What gives me the ick? Men that ask guess my ethnicity on dating – The Face

Rather than guessing their ethnicity, it mostly just leads you to guess why they think that their ethnicity is one of the more intriguing parts of them as aperson in lieu of, say, ahobby, asense of humour, or sartorial flair.

Having asked my friends whether they had noticed it, they confirmed Iwasnt mistaken. They usually didnt match, they added, because they felt it was aclue into that persons dating preferences, i.e. that only white people would find this quiz an interesting game to play, and so thats probably their main audience. It makes me wonder what their racial politics are.

Then Iwonder how Iwould even arrive at an answer without crudely looking at his features and trying to compare it to other people Iknow. Still wondering, Ithink about how such adry question came to be one of the most popular prompts on the app. Because at the end of the day, all Ireally want to be thinking about is: is this guy hot? Please dont trigger my discourse brain, Im here to have fun. Next.

On aprofile with limited space, where aman could tell viewers about himself and show off his personality, he has instead opted for agame of eugenics. Of course, the man in question is usually ethnically ambiguous or white-passing otherwise the prompt is kind of useless.

But for the sake of nuance, its worth unpacking the various things that are possibly at play here.

Its been discussed how online influencers often lean into ethnic smudging, building an aesthetic that borrows from different cultures into an amalgamation of perceived desirable qualities, from extreme contouring to augmented eyes and lips (and legs and hips and body body, as Kandi from The Real Housewives Of Atlanta would sing). Perhaps this is spilling over into men on dating apps thinking that being racially hard-to-place is now seen as abonus elsewhere.

Meanwhile, articles have unpicked the racial hierarchies on apps like Grindr, where users explicitly write no chocolate, no rice, no spice to deter matches from particular ethnic groups, or Hinge, which allows you to have someones race or ethnicity as a dealbreaker, meaning you can make sure your digital path never crosses unwanted groups.

On the flipside, theres also alot of exoticisation and fetishisation of ethnic minorities that happens on dating apps. Maybe this prompt is the potential suitor deciding to go ahead and exoticise themselves first before they get an inevitable no but where are you from? message.

However, please ask us something else. Literally anything else.

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What gives me the ick? Men that ask guess my ethnicity on dating - The Face