But of course the night didn’t end there...

After the obligatory hour of face time at 111 Minna, Sara, Rohna, and I headed off to District, again. I have to say, I really do like the place a lot. But I think I was tired, and distracted by earlier, and just kinda not really in the mood to schmooze with strangers.

And another thing, and this may be a bit un-PC, but hey, I gotta say it: I get tired of Sara getting all worked up about the Black issue. How no non-black person can ever relate to her, how her experience is so totally different than everyone else’s, and so much more important. It bothers me. I feel like, as women, we have a lot in common- and as women-of-color, even more. All three of us are single, so we’re all in the same boat, then why does she feel like it’s so much harder for her to find the right guy?

Whenever the conversation starts going there, I feel like tuning out. I get pissed because of what ensues. We actually got into a pretty heated argument once at a bar, a few months ago, and since then, I feel like I can’t even say what I’m feeling or thinking when this conversation comes up. Sara is extremely offended when she sees black guys with white girls. She says there aren’t enough “good” (meaning educated, cultured, ambitious, career-minded) black guys to begin with, and the few there are, should be more loyal to their race and date/marry black women. She feels that black guys are disrespecting black women by dating white women, after what all the black race went through. It implies they think white women are more beautiful, and that it’s a status symbol for them, to have a white chick hanging off their arms. Sara thinks that black guys should only, ONLY, date black women. "Or women of color," she adds as an afterthought (Rohna, from Trinidad, is still dating, and madly in love with, her black ex-boyfriend), though I know she’d really rather they just date black women.

My problem with that is that I believe everyone should be able to date whoever they want- whatever their color, race, religion, etc. I guess because that’s my battle. My family strongly insists that I be with a Muslim guy, but I don’t remember the last time I met a Muslim guy who I was interested in. The last one I dated was back in college. It’s not that I refuse to date Muslim guys, it’s just that I don’t meet any who are my type. I feel like my personality, my likes and dislikes, are more easily matched in the larger pool of non-Muslim guys. Those are the guys I relate to,

So when my own friends start saying that people should not date out of their race (religion, culture, etc.), I feel like maybe I’m making friends with the wrong people. I feel like they’re disrespecting my decisions to date whoever I want to. Especially, since it turns out the last few guys I’ve dated have all been white.

So when this conversation took off once again, when we were sitting with a large group of good-looking (one in particular was extremely hot), smart, intelligent black guys, I started feeling really out of place. Plus I was distracted by my first real interaction with Doug- my white ex-boyfriend- and needed some time to ruminate. The guys were really, really nice, insisting that I go with them to their next destination, Swig, instead of calling it a night. But I did, anyway.

It turns out the next destination ended up being their apartment, not Swig, as they had said. So when my friends called me this morning at 9 am to say that they were in a cab, just on their way home, now, I was glad I had dished out the $15 for a cab home, last night.