Finals week is finally finished, so I’m definitely ready to take the summer to relax! I’ll try to post more regularly from now on (maybe once or twice a week?) so look out for more! Thanks to everyone who has read my posts so far.
Now onto my main topic today.. Staring.
I hate it when people stare at us. I mean, I REALLY REALLY hate it. Royce and I live in a pretty conservative state, so this isn’t exactly surprising to me. As a white, relatively normal looking female living in the United States I almost never get stared at unless I do something very weird. That all changed when Royce and I started dating – especially when we hold hands in public.
So far I’ve seen a few types of stares thrown our way:
The Puzzled Stare: These people must undoubtedly be thinking, “why are they together?” I can’t blame them honestly. We do look like an interesting couple. But hasn’t anyone told them it’s rude?
The Disgusted Stare: Usually these people make it really obvious they don’t like us. We’ve probably offended their entire family by being together. Most of the time, I kid you not, they are wearing shirts with huge American flags on them. I’m pretty sure we ruin their entire day when they see us together and they want us to know it. Usually I’ve found that ignoring these people is the best course of action. I’m sure they know I don’t like them either, so I try to shrug this one off.
The Concerned Stare: These people seem incredibly worried about the fact that we are together. They must think that he forced me to date him or vice versa. They give me the feeling like they think that something really crazy must have happened for us to end up together. It couldn’t be possible otherwise right? The people who do this one are usually Asian people. I feel like that should surprise me more, but I guess it doesn’t. While I’ve never been to Asia, I have seen a general dislike for this type of relationship by older Asian people I’ve come across. I hope those are just rare cases and not the popular opinion.
The “Your Relationship is Funny” Stare: We’ve only gotten this one a couple of times, and it’s always from really young kids that are in middle school or high school. Usually this is accompanied with a joke about how Asian Royce is. This one doesn’t make me too mad. I remember what people were like in middle school (even though I’d rather forget)..
The “Trying Really Hard Not to Stare” Stare: I’ll give these people props – they try really hard not to look at us because they know staring isn’t polite, but they can’t help it and keep glancing at us or eventually just give into it anyways. I find this one kind of funny because they make it even MORE obvious that they are staring by glancing at us over and over again. Oh well. Thanks for trying guys.
The “Checking You Guys Out” Stare: We have only gotten this one once while we were waiting for dim sum in Chicago.. This Southeast Asian kid looked us UP AND DOWN while we were waiting for our table. He was really checking us out, and even walked around us a little bit. What was he thinking? Is it because he wants a white girlfriend? Is our relationship even more unusual in Southeast Asia? Royce thinks it was funny. I think it was creepy. I’m not sure, and I’ll probably wonder what he was thinking forever. Sigh.
The Starbucks Barista Stare: I’m happy to report that there is no Starbucks Barista stare. They are usually always so nice to us that it’s ridiculous. That’s why I like going there for a quick drink when we have some down time. Never take for granted the feeling of people being nice to you.
The “I Know How You Feel” Stare: These are usually only glances, but I thought that I would throw it in here anyways. We get this one from other interracial couples that we see when we go out places. Most times these couples are WMAF but often they have been of a variety of other races too. We don’t see other AMWF couples very often so when we do this is even more true. Usually these interactions involve empathetic glances and being extra nice to each other from both sides – after all, we both know how it feels to be unsure of how someone is going to look at you every time you go out in public.
That’s all I can think of for now but I’m sure there’s so many more that couples like us experience on a daily basis!
My reaction to staring has gotten better. It used to bother me a lot because I felt like people were judging us or not accepting our relationship. Now I just understand that sometimes people have a difficult time not staring because they don’t see relationships like ours very often. I don’t notice it anymore unless someone is making it incredibly obvious. Even though I don’t pay attention to it as much, it still does happen. We were out at dinner about a week ago and this guy stared at us instead of talking to the person he was at dinner with for almost the entire time we were there.. Luckily for us, that seems to be a rare case and most people are respectful towards us whenever we go out.
I hope that in the future people can be more accepting of things they don’t understand. I hope one day we will live in a world where no one will stare at us because our relationship is normal. Until then, I guess I’ll continue to talk about it and work towards that goal.
What does everyone else think? Do you have this same problem or is it different for you?
Let me know and have a wonderful day!