White Guys Dating Asian Women: Like Communism, Better on Paper

The following is a re-post from Cliff's guest spot on Tight Banana.

I love Asian women. I'm not a fetishist or anything creepy like that, but I do find Asian women attractive, and happen to be a white male. But the discussion changes when it comes to dating said Asian women, and I've concluded that it just shouldn't happen.

First let's get our categories straight. Asian Americans - 2nd generation Asians or those who might have come to the States at a young age - don't count. They are for all intent and purpose Americans, albeit exotic-looking and hot. They grew up watching Michael Jordan like I did, and listening to Madonna (not like I did, but you get the point). Yellow Banana is in this genre, even though she's Canadian, which is sort of "America Junior", so let's not confuse things by creating another "Asian Canadian" or whatever category.

Category 2 is what my Asian friend calls "fresh off the boat", or F.O.B. These are Asians who moved to America within the last ten years or less. They are more Chinese, or Thai, or Japanese, etc, than American. They are hot, but impossible for white American males (W.A.Ms) to date*. The reason is simple. Dating is fraught with roadside bombs to begin with - you're lucky if one doesn't explode in your face - and the cultural disparity between Americans and Asians is like a giant, complex weapon of mass destruction that you simply cannot avoid.

Here are a couple anecdotes to illustrate my point. I recently went out with an F.O.B., who brought her friend along with her (strange, right?) We were all talking over a few glasses of wine, and they laughed at seemingly inappropriate points in the conversation. You know that feeling right? It's an icky one if you're not the one laughing. Anyway, these two attractive ladies, both of whom are from Hong Kong, had English accents, and I vocalized this point. "Well," one replied, "we were under British rule for 100+ years. I guess you didn't know that." Laughter. I felt like a naive, uninformed yum yum, which I am, but still, the thrill was gone, lost in a cultural gap that grew wider with each laugh.

The second anecdote involves a lovely Philippine female I met in a bar; we had a brief, flirtatious interlude and decided to meet at a future date. Fast forward to future date. Now we all know that first dates are uncomfortable, but this one was particularly rough. She was quiet, I was loud. She was sober, I was drunk. When I tried making out with her in public - a standard New York dating move - she denied my advances, accusing me of "overdoing it" with PDA, and said the Asian guys she dated are very reserved and non-affectionate. I don't know how they do it in Asia, but I'm a love bug, in constant need of human contact and female attention. That one went on the cooling board shortly thereafter.

So again I make my point: while intriguing in concept, white guys dating Asian women is, in reality, a pipe dream. The cultural divide between our far reaching lands is too vast; Europe is probably about as far as we should go. Or maybe Canada.

* Of Course some W.A.Ms can and do date F.O.Bs, but I always find something kind of weird about these guys, and I think you do, too.