Am I too black or am I too ugly?

One of my closest female friends, we’ll call her Misty, was invited to a wedding. She had just gotten out of a relationship and was freaking out because she now had to find a date. Over the past year, she’s become my go to date whenever I was going to an event that called for one. I figured I’d be near the top of her list of alternates. It turns out however, that I was never in the running.

I was talking to my good buddy yesterday, a tall muscular and handsome Chinese man. We’ll call him Brock. Leaning back into his chair, Brock stared at the ceiling and pondered, “I wonder how many women would be interested in me if I was white. Like if everything else about me was the same, but I was a white guy.” It was an innocent enough thought, spoken without even a hint of disdain or remorse. But it struck a chord with me. I often ask myself that as well, except with all the sadness you’d expect someone asking that to have.

I love being black. For instance I get to do cool things with my hair that other people only dream of. But admittedly it makes dating more complicated. Whenever I meet a girl I’m interested in I immediately run through a series of questions in my head in an attempt to figure out if she would even consider being with a black guy.

Once I determine if my skin color doesn’t immediately disqualify me, I then get to enjoy the other complications of modern dating. But Marcus, you might point out, your mom is married to a white guy. Surely you can’t feel so pessimistic about this. Ah yes, but he was looking to marry a black woman. It was his preference. I too know women who aren’t black but prefer black men, but I’ve found that even in those situations the attraction is often fetishized.

So back to the wedding. Misty asked me about my best friend from high school, we’ll call him Ash, who I introduced her to at a New Year’s Eve party and if I thought he’d be interested in going. And yes, I did take her as my date to that party. I agreed that Ash would be a fun date at a wedding, but I was offended that she would consider a guy who was still essentially a stranger before someone she talks to everyday.

Like her ex, Ash is tall and white. He’s actually half Mexican and is fluent in Spanish but it would be hard to assume just by looking at him. I am neither tall nor white and wondered if these two factors alone were enough to keep me from being a consideration. All I knew was that Misty didn’t consider me to be her top choice. I figured that once she exhausted all of her options, I would be her fallback. I just wasn’t exactly sure why I wasn’t one of the front runners to begin with but postulated that it had to be one of two things: I was either too black or too ugly?

I considered that in wealthy suburban Orange County culture a wedding date was more like an accessory. When you’re a 20-something trying to prove to everyone else in the room that even though you’re single, your best years are still ahead of you, you can’t just walk in with anybody. More than your outfit, more than your hair, your +1 speaks volumes about you. I get that.

I thought of Misty’s other close guy friends. Our mutual friend Koga hangs out with Misty multiple times a week. He’s funny, looks great in a tux, and is an incredible dancer. He’d charm the pants off of everyone he met there. And I couldn’t figure out why Misty didn’t ask him either. But I wondered if it was because he is Indian or because he is chubby. And then wondered if one of those descriptors alone would’ve been enough to keep him from being invited. Like if he was taller and thinner would she find him acceptable, or what if he was the same size but white?

And that’s kind of what makes all of this so complicated for me to talk about. Because the reality is that it’s usually never just as simple as I’ve boiled it down to be and certainly not as obvious. There could actually be dozens of criteria she used to vet potential wedding dates. But in my experience, race always plays a part.

I know that to be true because it definitely is a factor for me. If I’m being honest, I’d feel a lot more comfortable bringing Misty to a New Year’s Eve Party in the OC than to my family’s 4th of July party because I don’t know how comfortable she’d actually be around a hundred black people. But that type of thinking is inherently shitty, even if it comes from a place of “I just want my guest to feel welcomed”.

More often than not however, it becomes a matter of what does this person express about me? If I show up to a work function with a Hispanic girl around my arm, people will perceive me differently than if I walked in with a white date. Movies like Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? explore this dynamic in comical ways only to come to the same conclusion that we all want to believe but struggle to, that it doesn’t really matter what anybody looks like, all that matters is what’s inside…and maybe sometimes how much money they have.

The wedding eventually rolled around and Misty made up her mind about who to take. If she couldn’t have her tall white prince, she would settle for nobody and decided to go alone. It is clear that she did not deem me worthy to represent her at the wedding. And while there may be a handful of legitimate reasons, I am convinced that my skin color was one of them. And nobody would admit to that, well maybe Trump supporters would, but sometimes racism isn’t as overt as a pointed white hood or wanting to ban an entire group of people from entering the country. Sometimes, it’s that unspoken but undeniable feeling that your friend, no matter how much you care about them, won’t fit in with your other friends because of how they look.

But if we are to assume that my race had nothing to do with it and rule out other significant factors like availability, my relationship with her, my ability to be make friends with strangers, then all I’m left with is that I was just too ugly. And you know what I say to that? I’m ugly and I’m proud.