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Cross-Cultural Dating Rules
Sarika Dani turns over a leaf and dates someone of the same ethnicity.
by Sarika Dani
A couple of years ago, I fell hard for a dark-haired Swedish drummer who was in a metal band called Obligatory Torture. (In its native form, Obligatorisk Tortyr, it sounded kind of sexy.) He had a tattoo, nose and tongue piercings, and pronounced “yogurt” like it began with a “j.”
As a first-generation Indian-American, I had a very different background from the Swede, which made us endlessly exotic to each other. He was deeply interested in my culture—and I was deeply interested in the fact that he was about as far away from being Indian as I could get.
But we had little in common; in fact, our shared interests stopped at a love of the Rolling Stones (which, I quickly discovered, is not the key to lasting love). There were others before the Swede—a blue-eyed Southern boy; a freckled art-school student; a half-Jewish guitarist. But each of those relationships was missing something, and one by one, they dissolved.
Growing up, I always assumed that I lacked the gene that made Indians of the opposite sex appealing to me. They seemed immature, unexciting, and too close to home to be attractive. It was hard to understand how I could be connected to my culture, but disconnected from the guys who populated it. I now know that when it comes to dating, the desire for the novel and exotic—for me, anyone who wasn’t Indian—can compete with the need for familiarity. But in the end, which impulse should win out?
My mother, for one, would have been thrilled if my older sister or I had brought home a brown-skinned beau. She would have swooned as he ate with his right hand—the way we do—and cracked jokes in Hinglish (a Hindi-English hybrid) while deftly peeling a mango. She would have pronounced his name properly—probably better—than I could. He would have fit right in.
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1 Valrock // Jun 20, 2008 at 2:03 pm
this guys is funny
2 thegiraffe // Mar 4, 2008 at 10:17 pm
This is such a sweet story. I am in the exact same position as you are, though I’m what you might call an ‘Indian-European’. There are few Indians in the part of Europe I come from, so I somehow always thought Indian guys would never be right for me. Now I’ve moved to the US, and to my glad surprise, I’m completely wrong. I could totally see myself with someone who’s Indian like me (either an NRI or an ‘Indian-Indian’; don’t forget, beliefs in India are also modernizing at a dramatic pace, so guys in India now have a much wider set of possible beliefs/lifestyles). The bottomline is, I’m really happy to know there are communities in the world where I can be a 100% myself and still be accepted by the group (these two things never went together for me until now), or by someone I love. I’ve now found out what a pleasure and comfort it can be to get that ‘default acceptance’ in a group just because you’re from the same ethnicity. I’ve never experienced that in Europe; I always felt the ‘eternal foreigner’ because the Indian population there is too small to actually be present in people’s minds as a sizeable minority (unlike the US). Of course, it can be a great asset to grow up in multiple cultures and it gives you more appreciation for other cultures, and this is something I do value about being brought up somewhere else.
Anyway, thanks for posting this story, it’s great to know there are others who underwent the same thing and ended up in the same spot
3 Rose // Nov 4, 2007 at 7:37 am
I am currently interested in dating someone from India. He is cultured, a professional in several fields, and well known and respected in his community. I am live in a rural community, attended community college, live a very simple lifestyle. I am blonde, blueyed, and have never dated outside my hometown culture. Can this work?
4 Jack // Oct 22, 2007 at 10:21 am
I agree with Nina.
5 Nina // Jul 23, 2007 at 11:31 am
This article is really sweet and personal. I feel like if an open mind means trying something you wouldn’t normally dare…even if that’s dating your own kind.