Something Else

Since I've been sick this week, I've watched a lot of movies.  I have to watch dvd's because I don't have cable and only get two crappy channels.  Soon I'll get no crappy channels if I don't buy a digital converter.  Anyway I digress. 

 So I watched "Something New".  The movie stars Sanaa Latham and  Simon Baker.  Basically Sanaa plays Kenya a workaholic young black woman from an affluent family looking for her IBM. (For those not in the know, IBM= Ideal Black Man).  After being lonely for yet another Valentines Day and fearing becoming  one of the dreaded 44.2 percent she accepts a blind date. (44.2% refers to the number of black women who have never been married according to a much quoted Essence article a few years ago.  )  She vows to be more open and less rigid in her standards for an acceptable man.  Well her blind date turns out to be Brian (Simon Baker) a super cute landscape architect that just happens to be white. oh gasp!!  This is not her idea of open.  So the movie is basically about the two of them navigating an interracial relationship.  And dating white men is presented as "something new" for black women,  an alternative to dating black men that wasn't considered an option before.

I'm here to tell you, I tried something new and it is not new.  Truthfully it is more like something else.  My conclusion is: a man is a man in any color.  I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't what I got.  He still left my toilet seat up when he visited.  He still told ridiculous potty jokes.  He still broke my heart when we parted.(I should have known he wouldn't last because Mr. Bunny never liked him!)  The new was made up of things that had nothing to do with race.  It had more to do with the fact that it was really my first grown up relationship.  Nothing more , nothing less.  The crazy in the relationship had nothing to do with race either.  In fact race was a very small part of the relationship.  Ultimately I picked the same man I usually pick, just in a different color.  Like buying the same great fitting shirt in a couple of colors.  They will fit the same and wear out the same. So a little heads up to my fellow sisters of color:  If you're thinking about starting a relationship with someone of another race in hopes of something new, what you'll get is something else.