It’s been a while since I “talked” to someone of my own
race/ethnic background. At the time, I found it refreshing and enlightening…and
sooooo comfortable. So comfortable in a sense like, you’re at home comfortable.
Comfortable in the context that you don’t have to explain anything to the
person because you already know, no explanations on: Being Native, Rez life,
culture, spirituality, ceremonies, pow-wow, frybread, and my list goes on, but you get the
point. There was a certain space in my mind that thought this makes sense
because for a split second things just seemed “easy.” I thought, “How come it
took me a long time to think about dating Native men again?”
THEN…*sigh* things were not so simple. I am not sure if
you ever felt like this or experienced this… because I am not SURE if I felt
like this because I haven’t dated a Native dude in my adult years. Yeah, I
dated them when I was a kid in high school and my early twenties, but never as
a true adult. Throughout this particular experience, I found out that I set higher than average expectations from
Native men than I do for non-Native men. I set higher expectations because I
know how that person was raised, you see he was raised by a Native mother, and
I know she taught him great things, because I too was raised by a Native
mother. I know how a Native man is raised because it was probably similar to my
environment, family, culture, etc.. You see when I date men of other
racial/ethnic groups; I am not sure how they were raised, because I am not of
that racial/ethnic group. But, I do know they have different cultural,
spiritual, and family backgrounds than us Natives.
So, when something from his end went wrong, I felt more disrespected
and disappointed because that situation came from him, a Native man. I felt
more let down than normal because I had higher expectations from him as a
Native man. I thought to myself, am I being dramatic? Am I being too hard on
him? Is this fair to him that I expected more from him than another person? I
questioned myself numerous times, but the outcome of my answer was “No.” And, I
felt like this because my father is Native, and my dad/brothers/uncles/male
cousins/male friends wouldn’t do anything to disrespect or hurt me, so I didn’t
feel bad for my dramatic imposition. I did, however, feel let down by this
person from a deeper perspective due to our
cultural/spiritual/familial/communal background because in my opinion, he knows
better, but didn’t act like it.
