2. “I love your hair.”

18 True Stories About Interracial Hook-Ups, Dating, And Relationships

2. “I love your hair.” 

http://interracialloving.com/

I am biracial. After years of torment from peers in nearly exclusively white schools, I began straightening my hair. After even more years of spending an inordinate amount of money on serums and salon services, I began braiding my hair. And after about two years of making six-hour round-trips for 11-hour braiding sessions every season, I started wearing my hair naturally because life is too damn short.

My decision to go natural has been one of the most overwhelmingly positive choices I’ve made in my life, and I say this without exaggeration. However, it does have one drawback: People feel compelled to comment on my hair. Every. Single. Day. I hav

e noticed this particularly among men who try to date me, who in the past years haven’t been able to come up with come-ons or opening lines that aren’t some variation of “I love your hair,” even when they have at their disposal a full profile detailing countless things more interesting about me.

The problem, of course, isn’t that it’s wrong to love my hair. I love my hair too. It’s just that the preponderance of remarks about my hair among potential partners points to a fascination that isn’t about celebration, but exotification. When you say you “love my hair,” I hear the high school football player who told his locker room buddies that because I’m half black, half white, I’d be twice as good in bed. In certain cases, I may be wrong. But I’d rather fail a hearing test than find out.

When my boyfriend first messaged me on OkCupid, he teased me about not knowing who Richard Pryor was in the eighth grade. On our first date, we debated tuna versus salmon in sushi and discussed the etymology of random words. On our second date, we roamed the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and made friends with a little girl named Sophia. At this point, we’ve been dating for seven months and he has still never told me, “I love your hair.” He tells me, “I love you.” SEE YOU TOMORROW...