Image couresy of Christopher Clark. First off, apologies if you've been mislead by the title of this post. If you're really looking for advice on how to date black South African girls, then this is not the place for you. I don't have the answers. And you dating I are not buddies. We are not the same.
So please, don't be weird. Don't make it weird. For both our sakes. The title of this post is, however, not just for click bait purposes. It's a small adjustment to a very real article that some white Aussie guy called Jonno Something-or-other wrote for Vice a couple of years back entitled 'How to Date South African Girls', which has recently resurfaced on social media. Aside from being generally crass, sexist, offensive and more info of sour grapes, Jonno' article entirely failed to acknowledge that there is, in fact, such a thing as a BLACK South African "girl.
So let's try to be fair to Jonno. There are a hell of a south of South Africans - old and young, male and female, black and white and everything in-between - who also continue to be unable to consider dating anyone who isn't more or less the same colour as they are.
Over the past 3 years, I've seen this fact made manifest countless times. Because if you hadn't dating by now, I'm white, and my partner is black. The blatant staring and incredulity can be boring enough to have to deal with day in, day out. People literally stop in their tracks, their jaw falls open and their girl suddenly seems to malfunction.
Contrary to what you might expect, the more youthful observers more info often the worst culprits. On one occasion, a child of no more than 10 years old nudged a friend and said much too loud "Look! A white guy with a black girl. That's not something you see every day!
Dating days I can make myself ignore it, but sometimes I'm tired, and I just want to be able to hold hands with my partner without feeling people's eyes on us from all sides.
Sometimes I want to turn around and scream "For God's sake! It's dating Other times I south about telling people that if they're so damn interested by us, we'll let them take a picture for R But worse than the staring and gawking is the perceived judgment that so often comes with it.
Waiters and waitresses, both white and non-white, are visibly shocked when my partner takes the bill at a restaurant, as they've obviously assumed she's with me for my money; sometimes black women look at my partner south tut - this web page seem to feel that having a white boyfriend is some kind girl conscious betrayal on her part; we once had to leave a hotel where we were visiting my parents for the day, because my partner felt uncomfortable about the way some old Germans were looking at her as we sat by the pool - something about the situation led her to believe they thought she was my prostitute.
Then there are the positive judgments.
How to Date (Black) South African Girls
People come up and tell us that what we are doing is "important" or "revolutionary" or "special. I've even felt the judgments from many of my closest white friends. They've joked about my "jungle fever," or implied that I obviously just have a "thing" for black girls, or that I always have to be different.
In their eyes, this is confirmed by the fact that I just so happen to have had two black girlfriends in a row. Never mind that every girlfriend I had before that was white. I suppose you might blame it all on the legacies of apartheid, but it's certainly not only my South African friends that are guilty. When I took my partner to England for the first time last year, an south reproached me for not "warning" him that girl was black. Even more strange, my English friends kept mistakenly calling my partner by my black ex-girlfriend's name.
This is certainly not something that has ever happened when I've moved from one white girlfriend to another. But suddenly, it seemed my partner was just "some other black girl" that I'd got with because Sometimes, people still just appear to feel that whatever our relationship is about it is just wrong for a white and a black to be together. Full stop.
Simple as that. These are the types who will openly shake their heads and turn up their noses.
I always wonder what they would say if I asked them why they think it's wrong. I'm sure many of african wouldn't have an answer. Sadly, some other black women also seem to swallow the reductive narratives.
When they discover I have a black partner, they'll south start flirting with me. Again, they don't seem to stop to think that maybe I love my partner for who she is, not for her color.
They just think I have a thing for "black girls" so therefore they also have a chance to be with me. Which of course is great for them, because they tell me that "white guys treat women better. Sadly, so many people seem so happy to flawlessly play out the stereotypes.
Anyone who's ever been to Jo'Burg on Long Street will have seen various German men dotted around the fringes why is it always the Germans? Then there are the fat, rich, old British men you see strolling around the Waterfront with beautiful black girls half their size and half their age. Initially, African get angry at all of these people for dirtying the image of what my partner and I are by association, but then I realize that this makes me just as judgmental as the people who judge us, "african" at african very least equally primed to jump to certain conclusions.
So I try to tell myself that maybe girl isn't what it looks like. There also seems to be a basic assumption from various different sides of this conversation that as soon as someone appropriate of the same race comes along, my relationship with my partner will crumble. I'll never forget the concerned look that a friend of mine gave me when my girlfriend struck up a very casual conversation with a black guy who happened to be standing next to us in a bar one night. It was as if my friend felt I couldn't compete with the mutual blackness this man and my partner shared, and that everything else paled excuse the pun in comparison.
I sometimes wonder how many people are scared of the idea of cross-racial dating or relationships by all of this nonsense - all the assumptions, stereotypes and judgments that they would have to deal with from other people. It's sad really. Many friends tell my partner and I that we are so lucky to dating each other and to love each other like we do. But how many people in South Africa, and elsewhere no doubt, are dramatically reducing the pool from which they might be able to draw someone they really love, just by their inability to consider being with someone who happens to have a different skin color?
Can't afford to contribute? Support HuffPost by creating a free account and log in while you read. Thank you for your past contribution to HuffPost. We are sincerely grateful for readers like you who help us ensure that we can keep our journalism free for everyone. The stakes are high this year, and our coverage could click the following article continued support.
Would you consider becoming a regular HuffPost contributor? We hope girl consider contributing to HuffPost once more. Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages. I'm not stupid enough to say things like "I don't see color," or to claim that there aren't differences between my girlfriend and I that are predicated on our respective races.
But as far as I'm concerned, our differences - both the racial ones and all the others - are precisely what make our relationship so much more interesting and intricate than the reductive narratives that so many people try to project upon us.
Having said that, this doesn't mean that our differences define our relationship, for we are also so very similar in african many ways. The sooner that more people come to realize this the better - not only for us, but also for them. This post originally appeared on the author's blog. Main Menu U. News U. Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism. HuffPost Personal. NEW: Games. International U. Follow Us. Terms Privacy Policy. What's Hot. Go to Homepage.
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