Marina asks: I am going through something. It’s so stupid but I don’t know what to do. For about a year me and this guy had something going on. We never made a move because he is black and I’m white and my parents would freak out. We kind of moved on and he has a girlfriend now. We still talk a lot, because we just have this connection. Always making awkward eye contact. Two weeks ago we were both drunk and we kissed. I realized I didn’t care what my parents thought and that I wanted to be with him. Long story short, he said we could be together but just keep it quiet until he sorts things out with his girl. Last night I drunk dialed him and asked him like what now? Like it’s been two weeks? He just said “we can talk tomorrow”. But I haven’t heard a word. I feel hurt and yeah I don’t know what to do?
Hi Marina –
Well there are two stories here, two very different stories!
The first one, about you and a man of a different race getting attracted to each other, but holding off because of your families, is of course as old as storytelling. Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner… these stories of love beyond boundaries will live as long as people insist on believing in their differences. (For what it’s worth, I don’t know my parents, but I am a mutt, so I certainly have nothing against interracial romance!)
In this day, parents getting upset about racial differences feels a bit silly. Handsome loves to tell about a cousin of his in Kansas, as pink-white and Germanic-looking as any woman has ever been, who had a child with a man of full-African background. Her grandmother was very upset, fearing that no one would accept the child socially. But all this was happening during an election in which the child of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Africa was being elected as the President of their country!!! (Needless to say, that little girl has grown up just fine, and even been a magazine cover-model!)
So if things were to work out between you and this guy, my advice would be to treat your parents with loving patience, but slowly pull them into the 21st Century, and accept that these differences just don’t meant what they once did.
But then there’s the second story: What the Heck! I hate to say it, but it sounds like this guy’s one of those humans who’s a different person when he’s drinking. There’s a great old movie called City Lights about a poor tramp who befriends a millionaire with a drinking problem; whenever the millionaire is drunk, he sees the tramp as his best friend and welcomes him into his home, but once he’s sober, he forgets he knows him and kicks him to the street – and this repeats over and over.
Now I might be wrong; maybe there’s something else happening with this guy. But if I’m right, and anything does move forward with you two, I have some very strong advice: either get him to stop drinking, or never again believe what he says when he’s intoxicated. Some people are extra-friendly when they’ve had a few; some people are mean; this fellow sounds like he’s not dangerous, but just untrustworthy.
Or to put it a different way, we all know it’s bad to let your friends drive a car when they’ve been drinking, right? Well, let’s say this guy shouldn’t drive a relationship in that condition either!
I’d love to hear where this goes. But for now, my only advice is to sit back and see what happens. You’ve done everything right so far. It’s now all up to him.
Thanks again!
Shirelle