I wouldn't have written anything like this in OD, since Cori was there, and actually he may know I'm on PB. I never actually said anything to him about switching over, and I never asked if he read my last entry on OD where I said I'd be on PB.
Anyway, this isn't really a thing that's wrong with him, it's more me than anything. A long-distance relationship isn't easy. There are some days all I want to do is touch him and hold him... but we knew what we were getting ourselves into, and the whole plan that tied it together and made it seem like it would work (and hopefully will work) was eventually living in the same state or same place. We've known each other for years, and certainly the relationship isn't what people would consider conventional, but we don't care about that.
So because I don't see him all the time, there's this... thing... I don't want to suggest that I think he's going to cheat. That's not it at all, I trust him 100% and know him well enough and his values and how he feels about such things. He basically has no tolerance for betrayal and in a way, I don't either. I'm very forgiving but I couldn't intentionally hurt someone like that no matter how I felt at the time. I pride myself on, of all things, having integrity, and it means something to me.
So I'm white. I'm white and have mousy brown hair that looks more burnt coppery due to the auburn I've been dying it over the past years fading out. I have pale skin that, while nice, easily turns red. I have average-shaped hazel eyes, and small but nice nose, chubby features, and I'm only 5 feet and 3 inches. I was born in D.C. and raised mostly around the east coast. While my mom's grandparents came from Poland, most of my dad's family was settled in the US (from the Netherlands) by the 19th century (the first coming over in 1651). We speak English at home, with the exception of my mom knowing some idioms in Polish and my dad having taken 4 years of French and German. I took about 8 years of French but I rarely speak it. We had some tough times but for the most part have always been middle class and living far away from relatives. Being military, we moved all the time and therefore we always had to make new friends and lose old ones.
Before I get into the next part, Cori has never said anything to me to make me feel bad about how I look or anything like that. Ever. He compliments, not too much to seem disingenuous but not so rare it never happens.
But one time almost a year ago he mentioned about how he loves black hair. And while I understand people have preferences, my impression was negative. I have had my hair colored every color under the sun, including black. And the black looked so bad on me that a week later (this was junior or senior year of high school) I actually had it bleached to take the color out and vowed never, ever to dye my hair black again. So when he said he loved black hair, I got upset. I look great with red hair, brown hair, blonde hair (as seen when I bleached it), and many other shades. I look okay with my natural color (which is dull and ashy but it's "mine") and darker brown and strawberry blonde. But black ? It was literally the ONLY color that nobody liked on me--myself included.
His best friend John has made the comment that he could always see Cori marrying a foreigner. Since Cori and I have known each other as friends much longer than as "an item," I recall a lot of his statements about being attracted to different women with more interesting stories, like culturally-divided damsels in distress. The woman (I'll call her F) he loved for a very long time was a complicated person, sick (ironically with endometriosis, like me), followed Islam very strictly not because she wanted to but because she felt she had to, was Pakistani and beautiful. He said some wonderful things about her, wrote poetry about her, would talk to me without end about his feelings for her and how she would never return them.
He has a lot of friends from or of Pakistan/Indian families, and while that's a stupid thing to care about (because technically, I don't, I mean, I'm friends and co-workers with culturally diverse people) it bugs me in this one sense... almost that I'm competing with people he finds more interesting than me. People who have more exotic features, families, languages, even religions. And it's worse when these people are women. I know, logically, there's nothing there. But these are still women with features and backgrounds that have consistently intrigued Cori, and I have none of these things.
He's told me time and time again, even when he recently saw F at a bus stop a couple months ago and she said "Hi" like nothing ever happened (she consistently hurt him and pushed him away, etc... she was married recently, too), that he's done with her. He just said "hi" back, she asked how he was, he said "fine" and he continued on. And that was it. I guess it's a good sign he told me, but it upsets me knowing that he still lives very close to her and I'm a good 1100 miles away. Do I feel I need to keep an eye on him ? No. But I am afraid that I don't posses enough of the qualities he likes and that he'll leave me simply because I'm not from Pakistan or India, because I'm a non-practicing Catholic and not part of a more "exotic" religion, because I'm not bilingual and my family is your average American family.
He watches a lot of anime too, so sometimes he'll show me cosplay pictures. And while 90% of me LOVES to see people dressing up like their favorite anime characters, the majority of them are hot, young Japanese or Korean girls who have BLACK HAIR (or a wig). And there I go again. He prefers certain types of voices too... yes, the high-pitched, girly anime voice... which I couldn't even fake if I tried.
He doesn't make a habit of pointing these things out to me, and I've talked to him on occasion about my concerns. And like I said, he has never said something to me to make me think any of my worries are founded on truth or logic. He has never said "You'd look good in a cosplay outfit if you lost weight !" or anything like that. Hasn't even come close. Yet I still have these thoughts... I'm not exotic... I'm not interesting... I don't have black hair... I don't have a foreign background with my family... I don't know, all these things that I can't get out of my head.
He says it's just because I already can't accept myself as I am, and that I need to stop feeling like I'm competing with people I don't know (like F). But even if he says he hates F, that kind of feeling comes from feeling so strongly about someone that you can't help but hate them. I know how he used to talk about her. But on the other hand, he could easily bring up Scott. Same situation... a guy I wanted to be with, but couldn't for one reason or another. Scott was my F. And in the same way, F was his Scott. And the funny thing is--we didn't date either of these people ! It was only friendship. I'm not even comparing myself to a girlfriend, it was a friend he loved as if she was a girlfriend.
I don't know how to deal with this. I know I'm being unfair but I can't help it. I can't help but constantly think that he is going to wish he was with someone more exotic than I am. Guys always like exotic girls. I don't know what it is. Must be because there are bitchy white girls everywhere around here. Back when I was at 7, I heard plenty of guys say they preferred "exotic" women, like women from Southeast Asia or the middle East or North Africa. But these men weren't always white. They themselves were diverse. I NEVER heard someone say they preferred white girls... maybe because it sounds racist ? Great. So now if someone prefers a white girl, they are racist. And again, preferences are one thing. Cori tried to get me to list all the guys I find attractive to prove that there is some sort of preference that I have as well, but the guys I liked were all over the place and it ended up not working. The only thing that came close was that about 6 of the 15 guys were older, but I don't like them because they're older, or it was a situation where I started liking them when they were much younger but now it's been 15-20 years so yeah, they're "older" now (i.e. Johnny Depp and Trent Reznor).
And of course he said "I'm sure I'm not your 'perfectly ideal mate' am I ? I mean, I don't look like Johnny Depp or Trent Reznor !" And I replied, "I don't care if you don't look like them, I love you for other reasons and know you differently than them !" And he gave me his "SEE ?!" face and I realized he was pointing out that the same could be true of him. That sure, he prefers black hair. But does that mean he hates when women have red or brown hair ? No. He tried to tell me to stop comparing myself to what I'd consider "exotic" people because they are probably more like me than I realize (no, I realize it, but I'm still irrationally paranoid that he's going to dump me once he meets a cute 24-year-old talented beauty from India or Japan). He said that yeah, he dated or wanted to date women I'd consider "exotic" but, like any other woman from any other place, some of them were absolutely crazy or mean or, in the case of one of the girls, surprisingly racist !
And while I do trust him, I do... I can't help but... feel like... I'm not exotic enough. Like I'm still just that normal girl that gets overlooked when she's standing next to the olive-skinned beauty from Afghanistan with kohl-rimmed almond eyes, long blackish blue hair, and gorgeous curves (Madina, for example, who got me the job at Jacadi in 2008).
And I don't know how not to feel that way.
~Rachel
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