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.
日本＊ピング＊ (kono risuto ni hairitai ka detai wo shirasete kudasai : let me know if you want on or off this list)
That's not what Obama said. I think he said he lived in fear of church burnings or pig roasts or something. ;-)
As long as the gal I’m interested in is of the human race & isn’t stupid, I can deal with the rest. Racial preferences are irrelevant to me. Red hair and curvy figure helps though.
;-)
That's not far down the list of Democrat causes. Your statement may one day be labeled "hate speech".
LOL!
Now I remember, one had wispy gray hair and smelled like my grandma, the other one could bench press... me.
Carolina here I come...
Yah, Honor Killings, Hel-freakin'-lo.
As for Asian girls, they are cute, I was never into them for the idea that they were submissive, just the opposite...they can pull off an uber-fem tomboy with ease...and regardless of race, that is always cool.
Schwing!
Always made be smile when the fat white guy from church thought he'd pickup a nice compliant asian wife. Divorce on the wing..
Every white girl I met who would only date black guys made me feel bad for the black guys. Those chicks typically had some bad issues.
The only black guy I knew that would only date non-black women was trying to escape the "ATTITUDE". Had an attractive African American girl treated him as a human being she would have found herself a good man in him. Instead, a very happy German girl got him...and two of the finest looking kids I've ever seen.
*sigh* I know.
2.Does the author differentiate between courting and dating?
I know many people who will date out, but only marry in.
Oh...hamburgers. I’m one of those “mixed kids” (my mom was from the Philippines, and my dad was from Romania). Long story as to how they met, though...but a good story.
Hey!! I’m married!
;)
Many middle aged and older men in this country are turning to Thailand and the Philippines for a second or third wife. Filipinas especially, as most already speak English and are Christian (Catholic, for the most part). Why don’t the Indian & Pakistani immigrants get on an airplane like these other men and find a nice girl in that part of the world? If they are in computer sciences or medicine, they will be considered a “great catch” in the P.I. and their ideas about marrying a younger woman are reflected there as well, as far as I can tell.
LOL! I’m an “old married mother” and enjoyed the dating/wild years but would be totally lost today if I had to enter the dating world. In my dating time, the mid to late 80s, all it took was a guy to be hot, a mutual attraction, and it was a good to go thing.
I think the best men come from Texas. I’ve never been there, don’t know much about the lifestyle, but always thought Cowboys, or particularly any male from Texas, had a lot more going for them than any male from anyplace else. Except for my husband, of course.
I’d be completely lost in the dating world today and thank heavens I’m not there. And if I ever become divorced or widowed, I think I’d give up. However, I have two teens now in the whole dating world, and it’s scary for a parent. I keep telling them, find a good guy, preferably from the heartland, a hard working, conservative, gentle but tough man. Since we don’t live in the “heartland” just find a guy who is smart and hard working.
Red hair pretty much limits you to nordic caucasian. Unless you aren’t talking about natural redheads.
lol!
For instance, the Asian women who want to marry Asian men may be doing just fine meeting Asian men. As a result, they don't need to hire a dating service. The ones who are going to the dating service may only be ones who are having trouble finding non-Asian men. In that case, there's no general preference of Asian women for non-Asian men.
I was a little surprised at the idea of black women who were not interested in non-black men. I've run into a few black women who were okay dating men of other "races." I wonder whether this situation is another example of a difference between women in general and those who hire a dating service.
For whatever it's worth, I can't say that I have any strong racial preferences anymore. At this point in my life, I know I'm not likely to find someone anyway. If I find someone who attracts me and is good for me, I certainly can't afford to reject her over race.
Bill
My God-daughter and her sister have a hispanic mother and an asian father. Both are in thier early to mid 20’s now and are really attractive young ladies. Like the study says, they do not date asian men. Never have too.
At Columbia?
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