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.
That was unnecessary.
My wife worked her tail off getting here and following the legal process of becoming naturalized. She as American as you are.
Just because folks are Latino descent doesn't mean they aren't conservative. It's the opposite with traditional families. My wife was the one who compelled me to pursue more conservative thinking. She brought me here.
And the same goes for every Latino descent FReeper on this forum. Heaven help us if we drive them off Latino conservatives by making generalizations like that. We won't deserve their help at this rate.
Really unnecessary...
Kneeasles?
You all are clueless.
Ma'am?
We're guys.
Of course we're clueless...
I am crazy about red head men. Mine is a strawberry blonde. Been married to him for 24 years. Would never consider dating of marrying other races when I was single.
IN the early 80’s, when I was working my way through college, I was waitressing at a Glendale restaurant. The Armenian men started arriving in Glendale. I saw them, said if that is all that is available, I’m staying single.
That article produced a 1000+ post thread here a few years ago. You want to see some defensive women look it up.
Here.
With the wimpification of the American male, someone has to be the 'guy' in the relationship...
You have your opinion, I have mine, other people have theirs. Why do you need to insult every single person who puts out the earlier opinions instead of just state your own and add to the thread. Why do you need to put others down before you can state your opinion? If your opinion is that much more slam-dunk than the others, you ought to have confidence that the facts will speak for themselves. You don’t need to start off by insulting others - in fact, it’s a very bad way of trying to convince someone.
Someone should join a large dating service like eharmony, post a picture and preferences and see what happens.
Mexican isn’t really a race - it’s usually Mestizo - part white and part indian, and what indian tribe you get can make a difference, and so can what part of white you get, too - you might get spanish, irish, lebanese, english, german, though you usually get spanish. Black and Chinese are around, too, the whole hemisphere is very multiracial.
Yes..I chat with many Philippino girls every day, and I almost get the impression that there are ZERO men there.
Asian girls are the last ones on earth to still be loving and not with an attitude. While I am over 50, I find 20 year old girls that would have me in a heartbeat. Here in Europe, even 45 year old women will not give me the time of day. In the US, forget it. I have no desire to even meet an American woman anymore.
Of course, most of the Asian girls are as poor as church mice and look for a new life, but most are very loving and devoted to their man, be he rich or poor.
As many FReepers know, my wife is of African heritage. We've been together now for over 22 years. Guess there's always that one data point in all statistics...
5.56mm
"Ma'am, I will never be as loose as you..."
The perfect insult on soooooo many levels...
Because the male would insist the household to follow the traditional Asian view of women?
I don’t think he means that.
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
-John 14:27
Horse bleep!!!
I believe the direct cause is the feminization of men -- which turns the hell off of women.
The ironic thing is that this is WHAT the women wanted in the first place.
Which leads to the direct conclusion that most women don't know what they want and us poor men are more confused then ever...
Romantic love is simply not part of the Indian tradition. ... India has done a much better job of preserving its age-old traditions. Which is why things like arranged marriages continue to be a fact of Indian life.
Arranged marriages seem to 'work' better than 'love' marriages.
I have a theory about this:
In traditional culture, premarital sex was very rare and heavily frowned upon. Therefore it was very probable that a person's first sexual encounter was with their new spouse.
Now, a well known psychological phenomena kicks in: imprinting. Both partners imprint on each other as sexual partners. The first and only partners they have known. Throw in the Kama Sutra and drive that imprinting home with a couple hundred positions and techniques, and the bond is very strong!
Effective divorce rate: Near zero.
Contrast that with our 'modern' non-traditional 'values' boink, anything anywhere, anytime any in any number. The imprinting is hyper blurred. Small wonder an American can't settle down to one partner.
Effective divorce rate: 2/3rds...
I've found one I really like, we hang out a lot.
Unfortunately, she's gay. *sigh*
More fortunately there's a FReeperette, I'm quite interested in. She just might be the one.
Unfortunately, she's thousands of miles away. *sigh*.
sitch is my life...
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