Nobody goes to Tokyo without a dream. Tokyo—complex, multifaceted, and unforgiving—is a city of opportunity. A tempestuous, dynamic vessel for the pleasures, pains, and aspirations of increasingly disillusioned generations. An economic hub powered by throbbing, vibrating, neon circuits of global industry and commerce. From all over Japan and the world, people pour into the city to craft visions of their futures into reality and to build their lives anew.

I went to Tokyo with my own ambitions. When I traveled there for a semester abroad in March 2017, I wanted to investigate what it means to be a brown Indian woman in Japan, and to negotiate the personal and political stakes of power, desire, and sex in its troublingly notorious homogenous and xenophobic national space.

As a small but potent example, a Justice Ministry survey taken in anticipation for Japan to host the 2020 Olympics found that about 40% of foreign residents who sought housing in Japan had applications turned down and almost 25% were denied jobs in the past five years.

I had begun learning Japanese in New Delhi, India, where I was born and raised, in high school; at college in the U.S., I declared majors in International Studies and Japanese. Through my classes, I gained fluency in Japanese, and became invested in understanding the discourses of race that influence contemporary debates on migration, labor, and nationhood in Japan. So the opportunity to experience Tokyo as a South Asian woman—not as a transient expat, but as a full-time student and resident—both terrified and excited me.

Brimming with vending machines and Kanji-scrawled billboards, Tokyo’s urban orchestra is deafening and inescapable. Areas like Shinjuku and Shibuya—positioned in the global cultural imagination as metonyms for the entire nation—tend to evoke lurid fantasies. Heavily inked yakuza lurking in cigarette-littered alleyways. Minuscule ramen joints awash with hungry beer-blossomed salarymen returning from work. Host and hostess clubs oozing sequins and sex, recalling in florid technicolor the libidinal economy of the floating world.

The opportunity to experience Tokyo as a South Asian woman—not as a transient expat, but as a full-time student and resident—both terrified and excited me.
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But contrary to how it is portrayed, the fever dreamscape is finite. As glorious and mesmeric as the urban sprawl is, beyond its main areas, Tokyo transforms into tightly packed bed-towns where the truths of deflation, labor shortage, and Japan’s aging society are all too evident. The steady hum of the train, though still audible, seems faint. The youth, color, and rabid cross-culturalism of the center feel, somehow, distant.

Although the classical image of Tokyo is that of the multicultural, cosmopolitan, and fully globalized city, Japan has the lowest number of resident foreigners among the world’s advanced economies. As of 2017, there are 2,561,848 foreigners—less than 2% of the entire population.

In Tokyo, there are approximately three foreign residents for every 100 people—compared to 35–40 in megalopolises like New York and London. Migrants from Brazil, China, Nepal, the Philippines, and Vietnam, amongst other countries, sustain Japan’s labor-starved industries. Since there is, to this day, no comprehensive immigration policy, these migrants often fall victim to abuse and discrimination—without any legal recourse.

In addition, minority groups like the Hisabestu Buraku, Ainu, Ryukyuans, and resident or zainichi Koreans, Chinese, and Taiwanese have been waging movements for equity for decades. Knowing this, I was interested to see what it would be like to be me—Other in the arguable extreme—and attempt to experience relationships and romance while inhabiting a contentious body.

Japanese Cartoon Porn Helped Me Understand My Trans Identity

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Whether in the center, where tourists and migrants abound, or in the periphery, where strangers openly confessed their lack of exposure, I experienced an unprecedented loneliness. Being brown and Indian, I did not embody an appealing brand of foreignness. At restaurants, crowds of Japanese would swarm around my white American friends from New York and ask to shake their hands. My white peers were applauded for the tiniest displays of Japanese proficiency, fawned over and adored. But towards the brown girl from Delhi, there was little to no positive curiosity; the ubiquity of whiteness as a proxy for power, prestige, and privilege was just as potent as is in America. Maybe worse.

There was, however, negative curiosity. My host family resided on the farthest eastern edge of the city, and walking to and from the train station constituted my first encounters with fetishism and exotification in Japan. I was frequently harassed by Japanese men, each admitting that I was the first person they had seen in the flesh who looked like me—their excuse for why they could not resist trying to engage with me. Some even followed me to my apartment, or emerged from bushes and street corners, wordlessly, to take photos of me.

Japanese men are frequently stereotyped as shy, gentle, “herbivorous men,” but in truth, I did not bear witness to this myth of meekness. Instead, I felt like a specimen they’d placed in a glass pickling jar where I waited to be inevitably prodded and poked.

I quickly grew weary—would I spend my time in Tokyo as an exotic but spurned brown face amidst a menagerie of more attractive white creatures? Would I experience only the reckless curiosity of the unacquainted, or would I gain allowance to desire, and be desired in earnest?

With that dream in mind, I became compelled to try my hand at Tokyo Tinder. Having already spent three years in the States, many a white boy had accused me of being racist when I expressed my disinterest. Many, too, had relished the prospect of securing an Indian trophy. I was familiar with the various images of Indians spilling from the Pandora’s box of American history and popular culture. I understood that my body is simultaneously fetishized and desexualized, admired and despised–the object of ethnic fantasies, of hatred, and of violence.

Would I experience only the reckless curiosity of the unacquainted, or would I gain allowance to desire, and be desired in earnest?
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But in Japan, where there are few people who look like me, come from where I do, and also speak Japanese, how would the politics of desirability slight or reward me?

To begin with, I found that Tokyo Tinder is full of Japanese men hoping not to find dates, but English-speaking foreigners to help them practice their English. I was not interested in this type of relationship, and since most aspired to sound American, British or Australian, my Indian English was not on their radars; most were shocked to find that I spoke English at all.

Shokuminchika, I would remind them lightly—“colonialism.”

Both on and off Tinder, most claimed they had never spoken to someone who is chairo (literally “tea-coloured” or brown) and indojin (Indian)—even though there is a substantial and growing presence of South Asians in the city. 

Because the word tends to connote white Western expats, I was not afforded the label of gaikokujin or, simply, foreigner. Rather, I was identified by and named according to the colors of my skin and passport. I fielded questions about curry and the caste system, and comments about the absurdity of Bollywood films overflowing with dance and song, my “wild” hair, too-many piercings, and too-large earrings.

Many asked if I am arabikkujin or “Arabic,” insisting that I resemble Jasmine from Disney’s Aladdin. When I asserted that one of my favorite Japanese foods is tonkatsu or breaded pork, they were aghast, having mistakenly assumed that I am Muslim because I am brown. Coupled with patriarchal and misogynistic ideas, I felt tethered to boundless misrecognition and inaccurate profiling.

The Dangers of Dating Faux-Feminist Men

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My first Tinder date was with a Japanese man from a town just outside of Tokyo–let’s call him Tetsu. Tetsu was a Japanese-English bilingual and self-proclaimed feminist with a sense of humor. Over yakitori and whiskey highballs, we discussed Japanese vs. American romantic expectations, films, and music. We agreed to keep our arrangement casual.

Yet, one night, a few weeks into seeing him, Tetsu uttered a dreaded phrase: aishiteimasu. “I love you.” The next morning, he confessed that he had developed intense feelings for me. When I reminded him that we had agreed to keep our relationship casual, he yelled at me, exclaiming that he could not stand to see me if I was seeing other people.

“You can’t call yourself a feminist and go around opening your legs to every guy you meet,” he shouted. He would never trust women again, he clamored, and especially not Indian women. I left, afraid of his wrath, resolving never to meet him again. Hours later, I found my DMs flooded with unsavory messages and unsolicited pictures from random men. Tetsu had snuck into an online sex chatroom and broadcasted my Instagram handle to the world—then blocked me on all social media.

Whether in India, Japan, or the U.S., toxic masculinity comes as no surprise. I was not daunted, but I did feel exquisitely deceived. I thought, perhaps, that I had failed to explain in my imperfect Japanese that I had wanted to keep our relationship casual. I dwelled on the words I had used; I promised myself that I would formulate my sentences more carefully next time.

I thought, perhaps, that I had failed to explain in my imperfect Japanese that I had wanted to keep our relationship casual.
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Despite my heightened attention to the vocabulary and grammar of my sentiments, what I experienced with Tetsu was only the first of many such occurrences. I fancied myself as a foreign version of Tanizaki Junichiro’s moga or “modern girl”–an urban, independent young woman who watches movies, visits cafes, chooses her own suitors and has casual relationships. A waruiko– a “bad girl” for the ages.

As I continued to meet men off Tinder–a handful every couple of weeks–my ability to narrate myself in Japanese improved vastly. I grew confident in my capacity to avoid misunderstandings based in matters of language. Yet, I still found myself ensnared by stereotypes and relentless exoticization.

This was until I chanced upon Hiro, also on Tinder.

Until I met Hiro–a Tokyo transplant originally from Hiroshima who spoke sparing English–I believed that I would only ever be a brown token, an ethnic fantasy. By that point, I was well-rehearsed and exhausted, rendered frank and naked by erosive men, and their preconceived notions of me. I spoke with candor about how I had been reduced to my phenotype, and the discriminatory and offensive behavior and comments I had received during my sojourn in Tokyo. Initially, Hiro did not believe me. “But Tokyo is full of foreigners,” he protested, defensive.

One afternoon, Hiro and I stumbled into an unadorned coffeeshop. As soon as we sat down, the elderly Japanese lady who owned the establishment bounded to our table and asked where I’m from– a common occurrence. “India,” I offered, tentatively. She was delighted, “You must be very good at math and computers.” I sighed internally. Though an affirmative comment, her statement drew on damaging stereotypes, neatly boxing me into limited imaginings of what I am and could be.

“She is intelligent,” Hiro piped up, “but that has nothing to do with her nationality.” He immediately grasped what was transpiring and stood up for me in a way no one had thus far. Surprised and grateful, I felt truly seen and heard; I felt, in that moment, wanted and cherished for me, not the expansive and totalising (mis)conceptions of people of my race and nationality.

Thereafter, Hiro became more sensitive to the particular conditions under which I navigated Tokyo, and became a vital source of comfort and companionship even as our relationship remained casual. He noticed how people in the train would stare at me and whisper, conjecturing about my nationality, and how police officers would unavoidably stop me to demand that I show them my ID–how he too became tainted by strangeness, viewed with suspicion, just by being near me. Together, we (re)discovered Tokyo–museums, galleries, monuments, and public spaces alike–with our eyes and ears wide open.

I felt, in that moment, wanted and cherished for me, not the expansive and totalising (mis)conceptions of people of my race and nationality.
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Hiro did often ask me questions about India, but they referenced my personal history and experience; instead of sounding like half-hearted Google searches, they were genuine and specific. Between us, we cultivated an intimacy wherein cultural, racial, and national differences were not effaced, but deeply felt and explored. Here was a vivid image of solidarity and allyship–and of desire negotiated with honesty, compassion, and humility. Moving away from my experiences alone, even now, as we stay in touch as friends, we have lengthy back and forths about policies towards minoritized populations, popular media and its portrayals of Others, and the immense value of intercultural dialogue, particularly in the context of Japan.

Looking back on my experiences with romance and desire in Tokyo, I am astonished by the extents of both the cruelty and kindness that people showed me. Being a brown Indian woman in Tokyo, I faced particular oppressions unfathomable to my white American and European peers—I moved through the city’s pageant of humanity feeling isolated much of the time, cocooned in my blatant Otherness, swinging wildly between hypervisibility and invisibility.

But there were also moments of unfettered joy and appreciation. I saw how my perceived gender, race, and nationality structured my experience, and sought to make room for delight in spite of discomfort. In my romantic endeavors, I fought to stay soft and vulnerable even as I grew jaded. I learned to wear my difference with quiet confidence, stand up for myself, and let others in–even when I was certain they could not wholly empathize with me.

Between being seen and unseen, coveted and reviled, misinterpreted and duly deciphered, my Tokyo ambitions, one way or another, found fulfillment. Although I still have many unresolved questions, my time in Tokyo showed me that I can thrive–find mirth and wonder–even in spaces that deny my presence. Whether it was about travel, identity, or the untold shapes of desire, Tokyo taught me a lot.

Somewhere, I hope, I left the people I met with their own lessons to ponder.

By the time the waiter came to take our drink orders, K had asked if I’d ever been married and if I wanted kids. I admit there was something exhilarating about the directness, like a game of truth or dare.

K’s pupils were a little too black—too fixed somehow—making me wonder if he were on drugs, but perhaps it was just the contrast against his pale, grey irises. Other than the intensity of his stare, K looked just like his profile picture — tall, square-jawed, boasting a buzz cut and a tan.

By the time the waiter came back with our drinks, K had ascertained the length of my last relationship and whether I rented or owned.

“What about politics?” he asked. “Do you lean left or right?”

“Left.”

K held up his forearms like goal posts, in case he wasn’t being clear.

“Hillary or Trump?” I looked him dead between the goalposts and laughed.

“Bernie!”

K lowered his voice and leaned in closer. “You don’t know about the socialist plans he has for our country?”

“Socialist plans?” I repeated loudly. “You mean like equal access to healthcare and education? Hell yeah!”

K had no comeback. He must have though the s-bomb would resolve the conflict swiftly and decisively in his favor, and now he was stuck without exit strategy.

I looked down the barrel of his black pupils. “Are you a Trump supporter?” I asked.

He blinked. “I’m a Conservative Republican.”

“That’s not the same thing. Not all conservative Republicans support Trump.”

“I support a lot of what Trump’s trying to do,” he said, “but I get frustrated with all the red tape.”

“I know,” I said sweetly. “You can’t just tweet and make it so — thank God!”Just then the poor waiter returned in hopes of a dinner order.

“I’m ready,” K said.

“Cheater, you must’ve read the menu online before we got here.” I’d barely glanced at the thing.

“No, I’m just good at making decisions. I know what I want.”

I felt him watching smugly as I perused the menu, which had suddenly come to signify my every life choice. My exes flashed before my eyes:

Pasture-raised New England beefcake, roasted over spent uranium fuel rods from the decommissioned nuclear power plant, then smothered in Grade A maple syrup and topped with organic jealous greens.

Free-range Coque au Mexique, raised on a diet of GMO-free corn, Saturday morning cartoons, and ‘90s sitcoms, with just a savory hint of macho seasoning.

Wild-caught south shore man-child, marinated in academia until soft and flaky, served over a cannabis and Adderall comfit.

After the waiter finally made off with my order of Gorgonzola and sweet potato ravioli (analyze that) I tried to steer the conversation back to safer waters. I asked about K’s travels: Zion National Park, I’ve been there too! Bryce Canyon, beautiful, isn’t it? Colorado, great hiking! Afghanistan, Syria, umm…

His OkCupid profile hadn’t mentioned military service. Unfortunately, the subject of Syria lead us to the subject of refugees, which led us to the subject of immigration, the political issue with which I’m most personally involved.

“You think ICE is actually separating families?” K asked. “Or you’re just afraid of that happening?” (This was a few weeks before we awoke to images of ICE agents ripping children from their parents’ arms.)

I slapped my hand on the table. “It’s happening alright! Three blocks from here, there is a woman living in a church basement to avoid being deported and separated from her American-born children. She’s afraid of being sent back to Russia where she faces persecution because of her sexual orientation.”

“Wait, she’s a lesbian and she has children? I’m still confused how that works…”

I sighed. Loudly. “It works, okay?” Now was not the time to educate a 38-year-old man about the birds, the bees, and the butterflies.

I plowed on with the story of Irida Kakhtiranova and launched into that of Lucio Perez, the heteronormative father of four from Guatemala, who has sought sanctuary in another local church since October. I’ve gotten to know the Perez family personally through my volunteer work with immigrants’ rights groups. K nodded sympathetically as I described the emotional and financial toll on the family.

Now was not the time to educate a 38-year-old man about the birds, the bees, and the butterflies.
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“I still don’t think Muslims should be allowed in this country.”

“Excuse me?”

He said it so casually I thought I’d misheard.

I hadn’t.

“In my experience, all Muslims want to kill us.”

Suddenly the waiter swooped in with our plates. I stared at the little pile of limp gluten before me. My mind raced. Should I just walk out? Throw my food in his face? My shoe? Could I even get it off in time? Why didn’t I wear slip-ons instead of lace-up boots?

Here was my big chance to stand in solidarity with my Muslim friends and neighbors, but something deep inside me resisted making a scene.

Partly it had to do with being an introvert. It’s also not easy to go against generations of social conditioning that make accommodating men and their opinions, no matter how unacceptable, almost second nature. And if I did call K what he was — a bigoted Islamophobe — I could be labeled hysterical, or a snowflake. A hysterical snowflake.

I took a deep breath. I was too upset to muster my most logical arguments (more crimes are committed against Muslim immigrants than by Muslim immigrants; high-skilled tech workers will go to China instead). But why should I need data and statistics to justify the basic humanity of 1.8 billion people?

“All Muslims?” I said. “Every single man, woman, and child? You can’t say that. You just can’t.”

“When I was over there, even the kids wanted to kill us.”

“That was war. You were occupying their land. Of course they wanted to kill you.”

“I’ve read the Quran,” he said. (And yet he obviously didn’t make it all the way through my OkCupid profile). “Mohamed was not a peaceful guy.”

K calmly munched his steak tips and scallops, while I ranted about religious interpretation.

“You just can’t make blanket statements about an entire of religious or ethnic group. You just can’t. How do you like it when people make sweeping generalizations about Christians? About people in the military?”

To my surprise he set down his fork.

“You’re right,” he said. “You can’t.” A couple of mouthfuls later, “You’ve given me a new perspective.”

I paused and met his eyes. Was he just saying this to shut me up? I’ll never know why he uttered those five words, but it allowed us to get through the rest of dinner quickly and peacefully and part with a firm handshake.

Just how did I end up here? Nothing in K’s online profile hinted at such extreme views. He was the right age, fit, attractive, enjoyed travel and the outdoors; he loved dogs and children.

He did mention that he had “high standards”— “too high,” according to friends — but haven’t we all heard that if we are still single over 30, let alone 35?

And if K had such high standards, why did he offer to drive a hundred miles from northwest Connecticut, to Northampton, Massachusetts of all places—the western outpost of the liberal elite empire—to meet a woman whose only qualifying characteristics were age, availability, and attractiveness?

Nothing in K’s online profile hinted at such extreme views.
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If he had dug just a little into my profile he would have more-than-discovered my political leanings, or at least inferred it based on other information. I’m sure they’re out there, but I have yet to meet an MFA in Creative Writing, or a human service worker, who is a Trump supporter.

But in truth, if K pegged me based on education, profession, and place of residence, he would have been engaging in the same kind of gross generalizations I’d just called him out for.

Recent, compelling—but not shocking—research by Yale Professor Gregory Huber and Neil Malhotra of Stanford show that shared political beliefs factor significantly in our choice of romantic partners. And according to the authors of a 2013 study entitled,“The Dating Preferences of Liberals and Conservatives,” online dating contributes to America’s polarization by making it easier to sort partners by political affiliation.

If I remember correctly, earlier versions of OkCupid listed members’ political affiliation in a sidebar with other basic stats like age, height, education, and astrological sign. Maybe now you have to pay $29.99 a month to find out if you match a Scorpio or a xenophobe?

Malhotra and Stanford colleague Robert Willer argue—check out the TED talk—that the danger of this kind of unnatural selection breeds “ideological silos.” Without exposure to dissenting viewpoints, both sides become more extreme in their ideology.

This perspective makes me feel better about having stuck it out and attempting civil conversation with K. However, I also refuse to accept that religious pluralism is an extremist view. It’s one thing to debate democratic socialism over the dinner table, but it’s quite another to call into question respect for basic human rights.

I noticed that K ordered steak tip and scallop salad—the first item on the menu. Maybe the problem wasn’t high standards, but a failure to appreciate the full range of options, in life and in love.

At the end of my last update, I lamented my painful initiation into the life of dating as a “normal” person. After some successful dates with Dan, a man I had initially met on OKCupid and with whom I had been texting daily for over a month, I thought we were well on our way toward achieving my ultimate goal of finding a committed, monogamous partner. Unfortunately, we were far from being on the same page.

Dan had basically dumped me to see another woman he claimed to like better, so when he texted me at the end of the last update to complain about her — after knowing her for less than a week (and me for over a month!) — I felt a weird performance anxiety over my potential response to him. There were so many things that my mind was trying to process: Should I reply? Why is he telling me this? Is he really so immature that he’d make a blanket statement about the class view of all doctors? (#NotAllDoctors)

One of the most challenging aspects of dating for me is deciding how to apply the common phrase “Nobody’s perfect.” Unfortunately for me (and perhaps fortunately for you, readers?), this weakness of mine was put to the test before I even had gotten my first match! I struggled with finding the elusive perfect balance between knowing that everyone has flaws that inevitably lead to them messing up from time to time, and acknowledging that forgiving those mess-ups can open the door to accepting unacceptable and/or incompatible behavior from a potential partner. This seems like a balance that can only be discovered through . . . welp . . . experience.

I officially have a love-hate relationship with the phrase “Practice makes perfect.”

Before this series, I found comfort in that perfectly reasonable saying; I’d say it to myself as a reminder to be patient when trying out something new. But when I had to apply it to my dating life, it became a platitude I bitterly muttered to myself as fuel to (reluctantly) keep going.

Despite my strong urge to go to my default reaction of ignoring Dan’s text and never speaking to him again, I decided to take a different route. After all, this #ItsTotallyMe experiment is about doing things differently in the dating realm, to see if a change in my behavior could solve my dating woes. So I took a deep breath and responded. I didn’t want to veer too far off my usual style of texts, so I typed a short, noncommittal, “ha!” and quickly pressed send, before I changed my mind about not mentally declaring him dead to me from that moment on.

It’s official. “Do it for #ItsTotallyMe!” is totally my version of “Do it for the Vine!”

Unfortunately, that three-character text didn’t carry the subtext I hoped. Dan couldn’t read between the lines, though maybe that’s because the text was only one line. To my disbelief, he continued to text me like nothing happened between us. “Dammit. Of course texting would fail me,” I thought to myself.

I tried to resume my day with business as usual, but Dan seemed to be in full conversation mode. My annoyance grew after each new text from him arrived, and over the course of a few hours, I found myself in a vicious cycle. I’d hear my phone’s familiar text notification, get excited because I thought I’d received a message from a friend I actually like, and then feel my heart drop from disappointment as I saw his name on my phone screen.

Eventually, I felt a wave of indignation rise inside me as I looked. Who does this guy think he is? Why does he think I’ll be perfectly okay with being his second choice? But insecurities crept up as I saw this rejection, which I started to read as not being “good enough” for him, as part of a larger pattern. I thought we had a few successful dates, and we kept in constant contact in between. In spite of this, he kept actively looking for new people to date. Is this another sign that men will always see me as less of a catch and therefore never first choice? I felt my inferiority complex kicking in as tears welled up in my eyes.

This is where I usually disappear from the person’s life. There’s no question that he’s just not that into me. So I did something uncharacteristic. I thought about a friend of mine (aside from Katie) with whom I often exchanged dating horror stories. She never hesitated to tell men (read: boys) what she really thought of their behavior toward her. So I decided to take a page from her book. I took a deep breath, let my fingers fly across my phone’s keyboard, and pressed send before I could change my mind. (Take that prone-to-overthinking brain!).

“I have to admit that I am surprised to be hearing from you. When I last heard from you, I was hurt that you thought it was okay to cancel a date with me last minute for someone you didn’t know as well as me. You obviously have a right to see whomever you want, but it was frankly disrespectful to wait until the day of to cancel (after I reached out) and then reappear without addressing that. And it’s not okay.”

I got a reply almost immediately and jumped when I heard my phone vibrate. “I clearly don’t have the nerves for this,” I thought as I gingerly picked up my phone and peeked at the text notification with only one eye open.

“Yeah, you’re right,” was Dan’s lackluster reply. But I didn’t care! I was too busy celebrating this milestone.

OMG! I stood up for myself!

OMG! I shared how I feel!

OMG! I practiced healthy vulnerability!

Before this, I had never been able to tell a guy I’ve been dating that he did something messed up without being gaslighted. I would always end up regretting saying something because the guy would respond to me standing up for myself by creating a confusing, derailing argument. Until now. The streak has been broken! Saying what I truly think and feel doesn’t have to end horribly! Who woulda thunk?

Even if things don’t work out with Dan, I could end right here and declare that #ItsTotallyMe is a success in helping me gain more confidence and learn more about what I want in a partner. I realized that I want to be with a person I can speak my mind to without feeling afraid that the person will lash out.

But don’t worry, I’m not ending right here. I must admit I wanted to keep seeing how things develop with Dan, despite his dick move. And besides, my first meeting with my matchmaker Emma was coming up — maybe I could *gasp* end up dating more than one person at a time?!

Stay tuned!

When it comes to dating, there are a lot of opportunities for people to sound like assholes. And let’s be real: we’ve all been huge, gaping assholes about dating. As a professional matchmaker, I’ve interviewed over 1,000 singles, and in the past two and a half years, I’ve made around 2,500 matches. This means I have been #blessed to hear a lot of this nonsense, and honestly, most of it doesn’t faze me. Because people become the most neurotic versions of themselves on their quest for True Love, and that’s totally allowed. People are entitled to their taste and you can’t help who you fall in love with, right? Totally right! Except for this one, teensy, tiny exception:

Race.

Oh I’m sorry, did I say teensy tiny? I meant monumental and indicative of an entrenched and deeply troubling societal prejudice that we have been unable to overcome throughout the course of human history.

Here’s the thing: when asked during in-person meetings, 90% of my clients report having racial preferences. Which maybe doesn’t sound so bad, because I mean, they have other preferences, too. Height, religion, career paths, Netflix show most recently watched, the list goes on and on. But of the 90% of the reported racial preferences, 89.9% are preferences for white people. So . . . that is bad. And I’m not just talking about white-on-white preferences. I’m talking about all my clients, only 55% of whom identify as white. (This seems as good a time as any to mention that when I say “all my clients,” I do mean clients of all sexual orientations. Let’s not get heteronormative now; we’re only in the third paragraph.)

When asked during in-person meetings, 90% of my clients report having racial preferences.
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Now, it gets tricky, because when a person sits down and says that they particularly want to date white people, they’re not thinking about the fact that the client before them, and the client after them, are saying the same thing. They’re not thinking about the fact that this is a widespread phenomenon. They’re just thinking about their own personal preferences.

But the problem is, this isn’t personal. It’s cultural, it’s national, and it’s fucking everywhere.

Other dating sites have noticed the same thing. Christian Rudder, co-founder of OkCupid, writes:

“You can actually look at people who’ve combined ‘white’ with another racial description. Adding ‘whiteness’ always helps your rating! In fact it goes a long way toward undoing any bias against you.”

Scrolling through OkCupid’s blog, you’ll stumble across a myriad of depressing race stats. “White women prefer white men to the exclusion of everyone else — and Asian and Hispanic women prefer them even more exclusively.” “Men don’t write black women back.” Their gay data reads the same: “Blacks get fewer responses.” Have you closed your browser and crawled into a hole to live out the rest of your days unencumbered by society and its bullshit yet?

As is protocol with sweeping epidemics, people should start by honestly talking about the problem (see: Contagion; Outbreak for suggestions). But no one will talk about this, because no one likes being called racist. Except it’s hard for me to find another word to refer to “people making negative assessments of large groups of individuals that they’ve never met, based solely on the color of their skin.”

Now, do I think that everyone is lying when they say they’re not attracted to black women or Asian men? That they’re actively harboring racist fantasies about certain minority groups? No. I think they genuinely don’t feel all hot and bothered when thinking about them. But there is definitely a reason beyond “they just don’t do it for me.”

This is about social forces shaping our preferences, and we’ll never progress without acknowledging that fact. To take one of the most obvious and simple examples, consider Hollywood, which is notoriously white. According to the 2014 and 2015 Hollywood Diversity Report, minorities “remain underrepresented on every front.” They’ve reported that “more than half of films had casts that were 10% minority or less.” (The Every Single Word Spoken project is a great illustration of this.) Hollywood is also hot. Like really hot. The societal norm for “hot,” in fact. That means the math equation looks something like this: If Hollywood=White, and Hollywood=Hot, then White=Hot.

The problem is that no one is inundating us with hot Asian guys, or hot black women who aren’t Kerry Washington. So when I ask my clients who their celebrity crush is, they pick white people. And when you close your eyes and think of someone hot, you’re probably thinking of a white person.

Unfortunately, most people feel like attraction is out of their control. Like it’s something they’re born with and nothing can be done about it. People say to me, “Ah . . . I actually only want to date white people. I know it’s awful, but I’m just not attracted to black people.”

Often, what I want to respond is:

1) There are other races besides white and black.

2) You’re not attracted to black people? ALL black people? You’ve met all of them, and not a SINGLE PERSON does it for you? Man, you must be exhausted after traversing the ENTIRE GLOBE searching for just ONE black person that you could get it up for! Do you need to lie down?

But this kind of racism is so deep-seated, so ingrained, that people genuinelybelieve their attractions are chemical. That these “preferences” are out of their hands.

Of course, that’s not the case. This isn’t biological, it’s societal. It’s institutional.

We are not the passive victims of our own internalized biases. We have governance over our actions. As author and psychologist James Giles writes, “That is not to say that romantic attraction is fully under our control, but only that it is not fully beyond our control.” So when are our love lives going to start reflecting that? Studies have shown that we are attracted to what we know and are used to, but as Deborah Ward writes, “Repeated exposure to certain people will increase our attraction toward them.” This means that a conscious change in behavior will impact subconscious desires.

Of course it is hard to parse out what turns you on due to pheromones and what turns you on due to cultural influence, but even allowing that both play a part is a huge step in the right direction.

We are not the passive victims of our own internalized biases.
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I’ve had clients turn down dates because their match’s name sounded too “ethnic,” and they want their children to be white. That is a real sentence that someone said. Now switch the scenario and pretend it’s an employer, discussing who to hire (maybe replace children with interns? It’s not a perfect swap, but you get the idea). That would never fly. Whether workplaces adhereto their goals of diversity is another, much longer, discussion, but the guidelines are there. The ethics have been agreed upon. You can’t be blatantly racist in your office.

But the reality is, your office isn’t your family. And our society has tacitly decided that those guidelines only apply to your professional life. People are happy to acknowledge that hiring someone based on their skin is racist. But somehow, dating someone based on their skin is not. We’re comfortable (theoretically) with integrating our schools and workplaces, but we stop short when it comes, quite literally, too close to home.

This is too insidious not to acknowledge. As Ward says, “You cannot control what you’re not aware of. But you can develop awareness and create a new pattern.” Without recognizing that this is an issue, we don’t stand a chance at fixing it.

So the next time you’re absent-mindedly swiping left, ask yourself why you’re rejecting those profiles. And if the answer is “attraction,” just imagine me reading this article aloud to you, really close to your face, without modulating the volume of my voice. I think that should do the trick.