Native Imposition

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.