Oh my gosh I am so glad I live in an era when I can purge my guilt upon unsuspecting readers of my blog.
Since dating/marrying taive and especially now that everywhere I go I cart around a baby that don't look like me I get stares. Sometimes they are rude, sometimes they are blank, but mainly as a closet introvert I just think they are annoying. I am a weirdo magnet and strangers like to come talk to me about various things such as their father breaking his toe at his construction job because he's on pain meds, their attempts to see if their husband is cheating by stapling all of their condoms together (so much wrong with this), their belief that I saved them from the depths of hell by saying bless you to them when they sneezed, and their favorite pumpkin roll recipe. YES all of these conversations have happened because someone randomly approached me and started talking and sadly this is a very small sample. I could think of more, but I'm trying to get to bed.
Anyways, I don't mind the random convos as much as I mind the staring.
So today Taive, Jasper, and I walked into a store to get sandwiches. Jersey Mikes to be exact and if you haven't tried it you haven't lived. We walked in and there was an older white guy sitting down just STARING at us so intently. In my head I rolled my eyes (I think at least it was just in my head-I'm trying to be better about that) and thought "Oh my gosh look at the black and white couple! Let's stare awkwardly!" I thought to myself "relax he's not even trying to be rude he's just staring because it's different." Which is pretty common. I mean if you have 3 eyes I'm gonna stare because I don't see it every day. I am not hating on you, it's just how it goes and I always figure a lot of the staring is due to people who may have not grown up seeing a lot of interracial dating and so it's just new to them. Anyways, of course I said nothing and just did the reasonable thing which is continue on my path to a California Club. The point is I noticed that this guy was at least a little bit annoying and maybe even prejudice against me.
Then.....his wife/girlfriend/lover/whatever came from the bathroom and sat down next to him. A black woman. Stomach dropped. Oh my gosh. I am a horrible person.
They quickly got their stuff, and he walked by us and said "I couldn't help noticing y'all have such a gorgeous baby." Worse. Worse. Feeling like the size of a bug. He was staring because Jasper is cute (duh!). I said thank you and thanked God that he (hopefully) wasn't telepathic and hadn't read my thoughts.
I told Taive about my whole thought process and how terrible I felt and that I, in fact, make the judgement. He was like "Ohh....who?"
Of course.
So the moral of the story is that judgment sometimes is in our heads. Which I of course knew somewhere, but I guess forgot about today. Now that I've gotten that out there and shared with y'all I feel so much better.
But also though...seriously don't be a starer. ;)
