He asked me how to get with European women.
He asked me how to get with European women.
It was a brown dude I met in Riga, Latvia, last week.
It was at a networking after-party. I couldn't quite tell if he was Middle Eastern or Indian. Or perhaps some combination of both, like an Indian Muslim or something.
I asked him what made him think I was a good person to ask.
He said that the women around me seemed kinder and more responsive.
He saw my wedding ring. He asked, if I didn't mind, what color she was. I nodded and said, "Yeah...she's white." (My grizzled tone of voice communicating: And what of it?)
"Oh, well, then there you go, man! What's the secret?"
And suddenly I felt a sense of territory. There was a *tiny* section of my brain that wanted to dropkick him. In my head, I was like "Secret? Wtf are you talking about?"
I felt what white men with any balls left must feel. Because we are, in more ways than one, brothers in that sense...being as though white women gave birth to and/or raised both of us, even though we look different.
Both of our brains register the image of an archetypal "European woman" as "mom" or "wife" or "sister" or "daughter" or general "member of my village."
I thought to myself: Would I want *my* toe-headed daughter with this short, scrawny, musky motherf*cker? Absolutely not.
I wouldn't even want her walking down the street with him.
It's just embedded, neurological, instinctual "circuitry" I inherited even though I know what it looks like from the outside-in.
To me, they are, and have always been, just a normal part of my environment. Often, my everyday annoyance in a "school bus" way.
Yes, I'm very attracted to them, hence why I married one...but I'm attracted to them in the right way. And I think they can sense that.
And it is a totally natural masculine instinct to want to protect them from invaders.
I'm quicker to look at a whiny white woman as a bratty little sister archetype that I just want to get away from me. To him, though, they're idolized objects. They're fetishized status symbols. Tokens of conquest. The appealing "unknown".
It's just ironic in my case because, if one lacks empathy for me, *I* am classified as a kind of invader. Albeit an unintentional and well-meaning one.
So, after taking a moment to square away the disturbed microexpressions in my face in efforts of remaining cordial and professional...
...not wanting to end up on CNN for powerbombing this dude out of the nearest window like I'm Stone Cold Steve Austin in the WWE or something...
...I said to him, darkly, "There is no secret. If there would be a secret, you'd find it in archetypes. In becoming one of the men of European myths, but that's a harder road than you think. So, if you really have to ask that question, you should probably leave them alone."