issue of race, and more specifically racial stereotyping by prospective members.
Stereotyping in itself is a volatile issue, and at some point during intake interviews, I often repeated the phrase “While there is some truth to all stereotypes, there are certainly many exceptions to every single one.”
However, when one is dealing with a sample of more than 20,000 single, divorced, and widowed men and women, I feel confident and comfortable making certain statements in a column titled The Truth about Dating.
Yet I was still hesitant to write this column, until a reader sent me an article from The New York Times, in which the author, John Tierney, published a story about racial preferences in the dating world.
Moreover, the article cited a study titled Racial Preferences in Dating that documented the preferences of more than 400 participants in speed dating sessions at Columbia University. A quick reading of both the Times article and the Columbia study seemed to support my own anecdotal findings.
(Unfortunately while reading the Columbia study I was overcome by the academic verbiage that authors of such studies feel compelled to use. Do they teach “Boring Writing 101” at Ivy League institutions of higher learning? I found it impossible to read more than a few pages without getting a headache. Here is a sample sentence: “Rates of inter-racial marriages thus capture both preferences and socio-geographic segregation.” Huh?)
Anyway, here is what I found in 23 years of interviewing singles, and I will attempt to communicate in my best “non-academic” language. When we interviewed prospective members, we always asked what their preferences were in terms of meeting people of different races.
Overall, women of most races preferred to meet men of their own race. Most Caucasian women wanted only to meet Caucasian men, the exceptions being women who were more educated and well-traveled, who considered themselves somewhat “worldly.”
Of all the races, African-American women were the most insistent about wanting to meet only African-American men. But most of those women excluded black men who had recently moved to New England from Africa or the Caribbean.
The one major exception to the finding that women wanted to meet men of their own race was Asian women, a vast majority of whom stated that they strongly preferred meeting non-Asian men.
The primary explanation offered by most Asian women was that they wanted to be matched with tall men, and they insisted that practically all of the Asian men they knew were short. But when I would ask if they would be willing to meet an Asian man if he were tall, most would simply shake their head and say they would rather not.
And what about Indian women? To be honest the sample of Indian women who joined my dating service more than 23 years was too small to determine any general statements about them.
As for men, overall they were far more open to meeting women of other races. In fact, and I find this especially interesting, the race of women most in demand were, you guessed it, Asian women. Therefore, almost all of the Asian women in my dating service had a very high Dating Quotient.
When I asked men to explain their preferences for Asian women, many shrugged and admitted they were just extremely attracted to them. But I also believe that many of these men, consciously or subconsciously, wanted to meet women who fit the stereotype of the submissive “Geisha girl,” whose primary purpose is to entertain and please men.
Interestingly enough, though, most of the Asian women we interviewed could not have had personalities more opposite than that passive stereotype. Many had Ph.Ds., M.D.s, or law degrees, and were extremely assertive. (Especially when I tried in vain to persuade them to consider meeting Asian men!)
Unfortunately for African-American women, most of the African-American men who joined stated a strong preference for meeting either white or Asian women. Many expressed the identical view, “I don’t have to join a dating service to meet women of my own race.”
The two groups of men who were the most difficult to match (and therefore had the lowest DQ) were Asian men and Indian men. Like African men, this was especially true of Asian and Indian men who had grown up overseas and relocated to New England, usually to pursue careers either in computer science or medicine. In a few cases I could persuade women to meet men of different races, IF the men were totally “Americanized.”
Of course Asian men were difficult to match because, as I previously stated, the one group of women who did not want to meet men of their own race was Asian women.
As for Indian men, they were the hardest people to match of any group of men or women of any race. And, with so many Indian men moving into the Boston area for jobs in high tech, rarely a week passed without several inquiries from men from India or Pakistan.
One reason they were difficult to match is that only a handful of Indian women joined over the decades, compared to hundreds of Indian or Pakistani men. But another is that many women, even the self-described “worldly” ones, expressed the stereotypical belief that Indian men had antiquated views of women.
To some extent, these women were correct. For example, of all the men I spoke with who wanted to meet women much younger than themselves, the largest group was, in fact, Indian men. Many told me that it was quite common back “home” for men to date and marry women at least a decade younger than themselves. And they wondered why they could not do the same here … which further lowered their DQ.
So that is the story from my own anecdotal experiences. Again, I am sure there are exceptions to every statement I made in this column. On the other hand, if you want “scientific” proof of what I am stating, just Google and download a copy of Columbia University’s Racial Preferences in Dating study.
But I suggest that if you do, make sure you have a bottle of aspirin nearby.
In Oriental families, sons support the parents, whereas daughters don't. Daughters-in-law join the family, whereas daughters join the in-laws' family. In many cases, the son is expected to live together with the parents. I think the son's having a non-Oriental spouse definitely puts a crimp in that tradition. The other problem is having a grandson carrying the family name who doesn't look like the grandparents.
A friend of mine is married to a female with a Phlip mom & white dad (F1). 5'6", long black hair, thin frame - he got some store boughts for her (I swear they're Ds) to complete the picture.
She's a real head-turner - tight-tight tops, short-short skirts + heels. He's always got a sh!t eating grin on his face.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here, but what the heck. In reference to white females/asian guys, the few instances I've seen confirm that while the females are more educated (based on assumptions of dress, conduct & environment where spotted), they are definitely less physically attractive.
It might be my own personal preferences, but they were washed-out redheads, with not particularly good figures, carriage, etc. In the unfair race for coupling, their college sisters who were equally smart, but better looking, captured all the higher quality white males.
Great post. I've met many quality caucasian women, but something about Latina women made them especially attractive. Your post summarized a lot of my own thoughts perfectly. My wife is like a "Latina Donna Reed" and amazes me on a daily basis. It's the devotion to faith, marriage and love that are so profound it's an inspiration for me every day.
That and she, to me, is HOT!
12 years and two children later and what I look forward to most is the time we spend together.
I could speculate about why I didn't find someone raised in this country, but suffice to say I have my own personal demands and I'm not easy to live with. There are plenty of good and decent conservative American women, they are just tough to find, I suspect. Plenty on this board for those still searching...
Anyways, since I was a kid in school I've enjoyed dating Latinas. Love the culture, too. The languages and cultural differences were exciting, always kept my mind working to learn and understand. At the same time, they were doing the same thing acclimating to American society. It was easy to bond quickly.
I think I ended up being slightly biased towards them due to my dating experiences with American women who had been raised as "princesses" moreso than "Ladies". As soon as I got my degree I moved to SoFlo and ran amuck, knee deep in Latinas. Now I get my wish every day.
It's really very condescending, this notion that all asian women are somehow weak...
They are quite the "mommy's boys".
No doubt Department of Defense is aware of this problem and takes it into account in planning wars in East Asia.
He’s always got a sh!t eating grin on his face.
That's two strikes against Democrat women.
A NULL set.
From the link to full article:
Steve Penner was the owner of the Boston-based dating service LunchDates for nearly 23 years and interviewed and listened to feedback from thousands of single men and women from all over New England.
And what’s up with the attitude? It seems whenever I’m in a restaurant there will be a group of 20-something white women loud and obnoxious as anything. I remember having a drink with one a while back and she cursed like a sailor...while we sat next to a family. I told her a few times to watch her mouth and later on she told me to “loosen up.”
Schlong size? Indian and Asian men have the smallest average penis size on the planet.
Inquiring minds want to know...does the carpet match the drapes?
Cheers!
As a three time (divorced) loser, that's been my experience too. Never get between an American woman and your money.
Here's a thread you may find useful.
I recommend that you take a great deal of care when considering South Florida now. Single, it was great, but with a family it kind of changes things. Northern Florida becomes more preferable. Good luck!
Like, *PING*, dude.
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