Culture
texting strategically, along with endless hours of scrolling profiles on Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, what have you, hoping that you’ll strike up a match with someone who has — sorry to say it — personality. I’m wary of the profiles that say, “I love Asian girls.” Tired of the, “So where are you really from?” So yes, dating is awful. Dating is awful when I’m almost 23 and my mother hovers around me like a helicopter. My mother tells me I’m not allowed to go out unless she has my friend’s phone number and my friend’s parent’s phone number, so then I have to sneak out like a teenager. I used to only date within my race because, growing up, my mother would say that I needed to find a nice Vietnamese man. It would be hard for them to understand our customs and how would I expect my parents to communicate with their family if they weren’t the same as us? Well, she also told me I had to become a doctor, but as you can see, that’s not happening. My mother is the kind of person to tell me I’m not allowed to date until I’m 30 but at the same time complain to me at dinner time that I’m still single. She tells me to focus on school but then tells me I need to stop slouching and need to put on some makeup. She cringes when she sees me in my Crocs, ready for school. “Can’t you put in some effort?” But fine, I’ll forgive my mother for her fear I’ll bring someone home who isn’t Vietnamese. I understand her. I hope she can forgive me for dating behind her back. I can’t admit to her that I’ve been on dozens of terrible dates, it would break her heart. So why is dating so awful and why do I still continue to do it, despite my grievances?
8
Dating is awful when I get texts at 2 a.m. asking me to come over. I say that I’m sorry, I’m not interested and they say, “Come on, it’ll be fun.” And they send me a winking emoji and it shifts a guilty burden onto my conscience. It makes me think of the familial pressures and, while it’s nice to be desired, is it so much to ask to be understood? I want to date and have fun just as much as any other young adult, but my mother’s voice echoes in my mind. It’s selfish of me to not think of my elders. For a long time, I struggled with thinking, “Maybe this is what I deserve for going behind my mother’s back,” when I’m in bed scrolling through the mundane messages from men, but I think it’s more than that. I think it’s fair to say that I should be able to date without fielding mildly racial remarks. Dating is awful when I don’t know if my date sitting across from me actually likes me for my hobbies, interests, personality or he’s just seeing me as a cute little submissive Asian girl he can parade to his friends. So why do I continue to date? Because I have hope.
So why do I continue to date? Because I have hope. I have hope that someday I will be able to sit across from someone and I’ll be able to order what I want and not what they decided for me, and I have hope that instead of using my race as their opening act for their comedy bit, they’ll respect me as I am and appreciate me for more than just where I’m from. It’ll be then, that I’m finally being seen.