Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Ebony and Ivory
What a cheesy title!
Don't worry, I am aware of it. Especially in light of what I want to talk about today. I just sometimes run out of enough wit to spew out a good title. I hate titling blog entries.
Anyway.
I found this gorgeous (- and I mean GORGEOUS - unless it's a pic of someone else who she wants to look like) girl on this personals website the other day, and shot her an email. She's 5'10" (*drool*), from around my area, 23, black, and just stunning. She emailed me back the day after, telling me that she is not the type to start talking on the phone right away (- good! Me neither!), but gave me her email address and Yahoo! ID.
I emailed her back yesterday, added her to my Yahoo! list, saw her online a few times, but never said anything to her. Chatting with someone you don't know is almost as uncomfortable as having conversational small talk with a person you never met on a phone. Plus I was busy working, anyway.
But today I decided to hit her up with a message, and so we started chatting. It was a bit slow at first, but we seemed to warm up soon, especially when we started talking about our bisexuality and experiences with girls. Turns out she is dating a guy too at the moment, and is pretty much just looking for some good fun with girls, just like me. He lets her play, so there's something (superficial) that we have in common. She asked me if I was okay with The Fiancé going out with guys, and I told her that in fact, I was. Did I ever have the chance to watch him being with a guy? No... unfortunately haven't, but boy, do I want to, to which she said "I would love to see that too". Ha! We have something else in common!
Maybe I should tell him. Subtle motivation there? lol
Anyway. Her name is Iman, pronounced like "emon". To this I said the following:
"thats a beautiful name. no race comment or anything like that, but black people always have such beautiful and unusual (at least to me) names"
To which she responded: "have you ever talked to a black person before?"
I felt so goodamn silly at that moment! Well, to answer the question... I have had a few black class mates at college, a bunch of guys, two of which I superficially befriended... but other than that my experience with black people is very limited. Her question threw me off totally. What was meant as a compliment suddenly resounded like an insult, or if anything like something only a stupid white girl would say. I am not sure if I was offensive? Improper, maybe? Impolite? Maybe it was none of that, but her question put me on the defense immediately, and made me feel stupid and very unworldly.
Like... how can anyone live in LA for three years and NOT have talked with black people before? So what rock did I crawl out from under, to never really have had much contact with one before?
Then I was thinking. Why did I email her in the first place, what made me do it? That she was black? Truth to be told... I couldn't care less. I saw her picture in her profile like I saw so many others, and all I saw was one gorgeous girl. Black skin? I didn't even notice that on any conscious level. Nor that I was "different" from her because I am radioactively white. She listed herself as 5'10" tall... and that's what really closed the deal for me. That's the real reason I emailed her.
So is it an issue that she is black? What if we met after a while, hit it off, and started to go out with each other? Hypothetically speaking? Would that be an issue?
So I asked her after a while... when she said that she is looking to hook up with a girl soon: "so - please excuse me if i sound stupid, but is skin color an issue for you?"
She said: "no, not at all"
I guess it's all in my head, then. I guess for all my thinking I am so wordly and educated and unbiased, I still am a bit naive and clumsy in my way of dealing with "different" people, simply due to my lack of experience (and lack of people skills in general lol). Little white girl who grew up in a country where many people change the side of street when they see a black person approaching, now living in the big city where a huge percentage of the populace is black, and really, I don't even know if what I say could be considered offensive by them or not. How unsophisticated is that?
Don't worry, I am aware of it. Especially in light of what I want to talk about today. I just sometimes run out of enough wit to spew out a good title. I hate titling blog entries.
Anyway.
I found this gorgeous (- and I mean GORGEOUS - unless it's a pic of someone else who she wants to look like) girl on this personals website the other day, and shot her an email. She's 5'10" (*drool*), from around my area, 23, black, and just stunning. She emailed me back the day after, telling me that she is not the type to start talking on the phone right away (- good! Me neither!), but gave me her email address and Yahoo! ID.
I emailed her back yesterday, added her to my Yahoo! list, saw her online a few times, but never said anything to her. Chatting with someone you don't know is almost as uncomfortable as having conversational small talk with a person you never met on a phone. Plus I was busy working, anyway.
But today I decided to hit her up with a message, and so we started chatting. It was a bit slow at first, but we seemed to warm up soon, especially when we started talking about our bisexuality and experiences with girls. Turns out she is dating a guy too at the moment, and is pretty much just looking for some good fun with girls, just like me. He lets her play, so there's something (superficial) that we have in common. She asked me if I was okay with The Fiancé going out with guys, and I told her that in fact, I was. Did I ever have the chance to watch him being with a guy? No... unfortunately haven't, but boy, do I want to, to which she said "I would love to see that too". Ha! We have something else in common!
Maybe I should tell him. Subtle motivation there? lol
Anyway. Her name is Iman, pronounced like "emon". To this I said the following:
"thats a beautiful name. no race comment or anything like that, but black people always have such beautiful and unusual (at least to me) names"
To which she responded: "have you ever talked to a black person before?"
I felt so goodamn silly at that moment! Well, to answer the question... I have had a few black class mates at college, a bunch of guys, two of which I superficially befriended... but other than that my experience with black people is very limited. Her question threw me off totally. What was meant as a compliment suddenly resounded like an insult, or if anything like something only a stupid white girl would say. I am not sure if I was offensive? Improper, maybe? Impolite? Maybe it was none of that, but her question put me on the defense immediately, and made me feel stupid and very unworldly.
Like... how can anyone live in LA for three years and NOT have talked with black people before? So what rock did I crawl out from under, to never really have had much contact with one before?
Then I was thinking. Why did I email her in the first place, what made me do it? That she was black? Truth to be told... I couldn't care less. I saw her picture in her profile like I saw so many others, and all I saw was one gorgeous girl. Black skin? I didn't even notice that on any conscious level. Nor that I was "different" from her because I am radioactively white. She listed herself as 5'10" tall... and that's what really closed the deal for me. That's the real reason I emailed her.
So is it an issue that she is black? What if we met after a while, hit it off, and started to go out with each other? Hypothetically speaking? Would that be an issue?
So I asked her after a while... when she said that she is looking to hook up with a girl soon: "so - please excuse me if i sound stupid, but is skin color an issue for you?"
She said: "no, not at all"
I guess it's all in my head, then. I guess for all my thinking I am so wordly and educated and unbiased, I still am a bit naive and clumsy in my way of dealing with "different" people, simply due to my lack of experience (and lack of people skills in general lol). Little white girl who grew up in a country where many people change the side of street when they see a black person approaching, now living in the big city where a huge percentage of the populace is black, and really, I don't even know if what I say could be considered offensive by them or not. How unsophisticated is that?
