



After reading Jenny An's brave article on why she wouldn't ever date an Asian man and Clarissa Wei's equally heroic counterpoint, I too have come to a deep, sobering conclusion on my dating life.



I'm an Asian male and I refuse to date myself.



There it is. The reasons are complex -- part philosophy debate, part self-loathing, part Star Trek episode. So I'll just come out and say it: I'm racist.



Well, not really. Sorta. Kinda. I mean I'm not so much racist as I am NOT an asexual reproducer. Nor do I prefer to engage in auto-sexual encounters with a version of myself from a separate but intersecting time loop. So I guess, from that point of view, as insofar as I am not interested in paradox-forming self-rendezvouses, I AM racist.



I wish it weren't so, but there it is.



Don't get me wrong. I think I'm awesome. I'm pretty tall for an Asian guy. For a Vietnamese guy I'm like Paul fucking Bunyan. I love Karaoke. I'm a decent wage earner, considering that I'm neither a doctor, lawyer, banker, nor YouTube sensation. I used to drive a Toyota.



But there's problems that make me a non-option for self-dating. Like the whole patriarchy thing. And my middle class striving. And my small hands. And my being from a country with a long history of colonization and rape from foreign powers that colors nearly every aspect of my socialization.



Also, dating myself would lead to a fissure in time, a scratch on the surface of the universe that would destroy all that is and ever will be.



If a future version of me were to approach me, say at a bar, things might start off just fine. We'd chat about our mutual likes. Discuss our past and if we've ever dated other other versions of ourselves. But inevitably I'd just be turned off by his passive attitude, lack of assertiveness, and the fact that I might inadvertently cause a time loop from which escape is all but impossible, dooming me and endless iterations of myself to a quantum cycle of repetition. Sigh. Love is complicated, no?