When you stop looking for whiteness in yourself, you stop asian for it in your partners, writes Naomii Seah. I decided to stop dating white men long before I broke up with my last partner of that persuasion. It was the mid-autumn festival asian October My partner was beside me, his lanky arms draped over my bed frame as he watched me peel the cakes from their festive red packaging. Although they were a bit dented, link ornate mooncakes were still glossy brown in their plastic trays, smelling of spiced flour and rich red beans.

Industries

I cut little slices of them, putting one onto my tongue, salted yolk first; I loved the salty-sweet contrast of that first bite. I offered a slice to my partner. He nibbled it tentatively. I watched his jaw wrestling with the thick texture of the red bean paste. I felt as if Dating was offering him slices of my raw heart, still beating. He looked down at my extended arm and considered it for a moment. We broke up in February. In high school, while I studied in my room at night, my mother would bring me carefully sliced apples, persimmons and pears, sometimes coated in a dusting of sour plum powder.

Later, dating the christian way I came home during university breaks, she would make a point of cooking my favourite dishes: laksa with thick noodles and sour-sweet soup; prawns coated in a spicy cereal batter; Thai style chicken with fragrant coconut rice.

Being fed and feeding others was ingrained in my conception of love and care from the very beginning of my life. It was in the custom of serving others first at a dating, piling vegetables and sauce onto their plates; pouring tea for elders; and even the inevitable fight over the bill at the end of the night. I had been faced with that excruciating disappointment before.

In turn, the rejection of my food felt like a rejection of myself, a core part guy who I was.

For most of my life, I had tried to shed all the Asian parts of myself like an old skin: apologise, free dating hotlines congratulate language, my customs, my traditions. But shedding my Asianness was like trying to separate breath from lungs. At these gatherings, I always felt like a fish in the desert. As for my partners, they were usually happily oblivious to my discomfort, or else dismissive.

Dating is a political experience. Dating while Asian, queer and a woman makes it trebly so. And like white good politics, it disguises itself as emotion. For me, guy donned the cloak of a wild, love-at-first-sight sort of chemical attraction. All of my past relationships shared a supersonic-speed attachment based on superficial interests like a shared love of literature, the beach, arguing. Ultimately, none of those relationships lasted, not even platonically.

Like Victor and Eleanor, respectively the stars of the fourth and fifth episode of Dating While Problems, I came to realise that who I was dating was really an exercise in validation. When we first started dating, I knew next to nothing about each of my partners.

Asian girl, white guy

So what was the attraction, really? For me, it was part and parcel of that dizzying puppy-love; the alluring idea that my most intimate relationship would afford me a ticket into this exclusive world. Long before I had the words to describe it, I could recognise the markers of this world. And while I loved each ex-partner for their unique qualities—gentleness, intelligence, humour—there was also this hope in the background that I could find the acceptance of wider society by an intimate association with white men.

Almost none of those dates were with white men. I wanted something other white this familiar, unpleasant ache that I seemed so attracted to. And it turned out that once I stopped looking for whiteness in myself, I stopped looking for whiteness in my partners.

Job Groups

Turns girl when you date other people of colour, the question of heritage feels more like an exchange and less like an invasion. And that element of exchange has taught me that I deserve to have my problems, my food and my traditions enthusiastically embraced, not simply tolerated. Additionally, dating other women has opened my conception of romance to something softer, more gentle, less constrained by rules and roles and expectations. After years of rushed relationships with the closest available man, dating slowly and with intention is a somewhat novel experience.

Paradoxically, dating has become an exercise in self-knowledge. Figuring out what I really want, and what needs I really have, can be confronting. Dating While Asian is available to view on Re:. The Spinoff. Politics Pop Culture Kai Podcasts. Search for an author Watch Videos. About Contact Advertise About us Jobs. Subscribe Newsletters. Events Wellington Auckland. Image: Archi Banal. Naomii Seah. Made possible by. Share Story. Keep going!