Have you ever dated outside your race or religion?

NeedToStudy

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I don't have anything against my own race and religion but I'm not really a religious person and I find it makes me incompatible with most girls with my background. Most of the women I've asked out are white or hispanic although I did have a crush on an african-american woman. So how about you all? What have been your experiences with dating outside of your race or religion?

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Dating someone who was a Republican was a bigger conflict for me than dating someone of a different race/religion.
 
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You dated a Republican?? :eek:
A Republican who was a smoker....

North Dakota lesbians are weird. Would suggest avoiding at all costs.
 
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I'm sure they theoretically exist... i lived there for 4 years and never met one tho...
Hate to ask a personal question but does anyone in North Dakota know that you're a lesbian? Or do you keep it on the down low? I have this impression that North Dakota is quite conservative and not very open to homosexuals.
 
Hate to ask a personal question but does anyone in North Dakota know that you're a lesbian? Or do you keep it on the down low? I have this impression that North Dakota is quite conservative and not very open to homosexuals.
I don't live there anymore thank god.
All my friends knew in college - I was actually outed and just rolled with it. No one ever said anything to my face.
When I was working in rural ND after college during my gap year I stayed in the closet save for like 2 people, I heard a LOT of homophobic comments and I was scared about losing my job, so I mostly kept to myself.
 
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I don't live there anymore thank god.
All my friends knew in college - I was actually outed and just rolled with it. No one ever said anything to my face.
When I was working in rural ND after college during my gap year I stayed in the closet save for like 2 people, I heard a LOT of homophobic comments and I was scared about losing my job, so I mostly kept to myself.
I'm sorry to hear that. Hope you're living in a more accepting place now.
 
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I've only dated humans.

Religion isn't one of the three reasons I wouldn't date someone.
 
Ive dated same race and different religious views and different race with very similar religious views. The second has been so much better for me.

Similar religious views has become an important consideration.
 
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Ive dated same race and different religious views and different race with very similar religious views. The second has been so much better for me.

Similar religious views has become an important consideration.
What about different race, different religion but guy is not religious?
 
What about different race, different religion but guy is not religious?

I think it's easier to do if people are less religious. If one is less religious, is the other as well? Have you considered how important religion is if you want kids? Is there any family pressure in regards to religion?

It depends on your background and culture, but I didn't bat an eye when it came to dating someone of a different race. I liked him, he liked me, we got along really well, we both have no interest in religion at all...me being White and him Asian really didn't matter (aside from the more traditional members of our families not being the happiest, but their opinions mean little to me).
 
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I think it's easier to do if people are less religious. If one is less religious, is the other as well? Have you considered how important religion is if you want kids? Is there any family pressure in regards to religion?

My parents would love for me to have an arranged marriage with another Muslim. I don't want it though. Honestly I wouldn't care if my children were raised as Christians or some other religion. My parents would be upset though.
 
My parents would love for me to have an arranged marriage with another Muslim. I don't want it though. Honestly I wouldn't care if my children were raised as Christians or some other religion. My parents would be upset though.

Well....If you would consider it of little importance, then I would say looking for someone else that is less religious and/or Muslim is the first step. If you're trying online dating, I think there's a way to include that information by answering questions and getting matches with people of similar views.

As for your parents' preferences, I can't relate since I imagine it's a cultural thing to respect their wishes more. That part imo is really up to you to decide what you want to do, seeing as it is your life and your marriage. But that's just my point of view.
 
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I'm currently dating someone outside of my race (he's Asian) and our religious views are similar. It's the best relationship I've ever been in and I am hoping it lasts. In the past, I've dated the same race with different religious views and it's been more of a struggle to be honest.
 
I'm currently dating someone outside of my race (he's Asian) and our religious views are similar. It's the best relationship I've ever been in and I am hoping it lasts. In the past, I've dated the same race with different religious views and it's been more of a struggle to be honest.

I was married for almost 10 years to a woman of the same race and it was a very superficial and a vacuous relationship, I am Asian American. My current girlfriend is Hispanic on her father's side and European on her mother's side, and we have a relationship with much greater depth and emotion.

Love knows no boundaries.
 
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race doesn't matter, but as it relates to instilling your beliefs in your children religion can be a deal breaker if one of the partners is particularly devout. I would not have dated outside my religion.
 
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I've seen the different religious views thing blow up more often than the fact that a couple is interracial
 
I've seen the different religious views thing blow up more often than the fact that a couple is interracial

Me and my former wife were of the same ethnic background and yet our marriage failed. My current girlfriend is agnostic and is of very different racial and ethnic background , yet we get along incredibly well. I think Love can conquer all man made boundaries.
 
Me and my former wife were of the same ethnic background and yet our marriage failed. My current girlfriend is agnostic and is of very different racial and ethnic background , yet we get along incredibly well. I think Love can conquer all man made boundaries.
I think lots of boundaries can be overcome if people love each other, but that doesn't mean things aren't more difficult. Unless one person is a batman fan and the other person is a superman fan. Impossible.
 
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I think lots of boundaries can be overcome if people love each other, but that doesn't mean things aren't more difficult. Unless one person is a batman fan and the other person is a superman fan. Impossible.

This is the 21st Century. I think Superman and Batman fans get along perfectly well, Thor and Superman fans though can be another story.
 
This is the 21st Century. I think Superman and Batman fans get along perfectly well, Thor and Superman fans though can be another story.
For me it's a bigger turn off if somebody thinks that Michael Keaton was better as Batman then Christian Bale. I mean I'm all for tolerance but some **** just doesn't fly!
 
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For me it's a bigger turn off if somebody thinks that Michael Keaton was better as Batman then Christian Bale. I mean I'm all for tolerance but some **** just doesn't fly!

Michael Keaton was simply the first on screen Batman, he generated a lot of controversy because of the casting, there were a lot other actors considered for the role at the time. Kevin Costner and Pierce Brosnan were both front runners for the role of Batman, also Tom Selleck. Robert Urich was a runner up, he would have been an incredible Batman.

Kevin Costner did not want the role because he thought he would wind up getting type casted like Christopher Reeve, Pierce Brosnan also passed for the same reason.

Christian Bale was incredible as Batman, he still has a strong acting career.

However Reeve was just AMAZING, he really was Superman:
christopher_reeve__hero_icon_by_strib.jpg
 
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I've dated someone with completely different political views and that I would compare now to different religions. It was hard. I though that it wasn't too big of an issue and we could get though it. Afterall, politics will always change and I somehow imagined we had something stronger. But we didn't. He didn't think we could manage it and believed that in a family people need to have the same points of view. So it didn't work out.

However, my friend just married a guy with a completely different religion where women hide themselves. Yet, this is not something of an issue between them at all. He doesn't want her to convert, nor do his parents. All is good and they have other problems.

So I guess it depends on the couple and on the commitment they are willing to make.
 
Despite racial and cultural differences I think people find a way to build bridges, I am one of the younger generation maybe its people among the older generation who think otherwise.

It is predominantly the older generation who think that this cannot work, my parents pressured me into marriage with someone of the same race as me and my marriage was loveless and superficial. I am with a woman of a different race, she is part Hispanic and part Caucasian, I am Japanese American, yet we get along so much better in every way possible, emotionally, physically, everything about my new relationship is just so much better and organic. I can really be myself rather than put on an act like I did around my ex to keep peace in the house.
 
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To be honest, differences in race or religion for me were inevitable as a secular Asian doing K-12 in a ~99% white upper class neighborhood of secular Jewish and Protestant as the dominant groups. This continued in undergrad in biology and political science at a school that had ~70% white students but I rarely saw non-whites in my classes. I was often the only one.

For me personally, the bigger issue has been class which became exacerbated during undergrad where it's much less homogenous. Things would seem fine until I'd bring a guy home for Thanksgiving to meet my friends and family. I grew up poor and things gradually got better for my family culminating in that particular house and the friends I made. But, I imagine that the inconsistencies in social cues can be confusing or generate feelings of inadequacy. Ultimately, the man I did marry came from a class background more similar to my own: economic ups and downs, same SAT strata, applied to the same level of undergrad prestige, needed scholarships to reduce burden on parents due to having younger siblings, etc. We relate well and the perception of equal footing works wonders. I would never date a man I did not see as my equal, but what I see doesn't matter if my partner doesn't see us as equals.

Although my husband's race and his family's reverence for religion is very different from my own background, it still works out. I think I get along with them and that our parents like each other well enough. Our strongest cultural tie is the value we place on education and mutual respect for cultural differences. They don't try to convert my family, my family doesn't do anything that would make us erupt into cackles, no one complains about the food, and both families follow the traditions of the host. I think it's a good system. Things were rough when the in-laws were trying to get my husband back into the fold but I think they have accepted his decision with the recent understanding that people get offended when you try to convert them or tell them that their lifestyle is wrong or incomplete without this particular thing they have no interest in.

I suspect that the underlying problem is that some people aren't very cooperative or into compromise when it comes to cultural traditions be they ethnic or religious. Class is similarly tricky. Like religious conversion, I don't think most people care for Pygmalion transformations but I think there's more room for contextual flexibility.
 
My current girlfriend is black American. This was my first ever interracial relationship and things have been going great so far. Our religious views are very similar which helps.
 
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Race doesn't matter to me. I tend to value similar religious views in a partner I could see myself getting serious with.
 
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My husband is half white and half African American, and I am mostly white and a little Choctaw Indian. At first it bothered me when people would say racist things about us being together. But now, we've been happily married for almost six years and during that time, you learn to love each other as a person and for who they are, you stop caring what others think about you together, you grow together in your religious and political views, gain respect for one another and end up at a great place relationship-wise. Or that doesn't happen and you just aren't compatible and you end up divorcing the other person because that mutual bond and respect never formed. I think the bigger issue is family and parenting styles. It is very important to marry someone who you think you would be compatible with as a parent (or marry someone who doesn't want to be a parent if you don't).
 
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At first it bothered me when people would say racist things about us being together.

The fact that in the year 2015 there are still people who will openly harass a interracial couple is just shocking to me. I hate to stereotype but was this in the South by any chance?
 
The fact that in the year 2015 there are still people who will openly harass a interracial couple is just shocking to me. I hate to stereotype but was this in the South by any chance?
Yes, we lived in Little Rock, AR for one year while doing CityYear. Race is still a huge issue there. We have encountered a little bit of ignorance in Idaho (which is where we are both from), and hardly any while living in Philadelphia now. I would say that Philadelphia does have the most income disparity between classes of any of the places we have lived though, which seems to have a racial correlation.
 
My parents won't stop telling me that there will be harassment about interracial marriage. Not sure why they think I would care.
 
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My parents won't stop telling me that there will be harassment about interracial marriage. Not sure why they think I would care.

These days people are a lot more open-minded about it. My parents feel the same way as your parents, but times have changed.
 
Currently in an interracial relationship. I'm Asian, boyfriend is Irish-Canadian. I've also dated biracial guys in the past.

It's never been an issue for us even though my family and I are immigrants and there are a fair number of cultural differences. Fortunately my boyfriend is very open-minded and wants to try everything (food, traditions, etc) and is always eager to learn more words/phrases in my mother tongue. We have the same religious background and have similar political views, I think those would pose more of an issue than race/culture. We have on occasion received looks while walking down the street but that was in my boyfriend's hometown (>90% Caucasian, population <20000).
 
I'm white, was in an interracial relationship with a second generation middle eastern guy. Things went great for the first 5 months of dating. I really liked so many of his individual qualities. The more I got to know "of" his family though, the more I realized it would never work out. I saw "of" because I never was actually allowed to meet the family until the point that "engagement was on the table" because his family saw meeting me as a girlfriend, or even a friend who is a girl, as inappropriate.
When I asked if his parents would not approve of me because of my race, he hesitated and said, "well.. they want me to marry an Arab girl. But white is a close second." Some people don't care about their in-laws and if they like/don't like you. There were a lot of cultural traditions his family followed that I respect, but some other things I knew I could not handle. Like how women in his family were treated. It matters to me to have similar family values as my future partner, and his in-laws, so I ended it the next day.
 
I'm white, was in an interracial relationship with a second generation middle eastern guy. Things went great for the first 5 months of dating. I really liked so many of his individual qualities. The more I got to know "of" his family though, the more I realized it would never work out. I saw "of" because I never was actually allowed to meet the family until the point that "engagement was on the table" because his family saw meeting me as a girlfriend, or even a friend who is a girl, as inappropriate.
When I asked if his parents would not approve of me because of my race, he hesitated and said, "well.. they want me to marry an Arab girl. But white is a close second." Some people don't care about their in-laws and if they like/don't like you. There were a lot of cultural traditions his family followed that I respect, but some other things I knew I could not handle. Like how women in his family were treated. It matters to me to have similar family values as my future partner, and his in-laws, so I ended it the next day.

This makes me feel sorry for the guy. I'm in the same situation. My family would not approve of me dating or marrying someone who is not Muslim.

I hope it's not too personal but did he stand up for you? I can understand if he didn't but if he did then.... it makes me feel bad for him. I'd hate for a situation where a woman leaves me not because of me but because of my family.
 
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This makes me feel sorry for the guy. I'm in the same situation. My family would not approve of me dating or marrying someone who is not Muslim.

I hope it's not too personal but did he stand up for you? I can understand if he didn't but if he did then.... it makes me feel bad for him. I'd hate for a situation where a woman leaves me not because of me but because of my family.

It's okay. There were other issues as well. His father had a lot of control over him. Since I never met the family, I'm not sure what you meant by if he stood up for me. I would never ask him to choose between me and his family. Ultimately, sticking with me would have been divisive for him and his family, since I don't have the lifestyle his family wants for his future wife. Which I am assuming, is to be a stay at home mom, or work part time. I love to travel, am going to be a doctor, love other cultures but I am not Arab. They are homebodies, not college educated, and want him with an Arab girl. It is what it is. I feel sorry for him too. I still care about him and wish the best for him. Maybe in your scenario family counseling would be helpful. I'm not sure.
By the way, I am not trying to scare you with all of this. I hope your situation turns out better than this one. But, all in all, that's what dating is for: seeing what qualities you like about different people, until you find the one you want to spend your life with
 
I have known a number of guys/girls in this exact situation. Parents don't care that he's dating a non-muslim, but have zero interest in meeting her because they believe/expect/know she's not "marriage material"
So what do they eventually do? Get married without their parents blessing or just break it off and go have an arranged marriage?
 
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