Nobody walks away from online dating without a negative story or two, whether it's having to fend off the guy who won't stop asking for or that couple that thinks just because you're , you're down for a threesome. But the world of online dating can be difficult in a very specific way for those who identify as multiracial. Not necessarily worse, but different. Thanks to a combination of unchecked biases and overt fetishizing, the dating world is a minefield for mixed race people. As a biracial person and the creator of the hashtag, I've experienced this firsthand. Many people who participated in biraciallookslike brought up similar experiences. It just makes them, at best, racially insensitive, and at worst an asshole. How OKCupid can be OKRacist: In the United States, interracial dating is becoming increasingly common and socially accepted. According to a 2012 , nearly 9% of couples are of different races, nearly twice as many as there were in 2002. People are weird about race in the dating world, though, and despite wanting to come off as progressive and open-minded, many dating app users still have racial biases. In 2009, showed that women of all races overwhelmingly wanted to date people of their own race, while non-black men didn't want to date black women and non-Asian women weren't interested in dating Asian men. When OKCupid crunched the numbers again in 2014, not much had changed: Though more people said they were , the numbers showed racial biases were still in play. Some users are upfront about their racial preferences on their profiles. Then there are those dating site users who bring up race as a preference rather than a dealbreaker. A , for instance, found that online daters often prefer mixed-race over mono-racial individuals, with Asian and white men reporting that they preferred women of mixed Asian and white descent. While on the website, she put her racial background on her profile. While that might have assuaged users' initial curiosity, people who messaged her kept harping on the subject. But she also frequently interacts with white men who try to flatter her by saying they picked her profile specifically because they don't like to date white women. Therefore, it is ultimately a discriminatory sentiment. Alyssa said that putting your racial background on your profile preempts the need to have an awkward conversation about it later on. As anyone who's ever received a knows, the distance an Internet connection provides gives people the freedom to be bolder — and in many cases, ruder — than they would be in real life. I don't think it's happened yet. The best way to find out the answer to that question is to just wait for the person to bring it up themselves — which it inevitably will along with the other details that surface in the getting-to-know-you process, such as where you went to college or how many siblings you have. The implication is that you're other, that you somehow don't belong. You are a curiosity instead of a possible date. The Internet has a tendency to amplify both our best and worst traits. Our racial biases fall in the latter category. It would be great if no one came into the dating world with racial biases, but when people are forced to make snap judgments from profile photos on apps like Tinder and Grindr, even those with the best intentions can say or do offensive things they might not necessarily mean, or categorize and fetishize people without realizing it. We make a lot of assumptions based on physical appearance, and a person's racial background is no exception. Don't bring it up.
