Being interested in men does not mean he's not interested in women.For example, his family may be violently homophobic and by deciding that he's gay, you may out him by accident by treating him different or implying something without meaning to.
By "outing" them, even to yourself, you may be putting them in danger. You may want to know if your friend is gay, but there may be a good reason why they're staying closeted. People have good reasons to stay closeted sometimes.The best advice I ever got for dating a guy with kids If you have comments or a true story to tell, email us at L.A. Affairs chronicles the current dating scene in and around Los Angeles.
GUY TELLS PARENTS HES GAY MEME TV
Maisha Closson is a TV writer living in Los Angeles. I didn’t love his pickup truck - it was cramped and always had dog hair on the seat.įourteen years and two kids later, race is still a thing, in a growing list of things, that defines us. I loved that he was a plaintiff’s attorney, helping clients who’d been discriminated against in the workplace. I loved that he’d had the same Rottweiler for a pet since high school. I loved that he shared a house off Sunset with a gay, Pakistani performance artist. My boyfriend listened to emo rock, for God’s sake! His dad played Santa Claus in various malls below the Mason-Dixon line during the yuletide season. My parents were Baha’is who didn’t celebrate Christmas. But I was getting ahead of myself, right? Was I in this or not? Was I ready to be committed to a guy whose family owned shotguns and went to the Waffle House? If we had them, they would be “multiethnic” or “biracial” or “mixed heritage.” All terms that annoyed me. The more serious the relationship got, the more I started thinking about kids. I’m not exaggerating when I say white people stared at us as we walked down the street. The kicker was when we went to the wedding of one of his friends in Cape Girardeau, Mo. When I told the writers on the show I was dating a white guy from the South who drove a pickup truck, I could tell they were skeptical. Word had spread through the Caucasian grapevine. “I heard you’re dating a black girl.” Yep. Another time, my boyfriend got a call from his ex-girlfriend. Their thought bubble hovered, clear as day: “After everything they’ve done to us, you’re going to date one of them?”Īnd some days, it was tough because I felt guilty for not completing the picture of the strong black couple. My dating outside the race was seen as a betrayal. Whenever we went somewhere with a lot of black people in attendance, I got the side eye from some of them. We continued dating, and soon we were exclusive. “I don’t want to be part of your chocolate fantasy.” “Because maybe black girls are your thing,” I said. What if I were part of some Dixieland fantasy of his? After we were seated I asked him how many black girls he’d dated. For that reason, I started getting nervous about this guy. Raised in Florida, I know about chewing tobacco, gator farms, 2 Live Crew, y’all, and the Confederate flag. “The heart of Klan activity,” one of my friends felt compelled to tell me.
Translation: Some of my friends date Asian women. I have a lot of friends in interracial relationships. Translation: I’d never do it but I think Halle Berry’s pretty. Interracial relationships aren’t a big deal nowadays. And I knew from talking to him on the phone that he was from the South. Two weeks later, I climbed in the passenger seat of the bald white guy’s truck when he picked me up from my apartment in Miracle Mile. And the one or two white guys in the mix had hair.Īre you a veteran of L.A.'s current dating scene? We want to publish your story The musician who serenaded me at the Dresden between Marty and Elayne’s sets. The actor who’d given me his head shot as soon as he learned I was a TV writer. The real estate agent I’d met at the LACMA summer jazz series. Since I’d known her I’d mostly dated black guys. He also shaved his head and, apparently, that threw my friend for a loop. I’m black and my friend Kim is white, as was the guy in question. She raised an eyebrow and slurped on her vodka cranberry. “The … bald … white guy?” she asked, her face scrunched up in disbelief. I was talking to my friend, Kim, as we sipped cocktails at a bar in Hollywood.