Musings on Life and Love

Welp, the angry people are at it again.

From now on, whenever I submit an article to The Frisky, I should just make it my goal to see how many hypersensitive people I can offend. That’s what usually ends up happening, anyway.

Here’s a rundown of the latest drama:

I published an article (which itself was based on an old Musings post) about the fact that a disproportionate percentage of Asian women in San Diego (around 30%, according to an informal survey I took on Match.com) openly refuse to date Asian men. The key term here is openly. These aren’t women who secretly prefer to date non-Asians, but don’t admit it. These are women who publicly announce that they will not date Asian men.

Now, the point of my article wasn’t to judge these women. Nor was it to try to convince them to change their dating preferences. Short of me formatting that part in flashing 20-point Comic Sans font, I don’t know how I could’ve made my intentions more clear. For the record, I see nothing wrong with interracial dating. I think everyone should be allowed to fall in love with whomever they want.

No, the point of the article was to share how this affected my personal dating life. Because the reality is that, as an Asian-American male, I’m confronted with a huge dating discrepancy:

A much higher percentage of Asian women date outside their race than Asian men.

This means that, by my calculations, 19% of the Asian men in the United States are left with nobody. Here’s how I got that number: If 36% of Asian women and 17% of Asian men marry outside their race (according to the Pew Research Center), that means a whopping 19% of Asian men are literally left with no one to marry.

[Note: I’m still trying to wrap my brain around this stat, because it’s absolutely shocking to me. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong (because, boy, do I want to be wrong). Is it really possible that 19% of the Asian men out there are left with no one to marry? What am I missing here?]

I certainly think this fact is worth mentioning. And I certainly think the explanation for this discrepancy is worth speculating on.

Of course, my story incited some choice commentary. Here are two of my favorites:

“You sound like a bitter Betty. Maybe that’s why Asian women won’t date you. Because I wouldn’t… not because you’re an Asian man, but because you’re so shortsighted on humanity.”

“No, you’re supposed to be disappointed that you’re a prejudiced, short-sighted individual who submitted a terrible article.”

Not surprisingly, both of these comments came from Asian women. I think it’s safe to say that I made a few enemies today (though, granted, it was really only a handful of — okay, like three — exceedingly vocal women who took offense).

Personal attacks and accusations on my transsexual identity notwithstanding, there’s something I find truly sad about this entire situation….

Let’s say that, hypothetically speaking, a black man starts going around the internet and making public announcements that he will only date white women (I specifically use this as an example, because black men/black women is another group with a huge disparity between the genders when it comes to interracial dating).

Imagine the flak the man would likely take. Or, imagine how a black woman who calls out this man might be treated. At the very least, I think she would be commended for having the courage to point out an uncomfortable truth.

And yet, when I do the same, and I point out the fact (supported by hard evidence from a national survey) that twice as many Asian women than Asian men end up marrying outside their race, I’m the one who gets called prejudiced and ends up having to defend himself?

That, to me, is a little messed up. And maybe that says something about how much respect Asian-American men get when it comes to dating perceptions….

---

Addendum 5/7/18: The Frisky has removed comments entirely from their site, so you can read the comment archive here. Otherwise, this blog post doesn’t make much sense.