Aren’t Indian Women Asian Women Too?

When talking about Asian women, the first thing that comes to most people’s minds is the slit eyes, the petite bodies – we automatically think Japanese, Chinese, Korean ... East Asian. If you don’t believe me, try searching ‘Asian Women’ on Google and see what the search results will bring.

There is a lot of information about how to date Asian women and their culture. But all this isn’t quite comprehensive because certain groups are somehow forgotten in this category. One of the groups left out is that of Indian women. We kind of take Asian to mean oriental. But according to the United States definition of Asian, the group also includes people from Southeast Asia and Indian subcontinent.

When we talk about Asian women dating and we generalize based on Chinese or Korean women, are we doing justice to Indian women? They say Asian women mostly date white men. In fact most “Asian women” I know are married to white men. But when coming to such conclusions, do we think of Indian women?

I decided to go onto interracial dating websites to look at the categories that are there. Most have a different category for Asian women and a different one for Indian women. Indians now have their own online dating sites for those interested in having relationships with them. And since most Indian women usually wait for someone to arrange their marriages, the internet through dating sites have become tools for empowering them to make their own choices about dating and marriage. They can now make acquaintances with members of the opposite sex without fear of social rebuttal.

But much as interracial dating within the American-Indian community is rising and more Indians are marrying outside their race, most Indian women in America still complain that they often find themselves caught between two worlds – A non-Indian man may not understand and fit into a traditional Indian family and also Indian men are hard to come by in the U.S. coz they avoid the Americanized Indian women.

I don’t know why we Americans don’t consider Indian women in the category of Asian women. However, I think it will be nice if we try and write more about their attitude to dating and online relationships, and how - even with their stringent cultures – they take online dating into the real world. How does interracial dating online affect their cultural and intercommunication practices and how does online dating bring social change for Indian women?

Scale of Romance

Instructions:

Start by reading the article Stairway of Romance, if you have not already done so. Then return here.

Read through each of the ten levels in order to understand the entire scale. Select READ MORE to read a more detailed description and examples of any of the levels.

Identify the level that best describes your relationship. You may find that it includes some of the attributes of many levels. In that case, the best strategy is to start working to elevate those elements that belong to the lowest of those levels and first raise that aspect to the level of the rest.

Once you have identified the level you want to work on, select STRATEGIES to learn practical ways to move from where you are to the next higher level.

Once you have made some progress, come back and select additional strategies to take you even higher.

1. Attachment - Physical attachment to a partner can provide a sense of belonging, comfort and security. People whose relationship is primarily centered at this level may find it difficult to be physically separated from one another. Physical attachment can foster dependence and reduce individual freedom. Once it becomes accustomed and habitual, it may lack the freshness and intensity of higher levels. Read more

2. Physical Attraction - Attraction between people at this level commonly expresses as sexual passion. Physical attraction can be very intense, especially during the early stages of relationship, so intense that it is often mistaken for real love that will last forever, but sexuality by itself is not a sufficient basis for long term positive relationships. People at this level may try to control one another or experience intense feelings of possessiveness, distrust, suspicion and jealousy. Read more

3. Compatibility - Relationships at this level become more smooth, stable, consistent and permanent because they are organized on a regular basis around recurring activities such as managing a household or raising a family. They may lack physical passion, turbulence and instability of the previous level. When the relationship is positive, it can generate a feeling of compatibility and harmony. When the partners take each other for granted, relationships at this level may become boring, flat and unfulfilling. Read more

4. Vital Attraction - At this level we are attracted to people we feel happy spending time with, who take personal interest in us and makes us feel good about ourselves, who exude an intense vital energy, who have charm and pleasing manners, are popular with friends or acceptable to family. Attraction at this level is more social or psychological than physical, though the physical element may still be prominent. Relations are positive at this level when the partners enjoy one another's companionship. They become negative when either or both partners try to dominate or when they compete with each other. Read more

5. Affection - Affection is emotional enjoyment of the other person which emanates from the heart. It is warm, expansive, cheerful and joyful. When affection is very physical, it can be possessive. When it is vital, it can be dominating or demanding. But true emotional affection is incapable of anger or meanness. It wants only to give and please. Read more

6. Admiration - The heart's affection is intense, but it is difficult to sustain that intensity unless there is also an element of admiration for the other person. Admiration arises from awareness and respect for the other person's higher character and better qualities. Admiration elevates affection into a feeling that is more noble and permanent. Love based on admiration can overcome the greatest challenges and is not diminished by passage of time or physical separation. Read more

7. Mental love - Mental love is a vibration of deep caring and self-giving free of the passionate demands, clinging and longing common at previous levels. It is difficult to sustain vital forms of love without strong positive encouragement from the other person, whereas mental love is based on unwavering loyalty which does not demand reciprocity. Mental love may lack intense sensations, but it brings a lightness, sweetness and refinement of feeling that is uplifting and more deeply fulfilling. Read more

8. Devotion - Devotion is undemanding and does not even require to be recognized. It is idealized emotional love that cherishes another person for their intrinsic value and delights in their very existence. It feels an indescribable and intense sweetness in self-giving without asking or expecting anything in return. Read more

9. Adoration - Idealistic romance is a movement that releases intense, selfless, positive ecstatic energy of adoration. It is incapable of expectation, bargaining, domination, complaining, doubt or suspicion of any kind. This is not the adoration of puppy love, but the adoration of that which is most noble, uplifting and godlike in another person. It can only be felt by and for one who has the highest values of truthfulness, generosity and self-giving. Read more

10. Spiritual Romance - True romance is a spiritual state of inexpressible wonder, novelty and adventure in which love becomes unconditional, everlasting and universal and life is experienced as a marvelous divine mystery. It is a state free from self-consciousness, expansive, lost in the moment, oblivious. Ecstasy is the hallmark of spiritual romance. It is at once the highest and the most intense of all romantic experiences. It fills the mind and heart with ecstatic delight and saturates the nerves and body with honey-like sweetness. Read more