Should one date a younger man?
The other day I met someone, I was standing in a party when he walked up to me and started talking about Quantam theory...I looked at him bemused till he stopped and said "Oh! I must be boring you to tears!" I realized he had stopped and I managed to say "Not at all, that was fascinating as I studied Quantam theory too". OK I must admit I have something for geeky and nerdy people. There is something about their lost look and the theories they spout that brings out the protective female in me..Later I realized he and I shared many common interests - books, music, and more... It was so easy talking to him each time we met in any social gathering over the next few weeks..I really liked him very much, and it seemed he liked me too. I don't know if it was just as a friend from his side but I was definitely attracted to him..There was only one problem - he was 8 years younger...That kept me guessing, is he really interested or is he just being friendly because he finds me a nice person...He was a desi too so there was no way I could bring myself to try and discover more by making any suggestive moves...lest I appear aggressive and lose the friend I have because I wanted more. And then I kept thinking about the 8 year difference. Why could he not have been my age I thought...if I was a guy it would be still ok, after all there is an 8 year gap between my dad and mom and it dosen't even show...So why can I not think the same as a woman? I asked a married friend who did not know him about this dilemma and she only talked about some ZEE TV serial where there seems to be a similar story (Yes, we get ZEE USA!) and the woman is 10 years older. So the story so far is that the younger man at 30 is very much in the running than her at 40...and he seems to be a little disappointed to be with her now...I really did not want to hear ZEEisms...that too from a soap opera but the facts my friend told me did make sense...But why marriage or a serious relationship? Can one just make do with an affair or a fling? I thought.. although he is not the 'fling' type....Then I imagined myself hanging out with this guy and I could already feel the scorchers my friends would give me....I did not even think about what my parents or relatives would say if the news reached them in India...Of coure this was and still is purely rhetorical at this point ...as nothing happened...and it may never get to the point where it develops into something more even later, so its all conjecture...but it did make me wonder if something like this does come up in my life what should I do...and if younger is OK how much younger can he be...2 years? 4 years? or 8 years???
Women in America...Carrying on from where I left off:
OK i am coming in after a long hiatus ...I can say I was busy which I was but it was also a kind of mood where I did not feel like writing for some time..but without further ado let me carry on where I left off -So at the Women's Conference which I went to I was happy to see many professional women together in one room - there were CEOs, VPs of banks, financiers, other professionals and of course MBA students like me and several senior women were key note speakers. During the course of the day to my chagrin I found out that the women in America faced no different problems than in India. Many women who were senior bankers spoke about 'old boys networks' and the fact that they had to be better than men to get the same jobs. They were not complaining...in fact they were offering advice to the upcoming professionals. A couple of women had finally felt too stifled by the banking culture and needed to devote more time to their children so they had moved out of the banks - some of them became venture financiers and yet others became entreprenuers...Whatever we may say about how women now equal men, the bare fact is that most of the women had to compromise somewhere in their careers to look after their children rather than their partners. Then one recent banker talked about how she had found that in banking there was overt sexual harrassment at all levels. Almost all the women seemed to be in agreement. In fact, this young banker had already conducted an annonymous survey of the women in the banking industry and she found out that the harrasment existed at all levels without discrimination! This was a bit of an eye-opener for me as I previously thought that it would be different in this country, especially within the upper echelons. On the positive side it seemed like diversity had become more important for many companies but companies did not want to give concessions to women who may be mothers too...One can now argue why should the companies do so which would be correct, but this is also the reason why many women never reach the top of their profession. They choose to take a backseat somewhere along their career path, except those who are completely driven and may give the time to their career at the expense of their homes. In my personal opinion, a mother's presence is a unique component of character building for a child and to provide them with the emotional security to grow up as strong adults. With the no-options and no-compromise attitude of employer companies, the society will become increasingly fragmented and maybe more people will see their shrinks on a regular basis...but that is just my opinion as a Desi... I may be wrong...
.....and they say women in America are liberated!
Recently I was at a women's conference in New York in the heart of Manhattan. Essentially this conference was for the prominent women working in Wall Street. The conference itself was held at an old boy's club, a very prestigious club in Manhattan that was for the high-powered from an old Ivy league institute. They had liveried attendants at every door and the solemn tapestry laden surroundings spelt money and 'upper class' snobbery. Having rushed in from yet another rainy morning in Manhattan I needed to go to the restroom to freshen up. Looking for the 'ladies' bathroom I realized that this bathroom situated on mezannine floor must have been an after thought in the later years....it was evident that this club had been the domain of only men in the yesteryears. It was good, I thought that times had changed for the better and that an only women's conference was being held here now, even though by the location of the restroom one could tell that there were still more male members than female. ....(to be contd. later)
Black men are off limits...?
I was studying with Luna in a study room at school. Our rooms had glass fronts and Luna being one of the hottest girls on campus had to keep looking up to smile at men who would pass by and would lightly knock on the glass partition. I did have my share of 'friends' but Luna had many admirers as well. I had never seen her with a hair out of place or with her mascara smudged and she always wore classic outfits which accentuated her perfect figure. She is a warm and charming person too which added to her attraction as well as her glowing ebony skin. Since Luna kept smiling at people passing outside who were waving to her, I kept looking and watching too and soon we started exchanging notes about the passers by. Dean passed by and we agreed he was intelligent and hot. And then Kino popped in to chat with her for a minute and as soon as he left I said..he is so hot, is he your friend? She smiled and said, 'Yes! And girl, you seem to have a thing for black men' I said 'Yes ! I do I must admit...but the black men have been waving at you not me' She said 'That's true, but don't go and fall for a black man'. I said 'Why?' She said 'Honey! You're not the typical Indian girl are you...wanting a black man...' She told me that it there were not too many black men who came to Ivy League institutes to do their MBAs...and they were in demand...and black women considered that they had the first right to them. 'Honey, we have been losing our men to these white girls already...and now Indian girls want them too!', she joked. It was true that many ABCDs with darker skin did grow up identifying more with blacks than whites. But I knew of only a handful of Indians married to black people. This could also be because of the way the black society is set up...they are more religious and traditional than the white people in general and 'sticking together for one's brother/sister' is the norm. In some ways they seem to be almost clannish. 'It's a moot point really', I told Luna...since there are no black men who are after me right now! Luna laughed again and said "Good luck..I hope you get whoever it is you want" and we kept studying.....Recently Luna started going steady with a European man...and they seem really serious about each other...so now I figure it's only fair that I just keep looking for love as usual without letting the skin color or origin deter me...!
Another day and a pick up attempt....
Some days ago I made a trip to Washington (the State on the west coast and not the city as in D.C.)...and when I came back to the East I took a shuttle van home. I had barely settled into the van when the driver asked me..." Don't you live at XXX Street?" I said "Yes, I do. But how do you know?" And he told me that he had picked me a few weeks ago from home when I went somewhere else. We were waiting for some other people to come out of the airport and he kept talking. "So! You're Single?" I told him I was. He was a black man but from his accent it seemed he had probably come from an African country. He continued speaking " You're cute you know!" And I looked up for the first time from my book. "Oh" was all I could manage. "Thanks" I added not wanting to sound like a complete turn-off. I really didn't think I was beautiful or sexy but maybe 'cute' was true...I thought. But my monosyllabic replies did not deter the driver. He next asked me if I was looking for love...and having just come back from a trip feeling a little tired and nostalgic for home I said I was in a fashion. I started looking out of the window then when suddenly a piece of paper was thrust in front of my nose. "Call me, ok?" he said and then I realized he had given me his name and phone number. His name was Osa...maybe African, I don't know...I sat with almost frozen with the piece of paper in my hands when I saw the lady entering the van looking at me curiously. I quickly regained composure and tried to look down the rest of the way so that I wouldn't have to see Osa looking at me in the rear view mirror. When he turned in the wrong direction half way down, I realized he was probably trying to drop off everyone else who got in before he dropped me...not wanting an uncomfortable situation later... and having almost no luggage I got down with another passenger who was a few blocks from my home. 'Call me tonight" Osa whispered urgently as he handed me my suitcase and I handed him the tip. I came away feeling...ok at least SOMEONE finds me cute...but wondering yet again at how easy it was here to pick up people for sex here in the U.S. I am sure he did not want a relationship...but everyone knows how lonely you can be when you live alone and that is what they do. Probably in a society where the only way to meet and have relationships and eventually marry people is to put yourself out there..that is what people do. How will I cope I sometimes wonder...its been years since I had been touched by a man and I would like to be...but is this the way. While looking for love...I sometimes wonder how long it will take and if I should not be having some casual encounters on the way...as I am wasting the best years of my life alone. Sometimes I have this strong urge just to hold a warm male body tight for a few minutes...just to reassure myself someone who will love me is really out there somewhere... I was mortified with myself that I actually thought about Osa for a moment before I threw away his note...and about how if I ever did want to have a casual encounter how would I make sure the other person did not have AIDS or something like that....
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Monday, July 05, 2004
The story so far...
Starting from where I left off...
As we entered the club I had to take off my jacket as it was incredibly hot inside...due to the crush of bodies..and I was feeling very self conscious in my knee length and sleeveless black dress having never worn such a dress in India. But then I looked around. Some girls were wearing almost nothing on top anyway, so I started feeling more comfortable.
"Lets Salsa" said Joe and walked out on the empty dance floor. The Russian just smiled politely and stood in the corner not wanting to be labled as 'Joe's girl for the night' yet! So I walked out on the floor with Joe and tried to learn Salsa. He did not know much but he was at least willing to make a spectacle of himself. Soon other people joined in too and started trying more adventurous stuff. So we had a good crowd out on the floor now and Joe was somewhere in the middle teaching some people. I was very thirsty by now so I looked around for someone who might get me a drink from the bar as there seemed to be a frenzied mob around it...but no, I did not see anyone who looked the least bit interested in getting me a drink so I pushed thru the crowd to the bar and got myself an overpriced beer. I realized that there were other floors in the club and decided to explore...So I want to the top floor but that was full of recliners and couples reclining on them either kissing away or trying to get familiar enough to start kissing away...there seemed to be no people in the singular like me so I headed to the basement with my drink. Any thing to escape the crowd on the ground floor!
The basement was merrier with rock and pop music which seemed more familiar to me and people were just dancing in groups. I joined in and soon someone came over to me and said "care to dance with me". I said "Yes!" and we started a dance. I was doing the formal dance that you do in a club with a guy that you don't really know and are not sure about. He tried to bring me closer when the music changed to a slower number but I could just not let go. Everytime his hand brushed mine I would stiffen and he said "Indian? You are very shy!" This was not what I wanted to hear...but it looked as if he was a little drunk...Soon I heard a girl whisper to another..."He's married, no use" looking in his direction...Just my luck I thought..."Are you married I asked" and he said "Oh yes! My wife will be joining me here soon, she could not get away from her job so I flew over to the U.S. alone..I'm missing her tonight" ...and that was that...I had wasted all my time dancing with this guy while all the other girls who knew better did not waste their time...but I had to admit that I did have fun! ...Oh well...I have all the time to look for true love, I thought and finally relaxed and started dancing the night away...
Posted: July 04, 2004
Waiting....to exhale..
So after coming back from the club that night alone I wondered what I really wanted in life. I decided to let myself go, be more spontaneous and not hold myself back by imposing silly rules and limits on myself. And another night I put on a little black dress and went to another school party..this time one thrown by the Latino club on campus. Their parties were usually crowded, with salsa music and people showing off bare skin and this time they even promised exotic dancers...the clothed kind of course!
So while leaving from our campus, as we had a class dinner before the party on campus, I bumped into a guy who I had just talked to briefly while standing in line to get my dinner plate. His name was Joe and he was heading there as well...and we decided to cab down together. Wow! I thought as here was another handsome guy who seemed really interested in me. I wasn't quite sure which country he was from and I thought I would ask him on the way. And just then, this sexy Russian female we have in our class walked down the stairs in a leopard-skin look alike short skirt and purred, Hello! Are you all headed to the club for the party. We said yes and she took the Joe's arm. I realized from their conversation that Joe was interested in her and had struck up a conversation with her at dinner...but probably because she wasn't sure about him then she must have decided to keep looking for a club date...it was my bad luck that she found no one and caught us as we were just leaving. I would like to mention here that we had a very large class of about a 1000 people and since we were all new we did not yet know everyone..
On the way to the club I somehow managed to sit in the middle of the two people and therefore I tried to make polite conversation, "So are you enjoying the club scene here at school?" I asked the Russian girl. "Oh! yes, it's nice...I wish my partner could have come with me today, she was really interested in coming since she is here in the city, but she was busy"" Oh! She's a lesbian" I thought feeling relieved, now I could feel better about Joe. So I followed up her comment by saying" I am sorry she could not come, so she is not coming to live with you here while you are at school?" The Russian gave me a strange look, "Why should she? She is the one managing the business while I am away at school since she is my business partner""Oh! Sorry" I said blushing..."I thought she was your partner!" ..."Oh! did you think so...and she giggled while giving a 'look' over my head to Joe who had been quiet all this time. He laughed too and I wished myself somewhere else altogether...... (to be contd.)
Posted: July 04, 2004
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Saturday, July 03, 2004
My search for someone more than a friend...
I started graduate school some time ago. One long term relationship I had in my life had ended a year ago and had been rocky for quite some time before that. I was shaky still, but looking for someone. I was hoping to find someone who would begin as a friend and then maybe mean something more to me...
There were people from many countries in my class...many of them Indian..but many were married, engaged or already had girl friends. And somehow the Indians considered the girls in their school too independent and too much like them to be seriously interested for a longer term relationships. And the American Indians or the so called ABCDs? Well they wanted to have nothing to do with FOBs (Fresh off Boat) and tried to stay as far away as possible. So while I made many Indian friends who were males, there wasn't anyone I found a spark with.
So I kept looking..I would go to school parties, chat with many people, dance with some and come back to my own apartment. All this while the people born and brought up in America were hooking up. The clubs closed at 2 AM and at 1 AM or so people would finally decide who they liked. Since those days we had just started school and no one really knew anyone very well, people used to come alone but many left in pairs. It was funny to see that the Americans (and I include all people born in America here, not only the white people) were most comfortable with this scene....and most of them used to leave early if they found someone or did not want to hook up that night but the 'serious' ones usually hung on...making moves and partying together and figuring out if they really wanted to go home with that person at 2AM.
Once I went to a school party to welcome back the senior students with Myra a friend from Hong Kong, she was also looking like me....this was a big club which could accomodate a thousand people and was on 3 floors. She decided to go upstairs when she did not find anyone she like on the floor we were on. It was extremely crowded so I lost her the moment she squeezed into the crowd...and since I had told her I would wait for her at the entrance at 2 AM I waited in the club. The only person who tried to pick me up was a guy who had a reputation for being a slippery sort of character in school...he was from Pakistan but had lived in Singapore for a long time...I was rather afraid of him and what he might want to do and so I walked away telling him that I needed to powder my nose.
I soon lost myself in the crowd and then danced with a couple of people from school who asked me...one very cute...Brian...he was possibly the best looking black man at School, very handsome and well built..but I knew that he was much younger than me and somehow I could never bring myself to be seriously interested in a much younger guy. Maybe it was just my middle class upbringing in India but the moment I met a man I would always weigh him on the marriage scale....and more than 2 years younger was a little hard for me to accept even though I saw people around me never discussing age at all. So I danced with Brian, wondering if Myra had met some one she liked upstairs. I was so drawn to Brian as he was incredibly good looking and incredibly well built but I kept telling myself that he was only dancing with me as he was a friendly soul and saw me standing alone. Why in the world would he be interested in me...I think Brian sensed this...as I just could not loosen up while dancing with him and after sometime I excused myself as I did not want him to see how much I liked him. So he went on to other girls..and danced with them while I watched. I wanted to leave but Myra was no where to be found. And at 1AM when the hook up game started and people started kissing on the dance floor I got worried.....Where was Myra I wondered.
To my misfortune I saw the guy I had tried to lose walking towards me. But he too sensed I wasn't interested so he just said 'Hi...nice dance with Brian'. I thought I would ask him where Myra was since he knew her and everyone knew he had a thing for Asian girls...and he told me that she had gotten too drunk and they had called her a cab and that is why she left without telling me. Now I was stuck here. Calling a cab alone was too expensive and I was after all a student so I went and talked to the other girls. Shanna who lived in my building told me she would go back with me...and so I waited. So at 2AM when they turned on the lights Shanna was still sitting with her arm around a guy and did not look ready to go. So are we leaving now? I asked...and she said with her beautiful smile..."Just one minute, sweetie" and smiled up at the guy.
The club bouncer finally intervened at 2:15 AM and ordered us out of the club. So I stood wondering what I was doing here outside on the pavement with the 'just-hooked up' couples and feeling lost. Mark, the guy with Shanna kept telling her...show me how you move your belly...and she would do her belly dance movements for him since she had been learning this dance for several years. I looked on wondering what next, when Shanna came up to me and said in her melodious voice. Sorry, sweetie, but we decided to go to Mark's place and he will call you a cab now...And the cab came and I sat in it...feeling like an idiot. I could have done this an hour ago and not been shamed like this as the only one going home alone at 3AM in the night....
Posted: July 03, 2004
Shades of black
I discovered an odd thing about me when I was young. I discovered I liked the ebony skin color. Since we did not have MTV at that time in India, the only place where I did see black people (sorry I am not going to be PC) was behind the cover of magazines. Ads for 'United Colors of Bennetton'. I would stare at the ads - one showed a black baby with a white baby where the black baby was depicted as a devil and the white as an angel. The white baby had beautiful blue eyes and was very cute and chubby but I found myself drawn to the black one with mesmerizing black eyes and that wonderful glowing ebony skin. What was wrong with me I thought...and since this blog is read by mostly Indians I don't have to explain why I thought what was wrong with me...India is obsessed with skin color.."Don't go out in the sun too much" my mother would say, " You will turn black and then we will have trouble marrying you off"...And this was a fact of life. Times of India and HT used to be full of advertisements wanting 'very fair' brides and when we did advertize for a cousin sister we chose 'very fair' though she was wheatish. You had 'very very fair' which you used for a truly fair person and there was 'extremely fair' which was somewhere in between. And it was odd that growing up in a household where all elders denoted fairness to be a sign of beauty, I was attracted to the black skin. So I kept it a secret...never told even my friends that I found blacks attractive, what was the point anyway....there were almost no black people in India...but among my the boys in my college I would sneak more looks at those with the swarthy skin, of course they had to be atractive in other ways as well!
Posted: July 02, 2004
What color are we Indians?
Some time ago I was sitting with my team working on a school project. Graduate school to do my MBA. So we were working on this Corporate Finance case at 2 AM and getting really tired so we started talking. And Jeff asked Kim, "So how many colored people are there in your Cohort (same as Class in India)?" She belonged to the same Cohort as I did and she said, Three! It took me by surprise. Just a year ago we had a diversity workshop when we entered this fine Ivy league institution and as a part of the workshop we had some speakers who had spoken about "people of color". They used it as an all encompassing term to include African Americans, Chinese Americans, Hispanic and Asians and maybe some more. And here was my team mate Kim who is an African American (as was Jeff and the rest of the team except me) telling him we had just 3 colored people in our cohort - as she actually meant to say 'black' people as almost half our cohort is International with people from many different countries. And I asked her half jokingly half-serious, " So what am I?" I am not White I know that much for sure, and now it seems I am not colored....What color am I really?
She just grinned back sheepishly and said "You know what we meant!" But I did not really.
You have so many labels in the U.S. in the quest to be "politically correct" or PC. All the black people are now African Americans. They may have been born in America and consider it their nation but to describe them it is PC to say African-American. So what about the Africans in my school? There is Leah who is white but identifies as an African since she lived there...but then she is not African-American now after moving to America...and there are people who came to study here from Africa and will be going back there but are suddenly African-American. It's confusing...for an Indian. Why did the black people choose to be called African-Americans rather than just Americans? If this is just a substitute for the dreaded word 'Black' then the difference is purely semantic. So while publicly people try to be PC and include black, off-white, yellow and brown in the term "people of color" privately it seems to mean just one thing....and the rest of us...well I guess we will have to figure out what color are we really...
Posted: July 02, 2004
Hello you,
I am just a confused desi in America...born in India...moved to U.S. and trying to understand the dating scene here as a single woman..looking for the elusive 'soul mate' ...these are my rantings...the diary I thought I would write never was written ..so this is going to be about things I might have written in there...things I want to think about and examine, maybe as an onlooker....perhaps putting my thoughts down here will help me examine them better and maybe I will figure out the meaning of life...maybe...but meanwhile here it is...the unvarnished version ....and not about love mostly...cause you see I am still looking....
Posted: July 01, 2004
As we entered the club I had to take off my jacket as it was incredibly hot inside...due to the crush of bodies..and I was feeling very self conscious in my knee length and sleeveless black dress having never worn such a dress in India. But then I looked around. Some girls were wearing almost nothing on top anyway, so I started feeling more comfortable.
"Lets Salsa" said Joe and walked out on the empty dance floor. The Russian just smiled politely and stood in the corner not wanting to be labled as 'Joe's girl for the night' yet! So I walked out on the floor with Joe and tried to learn Salsa. He did not know much but he was at least willing to make a spectacle of himself. Soon other people joined in too and started trying more adventurous stuff. So we had a good crowd out on the floor now and Joe was somewhere in the middle teaching some people. I was very thirsty by now so I looked around for someone who might get me a drink from the bar as there seemed to be a frenzied mob around it...but no, I did not see anyone who looked the least bit interested in getting me a drink so I pushed thru the crowd to the bar and got myself an overpriced beer. I realized that there were other floors in the club and decided to explore...So I want to the top floor but that was full of recliners and couples reclining on them either kissing away or trying to get familiar enough to start kissing away...there seemed to be no people in the singular like me so I headed to the basement with my drink. Any thing to escape the crowd on the ground floor!
The basement was merrier with rock and pop music which seemed more familiar to me and people were just dancing in groups. I joined in and soon someone came over to me and said "care to dance with me". I said "Yes!" and we started a dance. I was doing the formal dance that you do in a club with a guy that you don't really know and are not sure about. He tried to bring me closer when the music changed to a slower number but I could just not let go. Everytime his hand brushed mine I would stiffen and he said "Indian? You are very shy!" This was not what I wanted to hear...but it looked as if he was a little drunk...Soon I heard a girl whisper to another..."He's married, no use" looking in his direction...Just my luck I thought..."Are you married I asked" and he said "Oh yes! My wife will be joining me here soon, she could not get away from her job so I flew over to the U.S. alone..I'm missing her tonight" ...and that was that...I had wasted all my time dancing with this guy while all the other girls who knew better did not waste their time...but I had to admit that I did have fun! ...Oh well...I have all the time to look for true love, I thought and finally relaxed and started dancing the night away...
Posted: July 04, 2004
Waiting....to exhale..
So after coming back from the club that night alone I wondered what I really wanted in life. I decided to let myself go, be more spontaneous and not hold myself back by imposing silly rules and limits on myself. And another night I put on a little black dress and went to another school party..this time one thrown by the Latino club on campus. Their parties were usually crowded, with salsa music and people showing off bare skin and this time they even promised exotic dancers...the clothed kind of course!
So while leaving from our campus, as we had a class dinner before the party on campus, I bumped into a guy who I had just talked to briefly while standing in line to get my dinner plate. His name was Joe and he was heading there as well...and we decided to cab down together. Wow! I thought as here was another handsome guy who seemed really interested in me. I wasn't quite sure which country he was from and I thought I would ask him on the way. And just then, this sexy Russian female we have in our class walked down the stairs in a leopard-skin look alike short skirt and purred, Hello! Are you all headed to the club for the party. We said yes and she took the Joe's arm. I realized from their conversation that Joe was interested in her and had struck up a conversation with her at dinner...but probably because she wasn't sure about him then she must have decided to keep looking for a club date...it was my bad luck that she found no one and caught us as we were just leaving. I would like to mention here that we had a very large class of about a 1000 people and since we were all new we did not yet know everyone..
On the way to the club I somehow managed to sit in the middle of the two people and therefore I tried to make polite conversation, "So are you enjoying the club scene here at school?" I asked the Russian girl. "Oh! yes, it's nice...I wish my partner could have come with me today, she was really interested in coming since she is here in the city, but she was busy"" Oh! She's a lesbian" I thought feeling relieved, now I could feel better about Joe. So I followed up her comment by saying" I am sorry she could not come, so she is not coming to live with you here while you are at school?" The Russian gave me a strange look, "Why should she? She is the one managing the business while I am away at school since she is my business partner""Oh! Sorry" I said blushing..."I thought she was your partner!" ..."Oh! did you think so...and she giggled while giving a 'look' over my head to Joe who had been quiet all this time. He laughed too and I wished myself somewhere else altogether...... (to be contd.)
Posted: July 04, 2004
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Saturday, July 03, 2004
My search for someone more than a friend...
I started graduate school some time ago. One long term relationship I had in my life had ended a year ago and had been rocky for quite some time before that. I was shaky still, but looking for someone. I was hoping to find someone who would begin as a friend and then maybe mean something more to me...
There were people from many countries in my class...many of them Indian..but many were married, engaged or already had girl friends. And somehow the Indians considered the girls in their school too independent and too much like them to be seriously interested for a longer term relationships. And the American Indians or the so called ABCDs? Well they wanted to have nothing to do with FOBs (Fresh off Boat) and tried to stay as far away as possible. So while I made many Indian friends who were males, there wasn't anyone I found a spark with.
So I kept looking..I would go to school parties, chat with many people, dance with some and come back to my own apartment. All this while the people born and brought up in America were hooking up. The clubs closed at 2 AM and at 1 AM or so people would finally decide who they liked. Since those days we had just started school and no one really knew anyone very well, people used to come alone but many left in pairs. It was funny to see that the Americans (and I include all people born in America here, not only the white people) were most comfortable with this scene....and most of them used to leave early if they found someone or did not want to hook up that night but the 'serious' ones usually hung on...making moves and partying together and figuring out if they really wanted to go home with that person at 2AM.
Once I went to a school party to welcome back the senior students with Myra a friend from Hong Kong, she was also looking like me....this was a big club which could accomodate a thousand people and was on 3 floors. She decided to go upstairs when she did not find anyone she like on the floor we were on. It was extremely crowded so I lost her the moment she squeezed into the crowd...and since I had told her I would wait for her at the entrance at 2 AM I waited in the club. The only person who tried to pick me up was a guy who had a reputation for being a slippery sort of character in school...he was from Pakistan but had lived in Singapore for a long time...I was rather afraid of him and what he might want to do and so I walked away telling him that I needed to powder my nose.
I soon lost myself in the crowd and then danced with a couple of people from school who asked me...one very cute...Brian...he was possibly the best looking black man at School, very handsome and well built..but I knew that he was much younger than me and somehow I could never bring myself to be seriously interested in a much younger guy. Maybe it was just my middle class upbringing in India but the moment I met a man I would always weigh him on the marriage scale....and more than 2 years younger was a little hard for me to accept even though I saw people around me never discussing age at all. So I danced with Brian, wondering if Myra had met some one she liked upstairs. I was so drawn to Brian as he was incredibly good looking and incredibly well built but I kept telling myself that he was only dancing with me as he was a friendly soul and saw me standing alone. Why in the world would he be interested in me...I think Brian sensed this...as I just could not loosen up while dancing with him and after sometime I excused myself as I did not want him to see how much I liked him. So he went on to other girls..and danced with them while I watched. I wanted to leave but Myra was no where to be found. And at 1AM when the hook up game started and people started kissing on the dance floor I got worried.....Where was Myra I wondered.
To my misfortune I saw the guy I had tried to lose walking towards me. But he too sensed I wasn't interested so he just said 'Hi...nice dance with Brian'. I thought I would ask him where Myra was since he knew her and everyone knew he had a thing for Asian girls...and he told me that she had gotten too drunk and they had called her a cab and that is why she left without telling me. Now I was stuck here. Calling a cab alone was too expensive and I was after all a student so I went and talked to the other girls. Shanna who lived in my building told me she would go back with me...and so I waited. So at 2AM when they turned on the lights Shanna was still sitting with her arm around a guy and did not look ready to go. So are we leaving now? I asked...and she said with her beautiful smile..."Just one minute, sweetie" and smiled up at the guy.
The club bouncer finally intervened at 2:15 AM and ordered us out of the club. So I stood wondering what I was doing here outside on the pavement with the 'just-hooked up' couples and feeling lost. Mark, the guy with Shanna kept telling her...show me how you move your belly...and she would do her belly dance movements for him since she had been learning this dance for several years. I looked on wondering what next, when Shanna came up to me and said in her melodious voice. Sorry, sweetie, but we decided to go to Mark's place and he will call you a cab now...And the cab came and I sat in it...feeling like an idiot. I could have done this an hour ago and not been shamed like this as the only one going home alone at 3AM in the night....
Posted: July 03, 2004
Shades of black
I discovered an odd thing about me when I was young. I discovered I liked the ebony skin color. Since we did not have MTV at that time in India, the only place where I did see black people (sorry I am not going to be PC) was behind the cover of magazines. Ads for 'United Colors of Bennetton'. I would stare at the ads - one showed a black baby with a white baby where the black baby was depicted as a devil and the white as an angel. The white baby had beautiful blue eyes and was very cute and chubby but I found myself drawn to the black one with mesmerizing black eyes and that wonderful glowing ebony skin. What was wrong with me I thought...and since this blog is read by mostly Indians I don't have to explain why I thought what was wrong with me...India is obsessed with skin color.."Don't go out in the sun too much" my mother would say, " You will turn black and then we will have trouble marrying you off"...And this was a fact of life. Times of India and HT used to be full of advertisements wanting 'very fair' brides and when we did advertize for a cousin sister we chose 'very fair' though she was wheatish. You had 'very very fair' which you used for a truly fair person and there was 'extremely fair' which was somewhere in between. And it was odd that growing up in a household where all elders denoted fairness to be a sign of beauty, I was attracted to the black skin. So I kept it a secret...never told even my friends that I found blacks attractive, what was the point anyway....there were almost no black people in India...but among my the boys in my college I would sneak more looks at those with the swarthy skin, of course they had to be atractive in other ways as well!
Posted: July 02, 2004
What color are we Indians?
Some time ago I was sitting with my team working on a school project. Graduate school to do my MBA. So we were working on this Corporate Finance case at 2 AM and getting really tired so we started talking. And Jeff asked Kim, "So how many colored people are there in your Cohort (same as Class in India)?" She belonged to the same Cohort as I did and she said, Three! It took me by surprise. Just a year ago we had a diversity workshop when we entered this fine Ivy league institution and as a part of the workshop we had some speakers who had spoken about "people of color". They used it as an all encompassing term to include African Americans, Chinese Americans, Hispanic and Asians and maybe some more. And here was my team mate Kim who is an African American (as was Jeff and the rest of the team except me) telling him we had just 3 colored people in our cohort - as she actually meant to say 'black' people as almost half our cohort is International with people from many different countries. And I asked her half jokingly half-serious, " So what am I?" I am not White I know that much for sure, and now it seems I am not colored....What color am I really?
She just grinned back sheepishly and said "You know what we meant!" But I did not really.
You have so many labels in the U.S. in the quest to be "politically correct" or PC. All the black people are now African Americans. They may have been born in America and consider it their nation but to describe them it is PC to say African-American. So what about the Africans in my school? There is Leah who is white but identifies as an African since she lived there...but then she is not African-American now after moving to America...and there are people who came to study here from Africa and will be going back there but are suddenly African-American. It's confusing...for an Indian. Why did the black people choose to be called African-Americans rather than just Americans? If this is just a substitute for the dreaded word 'Black' then the difference is purely semantic. So while publicly people try to be PC and include black, off-white, yellow and brown in the term "people of color" privately it seems to mean just one thing....and the rest of us...well I guess we will have to figure out what color are we really...
Posted: July 02, 2004
Hello you,
I am just a confused desi in America...born in India...moved to U.S. and trying to understand the dating scene here as a single woman..looking for the elusive 'soul mate' ...these are my rantings...the diary I thought I would write never was written ..so this is going to be about things I might have written in there...things I want to think about and examine, maybe as an onlooker....perhaps putting my thoughts down here will help me examine them better and maybe I will figure out the meaning of life...maybe...but meanwhile here it is...the unvarnished version ....and not about love mostly...cause you see I am still looking....
Posted: July 01, 2004
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