Pre-Finals Mashup

I probably should not be blogging tonight of all nights but I feel like I have to get it out of my system. In case anyone was wondering I have not abandoned my blog, I have just been really busy and very exhausted. Part of that business has been school work, and the other part of it has been Nigerian Fiction (which frankly is turning out to be a handful - who knew running a writing community would be so much work?)

My Calculus final is at 8am tomorrow morning so I'm going to be studying all night. I have three finals in all having already written one and had the luck of professors in other classes deciding against giving me finals. Considering how taxing this term has been for me if I had more than three finals I would totally freak out.

So, what else has been going on? I spoke to Japanese Boy last night!!!! I was at work minding my business and Hung Lo (abi that's what we decided to call him?) came over and asked if I could help him fix something on his computer (I fix computers) and I went over and took care of it and came back to my desk and after a while he came over and sat down across from me and we started chatting about all sorts of stuff - work, me , him, Japan, Nigeria, America, piercings (he doesn't like them), tattoos (he wants to get one), and loads of other stuff. We ended up looking at pictures of Loyola together and comparing and contrasting Japanese high schools and teachers with Nigerian boarding schools and teachers.

I mean yeah, I was listening to him all the time and stuff but I couldn't help staring at his lips and marveling at how large/puffy/pillowy and soft-looking they are. Like I told Mellowyel last night, I didn't think Japanese were lippy people, but apparently I've found one. He was really easy to talk to and we ended up laughing a lot. I had such a great time talking to him but we ended up having to cut it short because he had to go smoke. (EVERY Japanese person here is like a serious chain smoker.... like seriously yo). He was really nice but I don't think there was any chemistry between us. I've been using a dating app (you can visit here to check it out) and I think that's the best way to find love. Plus, dating apps are super fun!

Does it make me a hypocrite that I hate smoking but every guy I have ever dated or been with (school excluded) has been a smoker (although I always insisted they smoke out of my sight) and I think the residual smell of smoke on a guy's skin and taste of smoke on a guy's breath is incredibly sexy? In my defense, there has been loads of research done about how a person's smell makes them more attractive and companies like True Pheromones have even made perfumes based on these findings.

Yeah, I am TOTALLY a hypocrite. So that aside, earlier in the week Nigerian Fiction hit 100 members!!! I know everyone already knows this, I just like saying it. =D Back to Japanese Boy a.k.a. Hung Lo. I was expressing my reservations about interracial dating to Mellowyel who thought I was overreacting due to a very bad experience I had with my first attempt at interracial dating. Basically, I really like Hung Lo, but I've decided I'm never going to tell him or go for it because inside I feel like there's no way he'd ever like me like that.

Aside from the fact that it is as of yet unconfirmed whether or not Hung Lo has a girlfriend (I didn't want to come out and ask him - that would be totally stalkerish) but the other elephant in the room is the well known Japanese propensity to be racist towards black people or Africans and adore or suck up to white people. In other words, the way I feel inside about the whole situation is this: I feel like if I was white then maybe Hung Lo wouldn't have any reservations about dating me or at least he would be open to dating me, but I feel like because I'm black the idea of dating me might be repulsive to him and I don't want to find out by telling him how I feel because I cannot deal with that kind of rejection FOR THAT REASON again. I don't want to feel like I can't be myself or that he could never like me because of who I am. When it comes to dating, If you feel like you always need to be on your game or can't be yourself, this is a pretty big red flag that you aren't with the person you should be with. The right partner, that love of your life, will embrace you for all of your qualities and flaws. No one, and we mean absolutely no one, can be on their game 100% of the time, We all have good days and bad days, and our partners will know that and expect nothing different. I want that from my next partner and I just worry that I wouldn't get that from Hung Lo.

There are a lot of Japanese people at my school and they all know each other like really really well and I feel like even if he might secretly like me he might be worried/afraid of what the other Japanese kids will think of him and Japanese people are very collectivist and don't like to take actions that make them stand out against the group so there's a low chance that he will just say "F*** it!" and take the plunge with me. As an old Japanese proverb says "The nail that sticks out will be hammered down."

Now I know it sounds like I'm paranoid but really I'm not. I probably wouldn't feel like this if I hadn't already experienced it first hand. Basically a few years ago, after Bakura and I had broken up (for the nth time - and this time it seemed like it was really over .... for the nth time), I had a huge crush on a guy. We were friends and I liked him, and he liked me too and everything was great. His name was Georgia (yes, I know) and I really really liked him and I finally worked up the courage to tell him and for a little while things were a little awkward and then he said he liked me too and we started seeing each other and after a couple of months, we had sex for the first time.

How and why is this story relevant? You'll see. The first time you do it with your boyfriend is nerve wracking enough yes? Well it was worse. It wasn't that it was bad. That wasn't the problem. The problem was Georgia couldn't get over the contrast of our bodies lying against each other. It freaked him out. And to make matters worse, I was really really shy because I really really liked him and he went and shattered my confidence by saying "Your nipples are brown" like having brown nipples is some kind of disease. It wasn't just that he said it and pointed out all these things, but it was how he said it. He made me feel like a freak of nature because I looked different from him and because among other things... my nipples were brown.

Where I come from, EVERYONE's nipples are brown, but in that instant he made me feel like perhaps I was some sort of abomination that had been spat out of the Earth and made forever recognisable to all mankind by my strange brown nipples.

And you know what? Like Mellowyel pointed out, it was quite possible that I was the first black girl he had ever been with. In fact, now that I think about it, I probably was. So I can forgive him his shock about my body. Like I said, I really, really, really liked him and maybe I could have been fine but then he went and said what he said next to me and frankly that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

He said that if his friends and family knew that he was dating a black girl let alone 'an African' that they would be disgusted and disappointed. Let's not even talk about the fact that he said 'an African' as if Africans aren't human beings but in fact some kind of object. Let's not even talk about that. I was heartbroken. I grabbed my clothes and left and I never spoke to him again.

Georgia was white and Hung Lo is Japanese but the same theory applies. Since then I've kept my distance from white guys in particular because I just can't deal with the idea that some of them might think the same way about me that he did. Mellowyel pointed out that I'm unfairly judging a whole a race of men based on the actions of one and I get that and I'm not saying that all white guys are like that but at the same time, I also know that most of them treat me like I'm not even there or like I'm part of the wall or like they don't see me or I don't even register on their radar.

Come to think of it, most non-Black guys treated me the same way. And I'm not even talking about now that I ate one too many Kit-Kats. I'm talking about then when I could still fit into my skinny jeans and other hijink get ups.

I'm not saying that interracial dating is bad or that I won't do it. I've got loads of friends who are into Interracial Dating and some are even married! Plus I've had loads of crushes on loads of guys of every race imaginable but I'm just saying that this is my experience with it so far and that's why I am extra wary of putting myself out there and making myself vulnerable again or being in a position where a guy can just trample all over my existence without a thought. Like I totally could not deal again if another guy ran out of the room because he found out that my nipples are brown and not pink. Like I'm fucking sorry but I think that God or whoever was in charge of initial human design and manufacture knows how to fucking colour coordinate. Pink nipples would not even look good on brown skinned people. But yeah, so maybe I'm totally paranoid about Japanese Boy. I'm just saying.